I can feel it

“One day”, sings Björk, “it will happen. One day, it will all come true.” And I, too used to seeing myself in songs, reflexively think “this is for me,” then turn around and look at that statement and do a double-take.

Because I realize, watching this tiny, dynamic woman in an enormous red wig, that maybe those lyrics were for me, for the person I was a few years ago, but they are not for me now. I don’t need them, because I no longer need to look forward to one day. I am so used to thinking “if only…” that to realize that I can’t complete the statement leaves me feeling a little blank, slightly shocked.

I never believed, really, that I would actually be in Iceland, no matter how much I thought or talked about it. Standing in that concert hall, it is as though I’ve broken through a barrier that I never even sensed was there. The inconceivable thought comes to me that I am only what I want to be; that I do only what I decide to do. It’s something I had known, but never fully realized.

The rest of the week is tinged with this, this strange combination of jubilance and peace. The time trip passes quickly: exploring Reykjavík by day, concerts all afternoon and well into the evening (highlights, aside from Björk, are Active Child, Tune-Yards, Ólafur Arnalds, and Of Monsters and Men). And then, walking back to the hostel on my last night, I turn my head and there are the Northern Lights, greenish white in the sky over the harbor. I hadn’t expected to see them–had, in fact, made an explicit decision not to go out of my way to do so. They look a bit like cursive, if someone were writing with water on a too-absorbent surface that quickly wicked the water away. So I sit, in the crystal-clear northern night, and watch the sky write its goodbye.

The next day, I fly out. But I’ll be back.