Iceland: Day 10

10 January 2016

Not much can be said about our final morning in Iceland. Our bags were packed and loaded in the hush of wild things caught stirring in the night. We left for Keflavík Airport way before dawn but lost track of the highway and ended up on a dark and absent frontage road bearing nothing noteworthy besides a handful of light posts separated by kilometre-stretches of void somewhere between Hafnarfjörður and Njarðvík.

We made it to KEF by 09:00; the rental car was returned, and our bags were checked into one of two airport check-in counters. Obliviously tired and dozing in rounds, we reclined in the airport lobby until 12:30, at which time we were permitted to pass through security and queue to board the only commercial airplane that was there at that time. Boarding at Keflavík required you to descend a flight of stairs from the gate and cross the runway on foot to another set of stairs pulled up to your plane. Sure, I have boarded planes via sets of stairs in the past, but this was the first time I had to cross an airport runway on foot. (What would TSA say about this?)

As I approached the looming purple giant of a WOW Air airplane and its irritatingly pleasant crew, I began to feel a strange combination of resentment and hope. I resented the crew for hosting my departure from this beautiful and terrible island; I resented the island itself for being so beautiful and terrible. But I hoped for what was imminent: that I was returning to a familiar place; and that I would someday (hopefully sooner rather than later) return to Iceland with a sense of homecoming.

This feeling reminds me of a scene from Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Agent Sands (Johnny Depp) is sitting across from El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) eating a meal:

El, you really must try this, because it's puerco pibil. It's a slow-roasted pork—nothing fancy. It just happens to be my favorite, and I order it with a tequila and lime in every dive I go to in this country. And honestly, that is the best it's ever been, anywhere. In fact, it’s too good. It is so good that when I'm finished with it, I'll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen and shoot the cook. Because that's what I do. I restore the balance to this country.

For Sands, it was puerco pibil; for me, it was Iceland: something so ineffably good that one cannot fathom its repeatability. Iceland was the most beautiful place that I had ever been. And it is for that reason that I resented in and longed for it—being beautiful, it made me cognizant of the grayness to which I was returning.

Maybe as a way to mock me, the plane sat on the runway for nearly two hours. I watched a gentle snow fall over the blackened crags of the Reykjanes volcano without having permission to go and play in it, like a kid with his hands and face glued to the glass of a storefront only to covet the displays during Christmastide. Though, we later learned that our stalled departure was not directly to spite me. A woman had gotten terribly ill on her commute from the gate to the stairs of the plane, and the crew had to call the hospital to stir the paramedics from their slumber. The plane door was finally shut at 15:00, and the stairs creaked away to the rhythm of the sjúkrabíll’s flashing red and blue lights.

As it was on the journey to Iceland, I had a window seat. This time, though, instead of a perpetual darkness, we flew with the sun. I watched as the endless Arctic Ocean became the frozen fjords of Eastern Greenland. We passed over Íkáteq, which welcomed us into and over the wastes of the Greenland interior. Iceland was a thriving land full of fairies and foxes compared to the nothingness of Kalaallit Nunaat. It was not until we passed over the small fishing village of Qeqertarsuatsiaat on the western shore that the glacial whiteout reached its finale.

We connected through Baltimore before making our final stop in Chicago. As expected, my familiarity to MDW was both consoling and disappointing. I did not want familiarity, really. But with that, my first—but definitely not my last—Icelandic adventure came to a close.

For the rest of my life, this trip will be remembered as one of near-death encounters, face-freezing colds, and slumbering trolls. I hope that you will forever dream with me of the hidden creatures of the northern wilds havened within immaculate waterfalls, above transcendent auroras, and behind creaking volcanic spires. Such extraordinariness must cause us to reevaluate our understanding of the earth and our very, very small albeit important place in it.

As I hope it has become clear, Iceland is thin place where the veil between Creator and Creation has been pulled back for our sake, where I was able to glimpse something for which I am at a loss of words; where I would have removed my boots if it were not so cold, for the ground on which I walked was holy. I came face to face with the omnipotence of God subdued through the fusion of nature’s fury and splendor. And all that I could do in response was worship.

The most dangerous and unfortunate part about all of this is that, once you experience the sublime, the rest of the world can seem so dull. You must be willing to be surprised by both the grandeur of a glacial ice cave and the simple joy of a warm pot of coffee shared with friends in the stillness of morning before the day’s adventure. One kind of experience is not complete without the other, because life is a balance of memory and hope indwelt in our present moment, no matter if that moment is like the cave or the coffee. All of these experiences shape who we become, as we are constantly becoming. Essential is a willingness to be transformed.

This was my very own “there and back again.”

Note: I did not want to write this post. That’s why I procrastinated writing it for over two years. It represents the end of a good story that couldn’t end until this was written. I did not want it end. I see this entry as a hard stop to the perpetuality of the adventure. Or maybe it’s just a beginning? I’m not quite sure. But as one of the most transformative adventures I have yet to experience, its meaningfulness changes and grows with each new trip I take. It continues to shape who I am and how I see the world.

But I admit, waiting over two years stagnated more than just this closure; it stalled all of my writing. I wouldn’t write about the next adventure until this one was done. But here we are, the final day. And with its long-overdue publishing, I hope that both you and I are inspired to write more. I know I have had plenty of adventures to share since Iceland, including summitting Machu Picchu, coming face-to-face with a lion in central Botswana, and sitting in the VIP section at an underground rave in China.

And I know you have an adventure worth sharing, too.