New city dreamings:
a few days in Reykjavik
I have a few days here in the Land of Fire and Ice – neither
of which have I seen much of. I’m in Reykjavik. I was due to be here for The Creativity Conference but when the 2022 conference went entirely digital and
left Iceland behind, I thought I would come anyway (it's not too late to connect up with this year;'s Conference and see all our sessions recorded...and there will be mor next year! follow the link above))
And no, I haven’t done Golden Circles, or plunged into hot springs, or gone skinny-dipping in lava or wind-surfed a glacier or pursued whales on waterskies (go on, visualise it: a whale on waterskies….seal yes, but whale….). And I have got very tired of people telling me where I should go, and what I should do but never asking what I want to do….
I can walk to the seafront with its piled-boulder defences in just a few minutes from my apartment. I can sit here in one of those late northern evening and watch the clouds gather, piling up and then resting on the mountains across the bay. Mountains! Mountains holding cloud and suddenly I am somewhere warmer watching Table Mountain and the cityscapes of Cape Town.
So what do I want to do? Did I want to do? That made me reflect on how I visit new places and I realise that especially in cities I don’t know, I just wander. Museums, yes. Art Galleries, yes. Castles, dungeons, ruins, yes. Botanic Gardens, always. But more than anything, I love new cities for simply watching.
I want to know “what makes this place home” or maybe “how would I live here?”. So I watch people. Listen to people. Talk to strangers. Have conversations with the Hidden Folk (as Those Others are called here), watch birds, miss amphibians (here) and generally revel in the quiet things. I ask myself lots of questions. Sometimes I ask other people, but mostly I just wonder
I love places for themselves: not for the spectacles they offer but for the lives they reveal. So, here, yes, food is expensive (but how high are wages?). Here, I meet very few e-cigarettes compared to UK and see what feels like a lot of people smoking. Here, I don’t walk through the sudden sweet smell of pot. Good buses, quick buses. People who smile. Electric scooters whizzing about. Street art. Public art. Amazing statues. Statues of people who were doubtless worthy but did they have to be turned into such tedious statues (same goes for most municipal areas in the world it would seem)? Lots of languages and especially exciting when the dominant language is not English. Humbling at how good Icelanders’ English is. Here, my tatooed feet inspire wonder.
And how could I not love a city who turns out in such revelry and diversity and enthusiasm for Pride? And who even have a street painted with rainbows and include pink flamingoes in the march (I am pretty sure the Flamingo Animateurs with Brits…)
More street trees than I was expecting…rowan, hairy birch, sweet-scented poplars, leathery tea-leaved willow but it took several days before I saw blackbirds and fieldfares and starlings. There is a little auk in the bay – or maybe it’s a murrelet. I’m not sure but have enjoyed its disappearing acts: dives without effort and is gone. There are gulls and more gulls and terns lilting along the line of the seafront. And in the evening the moon jellies show as they hover in the waves below the great boulders that protect the shore
And there is the Sun Voyager monument and I wonder all over again how fascinating it is for people to know their history in this land so precisely. Yes, there are challenges about the Book of Settlement but when those Vikings arrived they were the first: for once no native people to displace (there were rumoured to be some Celtic monks but no-one knows for sure). The story of people in this land of fire and ice is remarkably charted and the sense of place and belonging this might offer – must offer? That is what I would like to talk to people about...
