In Pursuit of Vikings: May 2012

Two days back from the Westfjords. On page 14 of 120 of Breta Sögur; the satisfying congealing of the thesis is looking ever more and more remote. I'll be a master of at least some sort of Old Norse if I ever make it through this thing, and the scholarship is not looking much more promising, at least not until I learn Danish. But I've got Bahb's copy of Chrono Trigger, and hours of videogame soundtracks and gravelly-voiced old folkies (and I keep reminding myself to pick up Dr. John plays Mac Rebennack; the desire is like a paternal legacy). So it's all good, at least as far as distractions go. Iceland itself is proving useful: I can't seems to sleep in long past eight, what with the sun only being down between about 11 and 4. Avoiding the caffeine: drinking so much of it during finals reminded me of how much I hate the feeling of being addicted to things. The drawback is that I'm sort of forced into taking at least an hour nap in the late afternoon: damned body betraying me all the time. But overall it's good, I think. I'm tired all the time, as usual, but it's a less profound sort of tired that it has sometimes been.

Getting a bit homesick, missing the family and friends; my mind seems to circulate between them, a different one in any given moment of daydream. Missing my forest; I want to catch newts up at Opal lake, or hop rocks on the northfork of the Santiam. Make mom hike the switchbacks up and down and up again, lest her legs get too old-lady-like.

Speaking of, the westfjords are wonderfully steep. The slope of the valley where Gisli is supposed to have made his last stand is gorgeous, and delightful to hike. Wish I could have been out there all day. There's something about that feeling of being on a nearly vertical plane (from the perspective of the climber. I'm sure it wasn't actually that steep) that makes me feel all freed and tingly. The openness of everything makes up for the lack of trees, sometimes, like I get to be much better acquainted with the wind, and the mountains, when there are so few other living things to get in the way.