Children At Play

by Daphne Ellis (United States of America)

Making a local connection Iceland

It occurred to me that my favorite tales end with a claim to rightful childhood. Iceland was my grandfather’s dream. He’d hadn’t travelled outside of the United States since his term in Vietnam, during which he was only a teenager. In some ways, the war was his final parent, having plagued him with PTSD, cancer, and a limited situation thereafter. It also left him with an insatiable desire to see the world outside of our rural hometown under better circumstances. For the first twenty years of my life, Grandpa dreamed out loud about faraway “Iceland,” a green, magical place. In college, I realized we could actually make the trip happen at the start of my semester abroad. We landed at the break of day in Keflavik and waited under a lavender sunrise for our camper-van rental joint to open. This was how we were able to see the Western region in a week, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to do it any other way. Our van was complete with a bed, Wi-Fi and kitchen supplies. Driving left room for conversation and productive stillness. It assured a balance between surprise and predetermined excursion. The first stop was at a seaside grocery store, where we stocked on noodles, eggs, beans and apples. Certainly, we put the propane stove to use. With each mile, the gloomy, graveled Southwest unwound from gray flatland into the green valleys I recognized from photos. We were bound for a campsite beneath Skogafoss, a wide waterfall that marked the Fimmvorduhals pass trailhead. Although we needed our rest to prepare for the hike, Grandpa tapped my shoulder in the night. The turquoise glow of the Aurora spoke to me through the windshield before he could say a thing. We watched in silence through an open window while the sky danced–as if to welcome us. I could write a book about the day my 70-year-old Grandfather and I hiked with ill-fitting shoes for 25km, up an 8-tier waterfall, down into a volcano, over a slippery glacier and along a narrow knife’s edge all of the way to the valley of Thor; so, for now, I’ll just reveal the boring detail of our ultimate survival. On that day, I learned that in Scandinavian travel blog language, “moderate” means “life-threatening” and “easy” means “moderate.” The rest of our hikes, like the waterfall at Glymur, fell into that easy category, yet we still found ourselves removing our boots to cross a massive river at the summit. Each day brought new adventures and reactionary belly-laughter that filled our lungs with the sweetest air I’ve ever tasted. I met trolls on the rocky cliffsides and saw the fairies in the sky. I said hello to wild horses and only felt hunger for more time on Earth with my Grandpa. We went out for one of our last breakfasts while on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Outside of the café, I noticed children at play in their schoolyard. This seemed curious for 10AM, so I asked the waitress to explain. She smiled. “They are locked out. Young people are meant to move. How will they learn without fresh air?” We passed two other schools that day and all of the children were outside. By the end of the trip, Grandpa was tired and difficult to reason with in spite of the beauty all around. When he is particularly juvenile, I blame that war with a heavy heart and wonder how his life could have been if he’d been able to live out the rest of his youth. Dear Iceland, I am grateful for your land and for your philosophies–for the Alices lost in their rabbit holes and the Pans deep in the art of make-believe. Grown-up lessons should be learned through the art of play, and I’m lucky that Grandpa and I were able to do some healing together. We spent the day of our departure in the Blue Lagoon, a hot spring ridden with tourists in silica face masks. Yes, the Blue Lagoon is a must.