A Short Dispatch From Aðalstræti

There’s a flock of snow buntings hanging out on the roof across the street from my studio here on Aðalstræti. Whenever a car goes by, they burst off the roof all at once and circle around for a little while before returning. They do this all morning and into the afternoon. It’s a nice distraction. I don’t know where they go at night. An unsolved mystery. Past that building and a parking lot is the fjord. The other night, I watched as small icebergs started floating on the water directly in my line of sight from here at my desk. I clocked them and thought, Of course, baby icebergs. But it didn’t make any sense. There is nowhere for them to be coming from. They turned out to not be icebergs at all but snow dumped there by a backhoe that was clearing the street after it had been shut down and covered in snow for a series of ski races. A friend tried to sign me up for the race but I quietly, and then not so quietly, demurred. He said, They’ll have pancakes for sale! I said, Can I just eat the pancakes? I just ate the pancakes. They were delicious. The other thing I see outside my window is the changing weather—by the hour, by the minute. Right now the sun is shining on the side of the mountain. I can see the forest where I go walking almost every day because it always smells so good. I tend to walk a lot when I’m not writing because what else am I going to do? Yesterday morning I walked right down to the shore with two friends and jumped in the ocean. Well, walked slowly, shiveringly, into the ocean and submerged ourselves up to our necks. I waited for one of them to say it was time to get out. It felt like a very long time. The temperature outside was -4c. There was snow on the mountains; I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. Typing was tricky when I returned to my desk—but I felt invigorated.

What the hell am I doing here? This past week has been mostly about editing. I’m working on three different projects with two different editors. A fourth project (and third editor) will be added before too long. I got notes back from an editor for a piece that’s coming out this summer—that I think I mentioned last time. It’s a short personal essay about what it means to be from a place. I like thinking about and working on that subject when I am so far from the place I’m writing about—that distance gives it some perspective. Although to be honest, we’re past that—we’re now in the weeds of trying to make this thing better. A good editor will point out where things need clarifying—but leave it up to the writer to figure out how to do that. My struggle is always—well, figuring out just how to do that. Usually when I’ve written something, I’ve written it the only way I know how. And the editor is asking me to find a new or different way to write it. That can sometimes feel impossible for a minute. When I’m feeling that way, I just want the editor to say: Here’s what is wrong, and here’s how to fix it! I want that in life sometimes, too. Wouldn’t that be nice? Here’s what is wrong with you and here’s how to fix it! No, that’s not really what I want; I want to figure it out myself because that’s my job! But I do still enter into this part of the process with some trepidation. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to get back pages covered in notes, or in this case, full of track changes and queries.

Sometimes that lack of clarity that an editor has pointed out was written that way deliberately (or with subconscious deliberation) because I’m trying *not* to say something. That is, I’m purposefully obfuscating because what I’m hinting at is too personal or too embarrassing. This is a new-ish problem for me as I work through these essays I’m working on. That doesn’t happen as often in fiction. It does happen, just not so much. When I get these notes back, what I end up doing is writing in circles for a while—writing around what it is I’m trying to say. But as I circle it, I eventually start to close in. (I’m trying very hard not to use a water-circling-the-drain analogy here.) It might take some prodding sometimes, and I pace around my studio a lot, but if it goes well, I eventually get there.

That’s what is happening with this essay I’m currently editing. The editor pointed out two sections in particular where I was holding back. It’s funny because what I was holding back is essentially what the piece is about: how I truly feel about where I’m from and how that is tethered to my relationship with the people from whom I’m from. Or at least that’s what it was about yesterday. Today? Who knows? Things can change.

Someone asked me recently if I find writing hard. It’s not hard like digging a ditch is hard—something I’ve actually done, which would be difficult to believe if you were to look at me because a ditch-digger’s physique, I do not have… but anyway. What I do find is that writing can be exhausting. In fact, it’s almost always exhausting for me. Being in your head all the time is a lot, and can be tiring. It can take a toll on a guy. Poor me. That’s why jumping in the ice-cold ocean is so alluring. Nothing wakes you up and clears your head quite like that.

Last night a man performed some songs in the art gallery that sits directly beneath my studio here on Aðalstræti. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was free and loose and uninhibited—just one person expressing himself the only way he knew how. It was beautiful and strange. Many of the songs were a conversation between a father and son, sung again and again but each time in a different language. He ran two separate mics through a vocoder—pitching one mic down and the other one way up. In this way, he sang two separate parts with two separate voices. Only two songs were sung in English—so a lot of it was lost on me. Late in his set, he did a rendition of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. I’ve never really listened to ‘Creep’ or cared for it. But last night’s rendition was perfect. I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. These are thoughts I have sometimes when I’m walking around so far from home. Okay back to work!