Windows

I claim our life is like looking out of a window. There is a frame, which defines what we see. It is a snapshot of our present life: The past and the future, hidden outside the frame. And still they are influencing what we see. Because where we have been and where we plan to go is in some way what we actually are.

Exactly one year ago I began my journey to Iceland. I look out of the window of my room, down the street. I still remember the feeling: leaving to the greatest uncertainty, to the adventure, to a future, which now has turned into past. Expecting to look down  to everything beneath 66° North. To find everything illuminated. But all I found was a fucking Peace Tower. One single stream of light, of answers, hopelessly failing in providing what I was looking for. But then, by spring, the endless light came. Going to Samkaup five minutes before closing time. 10:25 pm. It is light outside. A T-shirt and a short should fit. Brrrr. Two degrees. Freezing! So what? Who cares? Who cares about the temperature? I can swim in Jökulsárlon. I prove it.

There may not be much sense it what I am writing. Because it is still hard to find words for everything. Maybe I should end it much more simple: The last year was amazing. And I know for sure, that my life changed. There may not have been something you may call a 180° turn. It was much more: It was a perfectly landed 1080°. No one is clapping, no judges are giving me marks, there are no winners, no losers, no prizes, no rankings … it is just life, just spinning around the world, feeling a bit dizzy, full of endorphins, opening and closing windows, cleaning windows, smashing windows. I am looking out of the window of my room: I see a field of corn, houses, blue sky with towering-up, white clouds, a red car driving by. But as I look closely: I see everywhere I have been, and everywhere I will go.

The photograph is showing a window of a public toilet somewhere at Faroe Islands shortly before I arrived in Iceland. I had no idea what is waiting for me. But as usual, just giving a shit about doubts and enjoying the view, turned out to work.

Surtsey

Oh Iceland where are you? Sometimes I just think I can go out an imaginary door, again stand in front of askja-building, lighting a self-rolled cigarette. Icy wind blowing in my face. Around me only darkness and the greenish shimmering light of the ten-eleven store on the other side of the field. 

Sometimes I just think about the term “Seltjarnarness” and my endless attempts to pronounce it perfectly. While driving with bike, against the wind, it was ALWAYS against the wind! Saying it loud “SELT-JAR-NAR-NESS” FASTER! “seltjar-narness” BETTER! “seltjarnarness” HARDER! “SELTJARNARNESS” AHHH --- PERFECT! 

I think about these “for a minor reflections concerts”, these sounds, which just made me feel to be at the exact right spot at the exact right time with the exact right people. I think about all this shit, about these fucking cheap beers at Kaffi Grand. About leaving in such a hurry, that I just realized what is happening when I saw the people at BSI waving after me. Fuck, I was drunk! And still I remember one tear running down my cheek.  At the same time smiling and laughing. It is like this paradox physical condition when a material is solid, liquid and gaseous at the same time.

Iceland made me reach my triple-point. And under all this pressure, everything erupted. Everything was buried underneath a huge layer of tephra. There is just black sand. No paths, no footprints, no plants, no orientation, just nothing I could refer to. I was happy and sad. Free and captured. Everything is familiar and still distant. I am sleeping with open eyes. Was it all just a dream?

Oh mighty nature you have spread your power by wind and birdshit. And I begin to realize that every goddamn lavafield will soon be vegetated again. Oh gentle spring will come, rising toward the sun, and soon there will be fields of moss, to lie on. Watching the sky changing its colours with open eyes. Surtsey has proven it.

Boots made in Germany, bought in Iceland, meet Austrian Alps!