God Make Me Big in Scandinavia
I keep a map of Iceland on my wall, pinned above my bookcase. Before my mother died, we had talked of a trip to the land of fire and ice to celebrate my graduation from graduate school. I somehow feel this need to be traveling, this hunger for forward motion, even though it aches. I love airports, I love the sound that my luggage makes as it clicks over the lobby.
I got the map from a store in Santa Fe called Travel Bug. I used to browse the shelves there as I waited for my food order to be completed. I’ve always wanted to see Iceland. I don’t know what led me to this singular obsession, but more and more I equate life with experiences of love and movement. I feel like a weathervane, pitched to blade through the stormy weather and pinpoint my future of blue skies and content clouds. It’s like my passport is burning a hole in my pocket, itching to be put to use.
One of my goals this year is to finish my long poem, “Big in Scandinavia.” This is an uncollected poem, one that has been festering for a long time in my mind. It is as though, as I grow in 2025, I want to slip into Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian like a soft cashmere sweater. I love studying languages, and, though Icelandic is akin to banging one’s head up against a rock (There will be an entire blog about this later this week), I am happiest when I am seated at my beloved desk, hand cupped around my chin, pen scribbling over the page, memorizing the grammar of a language. As I have said before, probably on this blog, I love the machinery of language, the way that its parts come together like they are an instrument ready to be plucked and played. With the North Germanic languages, I can feel the cool air on my forehead, tousling my hair. I love the way that they taste, like flute metal, the cerulean of the words as they stand out against the whiteness of the page.
Financially, I am not certain that I can afford to travel, to push myself into that sacred motion, even reaching, ever gobbling mouthfuls of water as I stir my boat to the black sand beaches. I like to read about Scandinavia. I love Nordic Noir (even though one has to suspend her disbelief that all these murders are happening in Reykjavik), I love the way the darkness in winter is like silk, how the permanent light in the summer is honey resting on the horizon. If I cannot plant my foot on those black sand beaches, I can read about them, and that is what I intend to do this January. I’m reading a biography of Halldor Laxness, The Islander, by Halldor Gudmundsson (that isn’t exactly the author’s last name, but I am struggling with the special characters). I am also reading Laxness directly with Independent People.
The thing is, I am a writer. That is not the most lucrative profession, the thing that will land me a tour of Scandinavia, from Iceland to the Faroe Islands to Finland. I had this goal as a child to be a popular writer in Scandinavia in particular because I loved the tongues and the cultures and the architecture and the books and the colors rippling across the night sky so much that, to me, it was like wanting a reciprocal affection. God, I scrawled, make me big in Scandinavia.
The version of myself that I am aiming to become this year is someone who cradles her map of Iceland with the dream that someday it will be a reality. In the meantime, I get punched in the ribs a lot by Icelandic phonology. She is fond of the way that Swedish sounds like it is rocked by the sea, the way Danish juggles its vowels.
This is one of my favorite times of year anyway because I love setting New Year’s resolutions like a kid attacking the tree on Christmas (in addition to studying more languages, I want to get a driver’s license and donate blood for the first time). The way the light falls in January, the way it feebly smiles at the earth…it is as I imagine the light falls all the time in Scandinavia.
