Coming soon.
I started this year twice and I’m ending it twice. In the same place, in a island far away in the north, surrounded by snow and fireworks and sparkles and green and red smoke. 366 days ago I started this project that steals its name from a BBC radio broadcast with weather information for sailors and fishermen, but that lots of many other people listen to even if they’re not related at all to the sea. Meaningless gobbledygook that sounds weirdly familiar and comforting, helping them to sleep.
I’m the sea and you don’t know me at all but thank you if you took the time this year to come here and read about my sunny days and storms.
I woke up in the kitchen after having slept in a horrible way. It wasn’t dark, which meant that it was kind of late. The kids were so excited to see me, especially the small one. Apparently he kept making questions like if I was going to stay just for one day and things like that. His conception of time isn’t very well developed yet.
We played with them the whole day, some Star Wars Lego game, Catan, Uno, and outside with a ball in the snow. Nice dinner and a movie in the evening with them. I fell asleep, too tired and getting used to all this again. The lack of light, trying to walk on ice.
My intention was not to get too many things to Iceland, but I ended up filling my suitcase up and carrying it around in the bus. I thought I was getting late but I got to the airport just in time.
I slept in the first flight to London, got to Gatwick and saw the coolest plane ever with stars and an orange sphere and no letters and saved the life of a man who almost fell down on the escalators, his body lost equilibrium and I pushed his back as hard as I could, breaking a plastic glass I had on my other hand. A bus to Heathrow, waiting for hours, I cocooned in a seat and it went fast. I met an Internet friend that was taking the same plane to Reykjavík. Smooth flight, we helped them find their place. Snow and ice once again.
I finally managed to do lots of the things in the to do list, the most boring ones, going to the post office and the bank. I promised my mother I would go to their place to have lunch, and even though I didn’t have much time I managed to take the train. I feel they’re feeling better after what happened on Sunday and that’s nice.
An empty red stage on the street, the sun. I’m going to miss the sun. Crazy evening, started packing around 11 pm while doing really many other things. I wished I could do things without needing the pressure of time.
One of the million things to do I had these days was spending a day on the beach with my workmates. We met in the morning and drove to the most beautiful place. We sat down on a rock, drove up some little mountain to a town called Vejer, we could see Africa from there. Then went down again to the beach to eat in the sun, a striped scarf on my hair that apparently made me look like a posh Swedish girl.
After eating, my birthday present for one of my workmates was eating bread with chocolate just like we used to do as kids. We lay on the sand as the sun set, long grass behind that tickled my hands.
Unfinished errands in the morning, train home, three washing machines. One of the things on my list before leaving was buying a new laptop, so I met my aunt and went with her. I got a MacBook and we had a muffin and mint tea and I didn’t want her to leave.
I got home and started the ritual of opening the box very carefully and turning it on for the first time. I tried to remember how everything in my other laptop looked to make it look exactly the same way. But I’m going to miss the parrot, the football player, the water motorbike, the wave, the heart, the green triangle and the icelandic flag I had in my other one.
