50/50

Well it is 8 days into the Trump administration, and it already feels like years. Years living in some sort of bizarre alternative reality. Things are not unfolding as I would have wanted them to, not by a long shot, for the country as a whole. Day to day for me personally, life goes on as if none of this madness in Washington matters. But it does matter. Immigrants stopped at the airport, subjected to confusing interrogations. Our international obligations to care for families and the environment, to expand economic opportunity, tossed out the window. Wow, it is just so dumbfoundingly stupefying. The waste of it all, watching potential evaporate minute by minute, but in slow motion, as if it were taking days, weeks, months and years. And having no way to turn back the hands of time, to undo this disaster. Under Obama, it seemed the emerging global world was on the verge of environmental and economic responsibility and justice. I miss that feeling. And I'm ...

It is Day 5 living within the new administration. And I just finished reading Mostly Harmless, the fifth in a trilogy by Douglas Adams. It seems apropos, in this world of "alternative facts."  What we have learned so far is that the media, whose function in a democracy had been very robust, is now relegated to only saying nice, friendly, positive things. Under the new administration, dissent is not popular or appreciated. But congratulations will be accepted. Ah yes, Mostly Harmless. I just found out that my oldest brother, Billy, who passed away while I was living in Iceland, was a huge fan of Douglas Adams. His birthday was on Sunday, and I lit a candle for him at church. I don't know if his soul is anywhere in particular these days, or if prayers can do anything to rescue lost souls, but I do hope he is resting in peace. When he was alive, he brought much joy into our lives. And no matter what, the planet is going to be removed by the Vogons soon enough.

Today there was another "terrorist attack" at a university in the United States. A young man from Somalia drove his car into a crowd of people, then jumped out and stabbed several others with a knife before the police shot him. Using one's car as a weapon appears to be a new terrorist tactic, at least it is similar to what was done in Paris over Bastille Day. And he's Muslim; he'd been quoted in the school paper saying how hard it was for Muslims to find a place to pray at the university a few months earlier. A friend of mine works at The Ohio State University, where this attack took place. She and I went to Berkeley together, we both studied Old Norse. She wrote her dissertation on the figure of Odinn as a "guest" in several different genres of Old Norse literature. She's more of a folklorist, interested in the subconscious and symbolic, whereas I am more interested in human-material interactions. I felt really bad for her today, what a terrible t...

This summer I took my son to Icelandic Camp in Gimli Manitoba. It was my first time in "New Iceland". I had an amazing time and met some very nice people - even went sailing out on Lake Winnipeg with two sisters raised in the area that spoke Icelandic as their first language. It was really fun hearing their dialect, slightly different than modern Icelandic. That, plus the Icelandic flags, vineterta in the bakeries, and murals depicting the Icelandic settlers arriving all made me feel like I was somehow in Iceland. There was even a pub in town called the Ship and Plow I went to one night, with a huge Icelandic flag signed by all the people who had been at the pub to watch the Icelandic national team defeat England in the Euro Cup. It was like I'd found an Iceland I could drive to! But then I started to notice a few things. Like the fact that the camp was at the Ukrainian park, and that the chef was Ukrainian, not Icelandic. And at the pub, I didn't meet any Icelander...

So, I haven't blogged in a while, or been keeping up with the Icelandic news much. But I must say I am a bit pleased that US politics aren't the only ones in a bizarre post-election limbo land. The Icelandic situation of not being able to form a coalition government is intriguing. How long until a government is formed, and will the resulting cabinet be as mish-mash-apple-sauce as whatever blob is emerging from Trump Tower? I don't know, but I am morbidly curious to witness this slow train wreck. I was looking back through some old blogs, and discovered it was in August of 2015 that I posted about why Donald Trump might just become the next President of the United States. How very weird that looks to be what is actually happening. It still does not feel real. And there are still several scenarios that might stop it from ever really happening, such as a recount effort in several key swing states, the threat of some rogue Electoral College delegates s...

It's so interesting to be here in the Faroes, realizing this is what hundreds of thousands of years of waves and rain can do to a landscape. And this summer I learned that stretching from Canada to Texas used to be an ocean. It's humbling to realize just how insignificant we really are in the scope of things.

When I was a child, I spent many of my summers in Iceland, and much of the time during those summers at my amma and afi's house in Keflavík, on Suðurgata. My mother never identified with that house much, since her parents bought it after she married my dad and moved to the States. Instead, in her mind her childhood home is on Solvallagata. Still, when her parents died, they willed the house to all four of their kids, my mother included. Parents do this often in wills, think somehow that one house can be split between four people, but that never works in reality. In this case, it is even less practical, because my mother's brother actually lives in the house. And he was able to arrange it so that his other siblings ceded their parts to him. So now he claims 3/4 of the house. My mom has had her 1/4 for years now, and has even helped pay for repairs, etc. But she has never taken any advantage of it, well, except in 2006, when we had Palmer's baptism party in that house. ...

Iceland has gotten progressively more international and diverse in its food selection over the years, and this trip, it was particularly noticeable. The first two nights I was in town, I stayed with my relative Þórdís in Keflavík, and the first night, I brought home Thai food from my favorite restaurant in Keflavík, named, not surprisingly, Thai Keflavík. The following night she brought home one of her favorite dishes, a ready-made Chinese duck with mooshoo pancakes that I think she got at Nétto. I then migrated over to my friend Sigrún's house in Reykjavík, where she was kind enough to have made a full Icelandic leg of lamb dinner for me, along with these amazing rolls she learned how to bake in England. The next night Sigrún and I went out to Serrento's for dinner, which we both thought was going to be Italian pasta but it turned out to be Mexican food, I had a quesadilla. But it was back to Asia for dinner on Tuesday, first having Sushi in Kópavogur with my relative Bryndís...

I saw the Northern Lights briefly during my trip to Iceland, dancing there in the corner of the sky. I didn't get a picture of it, seems almost disrespectful to try to limit a miracle of nature into something so mundane. I have been awed by the moon on its own sometimes, and when the stars are shinning bright they are wonderful to behold. But there is nothing in the entire world quite like the delicate interplay of green and blue moving seamlessly, wordlessly as one, across the heavens, oblivious to their power to transfix everyone around them.  The first time I saw the Northern Lights, I was totally overwhelmed. I remember standing outside, completely mesmerized. And afterwards I cried, and I was shaking. Honestly, the experience was so overpowering that the idea for instance of taking a Northern Lights tour created an anxiety, a fear in me. I didn't think I could handle it, not in any kind of public setting. So intense, so personal, so beautiful, I'd just be an em...

When I was in Iceland last week, I spent a lot of time in Víkingaheimar and talking about Víkingaheimar with the people now running it and others that know it well. The history of Víkingaheimar, some of the things that didn't happen and the things that did happen, is not a completely happy one, and it was especially unlucky to try to open just after in the the Kreppa struck. And there are a lot of things unknown about the future of Víkinaheimar, who is going to do what and what changes are going to happen both inside and out. But I was very happy about two things. First of all, I was happy about how I felt walking into Víkingaheimar. You never know how you are going to feel until the exact moment when you are there, and my emotions could have been anywhere on the spectrum from upset and angry to not caring to annoyed. But instead I was just genuinely and spontaneously happy, and it felt good that I was that engaged, that I am not so scared as to be cut off from feeling happy. I...

While I was in Reykjavík, I was fortunate to get to stay with my artist friend, Sigrun Lara Shanko. I first got to know her silk work because it was Viking inspired, with runic texts and images of Viking Age artifacts painted in muted colors on  smooth silk, imported from China. It was impressive work and it sold well at Víkingaheimar. But I'm very glad she switched over to making wool rugs. They are dominated by undyed, muted colors, grey, black and white but with lines of color weaving through, inspired by the Icelandic landscape. Like deep blue rivers running through ash-laden valleys or molten lava inching down a hillside, hard and black on top, red underneath. The hints of color in a neutral setting are so alluring: the blues mesmerize you like the eyes of your lover, the only thing you see in a room of 200 people, the deep reds reach out to you and hug you even when hanging in the farthest corner. It's amazing. Her rugs are made out of pure Icelandic wool, so they are...

Up on Ásbru, the new name of the former NATO Base, where my parents met and where I used to live, is a car rental company called Sad Cars. That's where I got my dented, rusting, 1998(?) green Yaris. The back windshield wiper doesn't work, and it has no hubcaps, and it has a vague oily smell after it's been driven for a whole, and there is a funny noise if you break while turning. I guess that's why it's a sad car.  It's OK, I'm sad too. 

I hope my readers will forgive me for being so tardy in blogging. Let's just say it isn't a good idea to travel with two deadline projects back home left unfinished. After sleeping in past breakfast time at the hotel this morning (I had been awake working until 5am and then finally fell asleep hard), I salvaged what I could of the day by walking over to the island where the Nordiske Museet, Skanse, and Vasa Museum are located. I was very glad a museum colleague of mine had recommended I see an exhibit at another museum, called Liljevalchs. It is was a bit further down the path but well, well worth it. The exhibit is called Utopian Bodies, which is a very intersting way to think of clothing, as our idealized self. The exhibit, which took over the whole museum, had all sorts of complex philosophical ideas about dystopias and Utopias, about technology and sustainability, and about conformity. But my two favorite galleries were the last two, one dealing with Judith Butler and gen...

When I booked this hotel online a few weeks ago, it's location reminded me of a hotel I stayed at in Stockholm in 1998, when I was working on the Viking exhibition at the Smithsonian. That hotel was a small botique hotel right in the waterfront, and although the three other people on the trip with me were unimpressed, I remember liking it very well, even though my room was tiny. So I did not hesitate to book at Hotel Esplanade, close to the museum and right on the waterfront. It is an old hotel, and I think it may well be the same one I stayed at all those years ago. What I like about it is that it is a weird hybrid, kind of like a bed and breakfast more than a hotel. There is no elevator for one, so that makes it like a house. But the real distinction is the decor, which is a hodgepodge of styles. There are beautiful antique pieces from the 1800s, including even the desk in my room, intermixed with cool mid century modern pieces, like my coffee table, and then 1980s style floral...

I like how the architecture of allthe Nordic airports feel similar, such that when I arrived in Sweden it felt familiar. And then, as I made my way from the plane to the luggage drop to the train station, I recalled another reason it felt so familiar. I was here in 2009 for the Saga Conference, and the experience at Arlanda was not good. I had to pay a lot in extra baggage fees.

Tonight I went to a rather extensive talk (79 slides!) about Finnish history.  The speaker, a graduate student working on his dissertation, emphasized that there are many dark parts of Finnish history that never get talked about. Sad times when terrible things happened, like the civil war and the red and white terrors. But through it all there was enough of a sense of democracy and law that things moved forward, rather than turning even darker. It's all so hard, because it seems untrue to ignore the past, to push things under the rug, but on the other hand, talking it out can reopen wounds and trauma all over again. A nation has to be able to move forward. This morning I bought my ticket to Iceland, and my niece passed her driver's test, and my sister made it down to my parents house safely.

A long steady rain, the kind of soaking that will surely cause flooding and might actually make a dent in the drought. The kind of rain this disaster zone of a state needs. No fake snow in the mountains, just the real stuff please.  I'm taking my son down to see my parents tomorrow but am feeling humble about it. Tonight I asked him if he wanted a tuna sandwich for a snack, and he told me he hates tuna. That's the sort of thing a mother really ought to know.  I made oatmeal for breakfast though, that was good, made it with milk and butter instead of water so it was rich and creamy.  Anyhow, if there is anything the last days, weeks, months, years and decades have taught me, it is that Star Wars, Star Trek, and Superman are constantly being revamped. And I would like something steadfast, even though I haven't done anything to deserve it. 

I am now in the midst of finalizing details for the last of my four major Christmas themed events in as many weeks, and all of it work related. This time it is a formal sit down dinner, a sort of office party I guess only it isn't a crazy dance all night-do-things-you-might-regret later kind of party. Rather it is a tradition for a lot of people, who bring a group of friends with them and thereby save themselves from having to throw a party at their house. Attending the Nordic Fest dinner has become a part of their holiday plan. In years past, it has always been a huge buffet, but this year, the majority of members who voiced an opinion asked to have a plated meal served to the table. There clearly are some people who wanted change. On the other hand, I have been getting plenty of phone calls from people who are confused and don't understand why we have changed things. They liked things just the way they were.  So the common phrase is that opposites attract, but I really ...

Today is Sankta Lucia Day, an event I had never heard of before I came to Pacific Lutheran University. It is not clevrated in Iceland, but I understand it is celebrated in some places in Norway, and very widely embraced in Sweden.  It is about a person, an Itslian girl named Lucia according to the legend, who stands up for her beliefs to the point of martyrdom.  We use it as a way to encourage young people, especially women, to think about the I,pittance of having conviction, moral fortitude, and the bravery to let their light shine, to stand up for those that cannot stand up for themselves.  Although the it is a lot of work and has been going on non stop now since Thursday, and continues today, I am pleased to be a part of this, of encouraging people to stand up for right and wrong. Although we sometimes critics people for being too self righteousness or judgement, we also have to demonstrate a commitment to justice.  Happy Sankta Lucia Day. 

It is raining hard here in Seattle again this morning, as one would expect. And I am waiting on news of my mom's MRI, she is back in the hospital again as of yesterday. When this first happened, I should have reached out to my mother's family in Iceland, her sister and brother and my cousins, instead of just blogging about it. But instead I guess I was just in too much shock. Now that it has had some time to settle in, I am being better about letting those know that need to know what is going on and what they can do to help. My brother thinks there is a possibility my mom might need surgery. That has got me thinking about the term "it isn't brain surgery", which is used when there is something so obvious, anyone should be able to do it, even without special training. Like figuring out that it rains a lot in Seattle. Or figuring out that I am upset. Here is hoping for a wonderfully talented, careful and caring, brain surgeon to come in and make it all better. Mak...