Summertime Missive
Paris, Reykjavik, and that time last February when an angel came and plucked me out of the sky
I started writing this post in my physical, actual yellow notebook in a cafe in Reykjavik, a city I will never feel comfortable spelling. I’ve just come from a week in Paris. Y’all, Paris is a good city. But when you get a coffee in a Parisian cafe, it’s a thimbles-worth. Like a teaspoon of coffee. In Reykjavik, a city blown by arctic winds that exists for half the year in a darkness I can only imagine, the coffee comes filtered and in large, never-ending quantities. People who live with a glacier on top of the next mountain over know that coffee should be measured in something more substantial than droplets. Another difference: France is very proud of their cheese. And for good reason. Iceland is very proud of its yogurt. The reason is a little more obscure to me.
Some Stuff I Did
Iceland Part 1:
Walked behind a big, amazing waterfall.
Walked through a cave to see a second waterfall.
Hiked up a third, very tall, waterfall.
Walked barefoot on a black sand beach that also had crazy, geometric basalt columns that probably have a very simple, logical reason for forming the way they do, but still seem like an art project by the weird Norse gods.
Paris:
Saw an exhibition at the Petit Palais.
Ate Moroccan food for the first time (I loved it).
Drank coffee on top of Printemps with the whole city at my feet.
Climbed Montmartre at night and during the day with the whole city at my feet.
Laid in the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Made friends with an archivist who helped me research a mid-century project. It’s a real project, but I would have made up a fake one just to have the pleasure of digging through boxes of old ephemera.
Ate a three course meal with three fun and adventurous amigos.
Walked into the realm of the dead, the catacombs under Paris. I saw hundreds of human skulls and bones used as construction material.
Saw a concert by the French pop star Marie-Flore at La Cigale in Pigalle.
Visited the Museum of Natural History and bought a beautifully illustrated children’s book called Macalou.
Watched a modern dance set to classic ballets Sémiramis and Don Juan by Glück in the Opéra Comique.
Walked a lot. Like a lot. Average 10 miles a day.
Bought a silk Hermès tie for 1 euro at a vintage shop in the Marais.
Spoke a lot of questionable French.
Watched the movie La Venue de la Venir, which was just so charming and now will always remind me of this trip.
Drank a citron pressé, a fresh-pressed lemonade.
Iceland Part 2:
Explored the city.
Floated around the ethereal Blue Lagoon.
Ate a lot of chocolate-covered black licorice.
Saw a minke whale, a white-beaked dolphin, a humpback whale, and a trillion puffins.
The Time Has Come for Me to Keep the Promise I Made to a Sky Angel
His name was Greg, and he appeared at one of the rare moments in my life when I honestly had no idea what could possibly happen next.
I was on the side of a snow-covered mountain in Washington that I had scaled in a little cable car alone with the firm intention of skiing down it. I know what you’re thinking (HUBRIS), but it wasn’t just my own overblown estimations of my abilities that brought me to the mountain top. I was fresh off a ski lesson, and my ski instructor1 said I could ski back to the place I was meeting my crew.2 That guy had watched me fall in the snow at least 20 times in the last two hours. While he watched me untangle my limbs from the sticks (skis) I had grafted them onto, he would look at me blank-faced and say stuff like: “Listen to your feet. Your feet are smarter than your head.”
Then he told me about a “pleasant beginner run” through the mountains that ended in the place I needed to be.
I was never happier than I was on the ski lift going to the top of the mountain. Everything was beautiful. I was above the tree-line. The sun was starting to set. Underneath my skis, the snow shadows were turning blue. And then I got off the lift.
I was now about three miles up. Straight up. The incline was extreme. I tried to ski down it, and I fell. Then I tried to ski down it again, and I fell. I tried to ski across it, and I fell.
A version of this series of events happened many times. At some point I fell, and I just laid back in the darkening snow. I stared at the sky and realized that I had absolutely no idea what to do next. I could call my husband or my friends, but what would they do? Carry me down on their backs? Tie a rope to me? There was no solution there, just the terrible prospect of group humiliation. I called my husband, anyway. My reception was bad.
Then I lay where I fell and watched the sky do its pinkening thing, really pondering how much I hated the guy who called this “a pleasant beginner run.” My ski instructor, who I paid. My teacher, who I had been stupid enough to trust. The guy who told me to listen to my feet.
Well, I was listening to them now. And they were telling me to lay down in the snow.
Then came the sky angel. He materialized in the space above me wearing a red shirt with the name of the ski resort on the front.
“Hi, my name is Greg. Are you injured?” he asked.
“No, I just can’t ski.”
“Because you’re hurt?”
“No, because I’m bad at skiing.” And then I told him about my instructor, my original purpose, how I got to where I was.
“Alright, well. Let’s see it. Ski to that tree.” I skied to the tree. Then I spun around in circle and fell when I tried to stop.
“Wow, that was like a ballet move or something. New plan,” Greg said. “We’re just going to get you off the side of the mountain. Ok?”
“Ok.”
For the next hour, Greg skied like 100 feet, then I skied a 100 feet. In between, he asked me questions that people ask people who are very, very stressed out to make sure they don’t completely lose the plot, questions like “what do you do?” and “where are you from?” That’s how he learned I was a teacher. And that’s how I learned that he was also a teacher when he wasn’t on mountaintop rescue duty, a middle school science teacher.
After I regained some shattered confidence in myself, Greg also became my teacher. He didn’t say stuff like “listen to your feet, your feet are smarter than you are.” He said stuff like, “I know it feels counterintuitive, but if you move your hips in the opposite direction you are trying to ski towards, it will help your stability.” You know, words that made sense.
Both of us felt an overwhelming sense of triumph when I finally, finally got back to horizontal land. I thanked him a million times.
“No, but seriously, Greg. Thank you.”
“You have to ski again.”
“Ok,” I said. We’ll see about it, I thought. TBD.
“And you should tell your students about this. It will inspire them, knowing that their teacher still learns.”
“Ok, sure, fine. For you, Greg, I’ll tell my students all about it.”
This guy was the snow devil, in case you were wondering.
None of them needed a lesson…