Thingvellir, Iceland

Reykjavik has been home for only a week, but I suspect I’ve already lost my ability to differentiate between the real and the imagined. On the way to Thingvellir, I’ve passed frozen waterfalls, eerily paralyzed in a perpetual state of non-motion. They’re followed by flat fields of hoarfrost, where every shriveled blade, leaf and stem are dusted with a powder of white.

The wind bites through me as diminutive snowflakes pierce my face. The cold that comes with the start of winter in Iceland, is bearable, but only just. I force myself to keep climbing, my goal is the overlook at the center of this park. The trail to the top is bordered by rocks, monotonously grey. As tall as I, they loom large, ominous in their imposing solidity. Patches of green moss illuminate the way.

The walk up is not hard, but I’m tired. I’ve been on the road for three months; played with countless musicians; encountered delayed flights and trains; and tried to speak, poorly, in five different languages.

Then suddenly, it appears. The sound of men singing resonates across the indigo pools of water, outlined in rust and white. The song echoes in crevices, dampened by the spray of waves pounding far below. Then, as suddenly as it came, it was gone. The final phrases hung, for a second, motionless, before tethering themselves to the wind and disappearing into the ether.

I run the last few paces to the lookout hoping to hear it again. I’ve heard this song before. Three years past, sitting on a too-warm shuttle that had just emptied itself of drunk Ivy-league students, I’m treated to a song. A traditional Icelandic hymn, in four parts, sung by five men, quiet and still. Even the driver is left speechless, and the silence that had deadened the newly empty vehicle was suddenly set alight. The night then, like the landscape now, was expansive and luminous.

Far below, I see it. A small, wooden-fronted yellow church with white trim. It’s striking in its normalcy, surrounded by an otherwise barren and frigid panorama. The small, fenced-in courtyard beside the main building is filled with cars and mourners dressed in black. It’s a funeral, and while I feel odd watching, I can’t stop. The singing has started again. It carries easily all the way to the top of the overlook. Suddenly, the wind is no longer buffeting and its howl has diminished. It’s just me and the sound of an age-old song, here, alone, shouting softly into the cold.