Where the Light Changed

On Iceland and the quiet magic of belonging

Hello all you lovely people.

I have been doing some musing on the direction I would like this newsletter to take and how I can work towards my own goals while still serving this community.

It’s like this: I have had a couple of books percolating in my mind for a while now. They are quite different from one another, yet both with a focus on our beloved Iceland.

My issue is that, with running a business, creating courses, prioritizing health and wellness, doing life, and writing twice a week here on Substack, my time is pretty much used up.

As a writer, few things are more frustrating than having something to say and no time to say it. 🥹

So, as a way towards a solution, I have decided to start writing in this space with a bit more intention. That means that some of the things I write here may very well become parts of a book.

I will be paywalling those posts, partly because, well, they may wind up in a book and it’s no good if the whole world can read them for free 🤪.

Also because they may be intensely personal and/or inflammatory, and it feels better and safer to me at this juncture to know who is reading.

In other words, paid subscribers will get a preview of those projects in their early stages, and will have a chance to comment and provide feedback.

Rest assured, though, that I will continue to write open posts for free subscribers, as before. 🫶

And now that that’s out of the way, let me segue into today’s post

Strange things would sometimes happen in the apartment. For instance, a brass chandelier hung from the ceiling that for no discernible reason would sometimes begin to swing a little from side to side. The bottom of the chandelier tapered to a point, and when the swinging began and I touched that point with my finger, I could feel it vibrating. Also, sometimes I would be sitting in a room and it would become filled with light, like the sun had just come out and chased away all the shadows. I’d look out of the window to see that there was no sun—the sky was still cloudy, as before, though I could have sworn otherwise.

Moving back to Iceland in 1994 was a huge thing for me on so many levels.

I had been drifting around, moving from one place to another—between apartments, countries, continents—for over a decade.

Every place felt cold.

The feeling that I belonged nowhere was all-pervasive, and deep inside I feared that, if it did not work out this time, I’d be crushed.

A photo I took on the Snæfellsnes peninsula with the ethereal glacier as a backdrop.