melancholy

Enough Light to Navigate By

Artwork by Hassan Darwesh

I exited the plane gracelessly, stumbling when I stood. I stretched my legs and held my breath. Out in the softly lit corridors of Reykjavík Airport, everyone stepped lightly. Nothing was expected.

Dizzy and sleep-deprived, I struggled to take in a country I had loved through music and library books. But you can’t see a country from an airport. I learned that watching someone buy a keychain for a family member back home. Anyone else could know that without having to experience it, but my imagination had propelled me across an ocean. Even just standing in Iceland, I thought, would feel different. I thought anyone would feel different walking through a country where there were monsters because people said so and waterfalls could talk.

It was thanks to a cheaper connecting flight that I got there at all. I didn’t have the means of getting to Iceland on my own or a good enough reason to stay in the country, but all through high school, one thought occupied my head—anywhere but here, a mantra culminating in daydreams of Iceland. I wanted to leave America behind and trade it for a country where every step would make me daring.

I should be able to forgive myself for waiting in line at a food court back then. There are, after all, countless other places to travel to. I know it’s a sin that leads to death to idealize a person. What makes it tempting to idealize this one place?

Selfishly, I wanted to claim a part of the language as my own. A place people need to convey a phrase like ratljóst—enough light to navigate by—was a place I needed to see with my own eyes. The vast concept held together by a string of letters (a word my tongue trips over every time) seemed charged with enough power to let a person cup the ocean in their hands. Ideas like that were enough light for me to make my way to a place no one could take me.

I had to run to get to the gate to catch my return flight. My feet took me forward, but my thoughts were telling me to linger, just a little while longer. My first passport had only two stamps, both from Iceland. I’m greedy for more like them. How could I have traveled to a country only to glimpse the coast? What makes for greater sacrilege: never going back, or risking disappointment?

My flight landed in Newark Liberty International Airport on time. Walking through the dull grays and greens of a far worse airport, I felt myself sinking back into my old life. Now, my opinion of myself falls every time I fall in love with Iceland a little more. I try to keep moving, running ahead of the pull back there, but Iceland will also have a claim on me as the first foreign country I stepped foot in. Sometimes, I wish I had brought back a keychain.

—

Erica Macri is a 21-year-old writer studying English and Economics at Boston College. She is a New Jersey native who has always felt like she has one foot in New York. Erica has an affinity for redwood trees, window seats, and dogs of all sizes.

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