Ég mun sakna íslands...

I´m going to miss Iceland. I leave in just over a week. Mig langar ekki að fara. I don´t want to go. I´m going through the same rush of emotions as I experienced last year during my final week in Iceland. When I returned home last summer I said I left half of my heart in Iceland and that I would need to come back and get it this summer. But I think I´m going to leave half of it here again... maybe I´ll just have to keep coming back to get it.

Don´t worry mama, I´m still excited to see you and dad and all my other family and friends back home. But there´s something about this place. I think you have to experience it to understand it.

Anyway, I thought I´d share the poem I wrote last year about my trip. It seems fitting at this time. The poem is called ´Hun er sterk´or ´She is strong´. It was inspired by my cousin, Ragnhildur, who spoke mostly Icelandic with me. She is a huge part of why I can understand and speak Icelandic so well now. Everywhere we went, she would tell me about her world with amazing eagerness. It was beautiful. The title of this poem is taken from one of our exchanges, in which she was telling me about the lupin flowers in Iceland... Lupin is a feminine word in Icelandic, so when you are talking about ´it´, you actually refer to the flower as ´she´. I might also add that ´Nú, ég vissi það ekki´ means ´Really, I didn´t know that´ in Icelandic. It will make more sense if you just read the poem, I think =)

Hún er Sterk

'She is strong,' she said as we walked the path to her school.

Just a lupin, a flower, a burst of purple shooting from the ground.

'She grows everywhere, she only needs sand to survive.'

I stop. I ponder. I walk again.

'Hún er sterk. Hún er sterk.'

'She is strong. She is strong.'

Why does that phrase

feel like a familiar friend

coming back to say hello?

Because my journey through Iceland has been like that of the lupin.

Ascending.

Flourishing.

Wandering.

Thriving.

Strong.

'She is strong' like the breath that can say

'Nú, ég vissi það ekki' in just one inhalation.

This language is a love affair of foreign sounds

chiming in my ears like a mysterious song

played over and over again

until finally

understanding.

Ég skil það núna. I understand now.

I have learned. I am strong.

'She is strong' like the roots of my ancestry,

the ones that tie me to this country flowing with beauty

and endless mystical adventures.

I have planted new roots in this soil

and watched them grow into family that I will never forget.

Family that feels like... family.

Where I go to a gathering and everyone speaks Icelandic,

and I am not an outsider.

We are family. We are strong.

'She is strong' like the remnant stones of the homes of my ancestors.

Crumbled, but refusing to disappear.

Giving new life to the grass, the moss, and also, to me.

A new perspective on life.

A chance to not take for granted

all the beauty this world has to offer.

A realization I'm just one part of something bigger,

and it's okay to not know why.

Life is curious. Life is strong.

Iceland.

The landscape, the family,

the friends, the love.

A new place to call home

that already was.

Sæl go blessuð aftur! Hello again!

It’s 6am on a Monday morning. I have class in three hours. I should be – no – need to be sleeping. But once again, I’ve woken myself up reciting Icelandic grammar and various phrases I’ve learned in the past few weeks. My grammar sheets lie on the floor next to my bed because I know at some point I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and need something to do. I run through the numerous tables of declensions for nouns and matching adjectives. I think about conversations I had throughout the day and how I could have expressed myself better, how I could have corrected my grammar. I think about how to write an interesting blog post on the intricacies of the language of my ancestors. And I think about why I am embarking on this seemingly impossible endeavor of learning Icelandic.

In my heart, I know why I’m doing this. It’s difficult to express in words why I feel the need to know this language and connect to this one part of my cultural heritage. Unlike most of the people in this course, I’m not studying Icelandic because it will aid in my professional and academic interests (at least not for now – who knows, maybe I will teach here one day!). I’m not studying the medieval Icelandic sagas, texts, or religion. I’m not a language buff and by no means do I find grammar fascinating. In many aspects, I’m the odd one out in our group. I want to understand the spoken language and I want to speak. I don’t mind whether it’s grammatically incorrect – though speaking correctly would be an obvious perk. I want to learn Icelandic because my limited knowledge of it has connected me in so many ways to new family, new friends, and a new home.

But for right now, my focus is on the academic side – reading, writing, rules – and, of course, attempting to get a good grade in the course. I finally broke down and bought the $80 Icelandic-English dictionary (orðabók) that our teachers recommended us to buy. Through I cringed as I handed over my credit card, I’m quite happy about this purchase. It’s amazing what will stick with you when you turn the pages, scroll through the words, and pinpoint the translation. Using Google Translate would probably make reading our texts a much easier task, yet I would rather go the old school route. I doubt I would have remembered the word efri (upper; top – takk fyrir, orðabók) if I had just typed it into a search engine.

I'm also finding that I can pick out more words in conversations that are happening around me, as well as understand why the words decline as they do. For those unfamiliar with languages that use declensions, essentially words can change based on how you are talking about the subject. For example, and since I’m in Iceland, let’s talk mountains (fjöll). Or do you want to talk about just one mountain (fjall)? Or that specific one right there (fjallið)? Would you rather being climbing up the mountain (fjallið) or standing on the mountain (fjallinu)? Or do you just find it fun, in general, to stand on mountains (fjöllum)? Sometimes I will sit down and write pages of declensions as to not forget the many different categories nouns fall into. I won’t even attempt to explain adjective and name declensions. Sometimes my brain feels like it is going to explode at the end of the day. Sometimes I just can’t seem to turn it off. But for that, I am thankful. After this course, I will reconnect with my world of Icelandic friends and family – and my communication skills will only have changed for the better.

Noun declensions of various sorts

Adjective declensions that I told you I wasn't going to try to explain

I don’t know where my journey in learning Icelandic will take me next, but I’m certainly happy with where it has taken me so far. We’ll just have to see (við sjáum bara til). In the meantime, I can’t thank everyone enough for their support in getting me to this place in my life. Specifically, I’d like to thank mamma mín í Minneapolis, Sigga, even though she is now living in Colorado. Her love, brilliant teaching, and persistance in not letting me give up when I first started learning Icelandic is one of the main reasons I am here in Iceland today. Also, a huge takk fyrir must be given to the Icelandic Roots organization, headed by Sunna Pam Furstenau (http://www.icelandicroots.com). The scholarship I received made this trip financially possible for me, as most of my income is going towards graduate school tuition back home. I also need to thank the organization for connecting me with even more relatives in Iceland that I didn’t know I had until this June! Thank you to the Icelandic communities in Minnesota and beyond which show support and interest in my endeavor. Thank you to my amazing friends and family in North America for putting up with me always talking about Iceland and feigning interest in learning the Icelandic phrases I try to teach you all. Thank you to my wonderful friends and family in Iceland for your endless generosity, as well as your patience in understanding my Icelandic. And last, but certainly not least, thank you to my parents. Thank you for teaching me how to be a strong and independent person, thank you for teaching me the value of doing things you love, thank you for allowing me to makes mistakes, but teaching me the lesson behind each one, thank you for not holding me back from where I need to go, and thank you for your welcoming arms when I need to return. Most of all, just thank you for being my parents. I’ll stop now, mom, so you can go grab a kleenex and dry your eyes J I hope I have not missed anyone out there, but if I have (exploding brain!!), please know that I am truly grateful for your support. Thanks again and goodbye for now, þakka ykkur kærlega og bless á meðan.