by Tory Bilski
Viv stops to point out the sheep and their lambs. I take down the electric fencing and Viv steps in after me and puts it back up. We get in the pasture with all the sheep. If horses stir up the wild heart in us, sheep provide the antidote, a tame, quiet maternal protectiveness. I want to coddle these precious little lambs to my chest. But the mother ewes castigate them for going near us, and they run away.
“We’re not going to hurt them,” Viv says to the mothers.
Rejected by the sheep, we head for the horses in the pasture. The wind lessens. We walk into a field of young horses. They come right up to us to see what we are. Young horses in Iceland are naturally curious and friendly.
“Think of it, they’re just let loose in large herds all year round. When they see a human, they’re like, ‘Oh you’re not a part of my herd, who are you?’” Viv has a lot of conversations in animal talk, I am soon to find out.
Viv is a science writer, specifically on large animal issues. She owns two Icelandic horses and was one of the first people to own them in the States. The importing of these horses started in the late 1980s, due to the interest of one woman in New Jersey. Viv knew her, and bought her own horses a few years later. She went from being a dressage rider on big horses—warmbloods and Thoroughbreds—to Icelandics. She was a true convert. “Once I got my Icelandics, I never looked back,” she says.
She tells me Icelandics don’t get diabetes or become insulin resistant, like so many horses in the States. “They’re outdoors here all the time and their forage suits them. In the States, the forage is too rich, there’s too much timothy which is great for dairy cows, but not for horses. So, they become prone to diabetes. But here, they don’t get fat; they hardly have any health problems.”
“Everything’s better in Iceland. Even for the horses,” I say.
“Everything’s better in Iceland. Look at all this light.”
It’s easily past midnight. The sun casts long, attenuated shadows, at least ten feet in front of us. I don’t know when I last noticed my shadow. What adult pays attention to it? But it’s hard not to notice it here when it’s so clearly joined us for our walk, preceding us at a slight rightward angle.
Viv tells me that winter is hard for her because she has seasonal affective disorder—she even sets up light boxes in her house. Darkness, the idea of darkness, scares her.
“But here, the sunlight never ends. I wish I could store it up for the winter,” she says.
“It’s day all night, like a version of immortality,” I say. “If it never gets dark, if night never comes, if there’s no end to the sun in the sky, then you never die.”
We hike down to the lake and collect the iron-colored rocks. They are light, smooth, hollow-feeling, like a case of empty metal. Helga told us they are supposed to bring good luck. We pocket a few that seem special to us, hoping these talismans bring good fortune, which to us simply means good health and no harm to our children.
There are goose nests along the shore of the lake that we are careful not to disturb. Their nests are obvious: easy-to-see depressions along the banks of the river made of dried reeds and feathers. Some nests have a clutch of four or five white, speckled eggs. But in others, the chicks have hatched into fragile fluff, beautiful wisps waiting to be fed.
But when we walk through the tall grass on the way back, we don’t see the nests of the Arctic tern, the kría (plural kríur). They are too well hidden, but we know they are there by the immediate assault on us from the adult kríur. They start calling out to each other, warning the chicks that we are intruders. They aggressively do everything to drive us away. They flock and swoop down in front of us with a deafening caw, yelling at us. They dive bomb our heads and peck at our hats to protect the eggs they’ve laid in the grass. We walk gingerly to avoid stepping on them, while waving our hands over our heads to shoo the kríur away.
“We understand, don’t worry, mamas,” Viv says to the birds. “We don’t want to hurt your babies.”
We cut out quickly from the grass where their nests are hidden in the pitted ground, and come out on the dirt road. But they follow us, sending out alarms, crying out a call to arms to their fellow kríur in the surrounding area. They gang up on us, come at us from all directions, about thirty of them circling and dive-bombing us. They are the motherhood of revenge. I remove my hat and wave it above my head to keep them away. Still they follow us like they are never going to forget we almost stepped on their chicks. They will not stop attacking us. As I fend them off with my hat twirling around my head, I feel them swoop so close that my hair lifts. I think one has pecked me. Viv and I start running down the road and they follow us.
We must be a thousand feet from their nests before they finally start to lose interest. The few dozen attackers have dwindled to only a couple of birds who still manage to do a remarkable job of harassing us. And even when those two finally stop hovering and bombarding us, they continue to yell at us from afar.
“Wow, wow, wow” is all Viv can say. “That was scary.”
“I felt like Tippi Hedren in The Birds.”
“And your forehead is bleeding,” Viv tells me.
The Herd
Out of the saddle, we have developed a herd mentality. As with most herds, the oldest is usually the alpha mare, which in our case would be Sylvie, who leads the extracurricular activities: swimming at the pool in town, going to the Blue Cafe, driving to the vínbúðin (liquor store, literally wine booth). She may be a mess of insecurity in the saddle, but when her feet are firmly on the ground and she gets the urge to visit, say, the Sea Ice Museum, she is quick and decisive. She’s out the door in a hurry with Eve. “You snooze you lose,” she says, and some of us do get left behind, which is secretly what she wants. She wants to cull our population to five.
As a herd, we graze, literally and figuratively, in the guesthouse. There is a constant need to refuel, a mindless munching, like the horses in the fields. We repeatedly hang our heads in the refrigerator, looking for treats. On the kitchen table, Helga leaves us nibbles—a bowl of dried fruit, nuts, banana chips, and chocolate-covered raisins that she replenishes daily.
Except at college, I have never lived with a group of women. The balance is delicate, especially on the first day or two. There are prickly moments, minor skirmishes about how the coffee is made or how the dishes are dried. If we were mares, we would kick out at each other to establish our turf, and then forget about it and go back to grazing.
When I make calls home this year, it is still from the old rotary wall phone in the gray box. I dial in a series of numbers from a phone card. I stretch the cord halfway up the stairs to the spooky part of the house for some privacy. It is the same kind of phone I grew up with, a kitchen wall phone, and we had to stretch the cord down the basement stairs to speak to our friends without being overheard.
“How are the other women on the trip?” my husband asks. He knows this is a sticky issue with me from last year when I told him about Dora.
“They’re fine.” And then I add: “There’s this mother and daughter duo, and the mom’s really religious,” I whisper into the phone to him.
“What? Why are you whispering?”
It feels awkward talking to my husband from Iceland; he’s doesn’t know the place or the women, and he doesn’t get the nuances. I can’t talk any louder or the person I’m talking about in the other room will hear me, which makes me realize I’m using the woman as an anecdote and that’s not fair to her. She is generally of good cheer. She takes long walks by herself when we ride, and comes back with muddy wet socks and sandals. She didn’t pack boots. When she says grace over meals, it is whispered on the down low, so as not to make us feel awkward, as if she is used to being heavily judged for her religious beliefs. Funny how that “judge not, lest you be judge” works.
“Nothing, never mind, I can’t say it now.”
“So you’re not having a good time? You don’t like the women you’re traveling with?”
“No, I’m no
t saying that. I’m just reporting on the new people this year.”
My trips to Iceland are not about looking for a rousing good time, they’re more about having a respite, a sabbatical, a chance to focus on a life outside of my usual life, rather than taking care of people at home and at work. But I keep this to myself, because the life I need respite from includes him.
“How are things there?”
“The dog threw up,” he says. “And I had to clean up her vomit before going to work this morning. Honestly, I feel like giving her away.”
The “dog throwing up” is code for “you left me alone.” He loves this dog, our rambunctious, lovable Airedale; he would never give her away. But the dog, unwittingly eating crap off the sidewalk and regurgitating it up in the kitchen, has become a hostage and bargaining chip in our marriage because of my trip. I ask about the kids. “They’re fine, out with friends. They miss you.”
“When are you coming home?”
It’s a rhetorical question; he knows when I’m coming home. That question is meant to rankle me, to make me feel guilty about leaving him to clean up the dog’s throw-up.
And then he has to get off, because he’s going to dinner at a friend’s house (the social bee, he schedules almost a complete week of dinner plans with our friends when I am gone).
When I get off the phone, I hear Eve on her Blackberry talking to her husband. It sounds like they’re discussing business, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” like he’s giving her orders and she’s taking them down. But they are more used to traveling without each other, at least he is. He goes to Asia and London all the time without her.
Finally, I hear her say, “Okay, honey,” in her cheerful way. “I miss you,” she sings out. She walks into the kitchen after she hangs up and looks momentarily displaced. “He wants me to get on my laptop and get some work done. I told him there’s no Internet.”
Both of our husbands’ calls bring us temporarily home, distracting us from where we are. We want to be free of responsibilities for a week, not to think about the dog and the house and dinner and business, but to be fully here.
Sylvie, because she is older and has been married longer, appears to have it figured out. Drinking tea in the kitchen, she overheard both our conversations. “I’m over that,” she brags. “Being the wifey . . . I’m so over that. I did that for too many years. I’m happy my husband lives in a different state.”
The expression harried people say, “There are not enough hours in the day,” is rendered moot here. There are still only twenty-four hours, but they are all sunlit. You have enough time to do everything: ride for several hours in the morning and afternoon, take lessons from Helga, lounge with books and journals, go into town, watch Disa train the horses and take notes.
And our breakfasts . . . they are leisurely affairs. The morning ride doesn’t start until 10:00, so we sit around for a few hours at the kitchen table. First with coffee and muesli, then with cheese and bread and jam, then we bring out the yogurts and AB milk. Before we change into riding gear and head to the barn, Sylvie leads us through hip-opening yoga stretches.
It is not so for the Icelanders. For Disa, Helga, and Gunnar, or anyone running a farm, the endless summer sunlight translates into long days of work, often from seven A.M. to two A.M. They save sleeping for the long months of polar darkness.
Out on the trail, there are six of us, plus Disa leading and Helga bringing up the rear.
One day I am on a horse named Gnott. She isn’t the prettiest mare: her bay coloring is flecked with an orangey brown, her mane is short and frizzy instead of the typical flowing thick hair of most Icelandics. She doesn’t even have pretty eyes, and hardly any eyelashes. She doesn’t fit the glamorous image I have of a horse I would ride. And I can’t say it but I want to be riding Viv’s horse, Freya. I rode her yesterday and started to fall in love with her. She was a tölting machine. I was hoping to ride Freya for the second day in a row. But I got myself entangled in a bit of saddle skullduggery.
The saddles from Helga’s barn are old, well-worn, good-enough saddles. Even though Icelandics are ridden mostly for long trekking and herding, it is much, much different from a Western saddle, which is a couch in comparison. Old Icelandic saddles are rarely softened with quilting and knee rolls. They have the basic structure of an English saddle, yet they are even flatter and sparer. When you’re not used to riding all day, the friction from shifting your “sitz bones” back and forth between tölt and trot for many hours can cause saddle sores. Eve packs A&D ointment for this reason.
But I saw one saddle in the tack room that was new and quilt-padded with cushy knee rolls. Instead of meeting Disa and everyone in the barn, I chose to go to the tack room first, in a diabolically sneaky move to grab that saddle. I came out feeling victorious with the coveted saddle, but I spent too much time in the barn. When I rejoined the rest, I heard Disa say, “Viv, why don’t you ride Freya today.” I couldn’t object. You feel pressure to be magnanimous. We all ride different horses throughout the week so that we get to sample them. You can’t get possessive. It’s like practicing polyamory, you ride one for a couple days and then switch. Go ahead, fall in love, but be prepared to share.
Viv is riding alongside me and asks, “How’s your horse?” Ever since Viv and I have been taking nightly walks, she’s been looking out for me, making sure I know what I’m doing on the trail.
“She’s okay,” I say, “but it’s bumpy, I can’ t get her into a smooth gait.”
Viv takes a critical look at my horse. “She looks stiff in the shoulder. The saddle doesn’t look like it fits that horse.”
“I didn’t know saddles came in sizes.”
“You’ve never owned a horse. That one, see, doesn’t lay flat enough on the horse’s shoulders. It’s too big. Let me tell Disa, she may want you to change.”
Disa takes one look at saddle and horse and says, “That saddle is for Gunnar’s horse. He is a much wider horse than Gnott. I don’t know how you got that saddle. We didn’t put that saddle out.” It’s always a mistake not to fess up to something so harmless, but I make the mistake and remain mum.
She looks up and down the line and decides that I have to change with Eve. We all stop, and Eve and I get off, undo the saddles and switch. I am left with a harder than usual saddle, and Eve says, “Oooh, this saddle is so comfortable.”
Back riding, Viv says, “Now how’s the riding?”
The saddle has made no difference to my horse’s gaits. “I still am having a bumpy ride.”
Viv sums up the problem quickly. “You’re slumping in your saddle. Try sitting up a little.” She’s right. I tend to sit like a sack of potatoes when I am not concentrating on my riding. I sit up and find the center of my seat.
“And your reins are too long. She has a shorter neck, a small head.”
I take Viv’s advice and it helps. Viv knows so much; I know so little. I don’t know if I will ever be able to look at a horse and say, “The saddle doesn’t fit, or she’s stiff in the shoulders,” the way Viv can. I hope someday to get to the point when I can feel the horse is heavy in front, but horse knowledge takes years to acquire, and I took three decades off.
“How do you like Freya?” I ask Viv.
“She’s great. This is a great horse.”
“Yeah, I know.” I am miserable not riding Freya today.
When the trail narrows and we are forced to go single file, my horse cuts off other horses to get to the front. “Sorry, sorry,” I apologize to horses and riders. Sylvie growls at me, “Keep your horse away from mine. They don’t get along.”
“I thought my horse did get along with yours.”
“Nope. Your horse gets along with Jarpur.”
The horses have their friend groups, too, which Helga told us about in the beginning of the week. “Freya, Gnott, and Jarpur get along very well. They herd together. But Stulka doesn’t like Jarpur and Jarpur kicks Orn, and Gnott doesn’t like Orn riding up on her tail. And watch out for Perla,
she’s young and doesn’t know her manners.” As riders, we must keep all these relationships straight as we try to maintain control.
Meanwhile, Perla, who Mel is riding, is right on my tail and my mare kicks back. The bucking movement jolts me momentarily. Perla whinnies and pulls her head up short, jolting Mel, though she also stays seated. Mel is an assured rider. She’s impenetrably quiet and calm, another resolute horse girl.
“Get control of your horse,” Sylvie yells at me.
My mare tacks suddenly right to avoid a deep divot and cuts in front of Eve’s horse. “Sorry, I didn’t know she was gonna do that.” This ride is turning into one long apology tour for my horse and, as everyone knows, for me.
“Glad I’m not on your horse,” Sylvie says.
A Thin Place
After the miles of lupine fields, the long black sands of an estuary, and the sandy dunes, we arrive on the edge of Lake Hóp, a large tidal lagoon that empties into the Greenland Sea. Disa says, “We’re going to rest here for a while before we cross the lake.”
It is a wide lake; the other side is within view but at a distance. Maybe I wasn’t listening that well back at the farm when they told us what we were going to do, but I’m looking at this body of water wondering how it’s all going to work. We’ve got on our Wellies, we prepared that much, but I’ve never crossed anything more than knee-deep on horseback.
“We’re crossing that?” Sylvie asks. She is on a different horse today, after insisting that Thoka tried to dump her yesterday. Helga put her on Stulka, a fifteen-year-old mare who has never been bred.
Helga says, “Yes, Queenie, we’re crossing that.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Sylvie says.