Wild Horses of the Summer Sun

by Tory Bilski

  Finally, someone starts talking to me and my lonely mojito, a woman I haven’t seen in a while. “Oh, did you do your Iceland thing?” she asks me.

  “Yes, I just got back.”

  “How was it?”

  “It was great,” but I don’t offer up anything more. She’s being polite, but I find it slightly reductive to sum up my trip when, three days before, I was spinning my horse circles in a river with Allie and Margot. My Iceland thing is more suitable for the late at night heart-to-hearts, and then only with certain people, preferably the people I travel with.

  “Did you ride the ponies?”

  “They’re horses, and yes.”

  She’s nodding her head and smiling. I’m nodding my head and smiling. She’s looking for a conversation and I am not being very forthcoming. I could stand to be more friendly. “They are small, but strong and really fast. And they roam free all over the countryside. And Iceland is almost all rural.” I am giving it a try, but I can tell she’s not interested in horses.

  I have been tuning out the music the DJ is playing because it’s mostly trilling songs by warbling pop divas. And I’d rather listen to the gulls screech.

  But then I hear trumpets and a folk music chorus yell, “Hey!”

  “Oh, Of Monsters and Men, this is their song, ‘Little Talks.’” The woman looks confused.

  “They’re an Icelandic band,” I offer up, as if that might arouse some interest. “And this is their most popular hit. I heard it in an Icelandic gift shop in this small town before I left.” I see her interest fade again.

  On our way north and then again on our way south, we always stop at the bakery in Borgarnes and, as we eat our pastries, look out on the fjord. We always seem to get there at low tide and the mudflats stretch way out and strand the fleet of small boats in the harbor. Like elsewhere in Iceland, the town has has grown in population and number of businesses, and looks slightly changed from our last visit. But that first stop on the way up signals the beginning of our trip and we’re full of chatter and expectations. And the stop on the way back signals the end of our trip and we’re wrestling with quiet reluctance and anticipated anxiety. I want to skid my feet on the ground, slow the ride down, stop the world. Better yet, I want to start it all over again.

  It’s nice here—the party, the setting, the drink, the sun shining off the water. It induces a rest-assured benevolence, a brief bulwark against hurrying time. But the party will be over in a few hours and tomorrow morning I will be back at work and the images of Iceland will quickly fade. Another year will pass in a dormant state of expectation, before I’m sitting at that bakery again, looking at the mudflats, eager for our arrival at Thingeyrar. My Iceland thing.

  I’ve left a very long pause in the conversation and I worry the woman is figuring out how to politely escape my company. She’s surveying the crowd around the sushi chef, making excuses about getting something to eat. I don’t know her all that well, but I know she had a tough time a year ago when her nine-year-old daughter needed surgery to remove a tumor; and I know the woman who hosts this party spends too many days in bed suffering from an autoimmune disease. And I know that life has a way of beating you up with one thing or another: ill health, sick kids, too many bills, broken hearts, bad jobs, or too much complacency. At some point you lose whatever it is that makes your heart beat wild. It doesn’t have to be a horse, or a particular country, but we all need our Iceland thing.

  Looking around at the other women on the lawn, I wonder who would be a good fit for Loki, who would tumble like Sylvie into the river, who would have some Pippa in her, who would have Allie’s confidence in the saddle, Eve’s cheerfulness, Viv’s walking speed? I ask her with genuine interest where she plans to travel this summer. “I haven’t thought about it till now,” she says.

  2015

  Getting Iceland

  Reykjavík grows larger and larger. It’s recovered from the 2008 crash and the suburbs spread out for miles. New roads, new apartment buildings, an entire rebuilt section of the wharves that were once fish processing plants have been reconstructed into unaffordable shops and restaurants. Parts of Reykjavík feel like parts of millennial-inhabited Brooklyn.

  About 20,000 tourists a year came to Iceland when I first started visiting in 2001—now its 1.5 million a year. Immigration was 1 percent, now it’s 12 percent. Unemployment is practically nonexistent, so the Icelandic business owners have to hire foreign workers to do the menial labor—the hotel housecleaning or the factory work at the fish processing plants. Iceland has become a very rich country, importing poorer people to clean up their shit—always a depressing measure of success. A supermarket in downtown Reykjavík has signs in Icelandic, Polish, and English. I have been told that in nursery schools the teachers have to encourage the children to speak Icelandic to each other, otherwise they will default to English.

  Years ago I came to Iceland to get away from the world. I had no idea the world would come to Iceland.

  How long will this last? This sweet spot of access and discovery, growth and openness? Like elsewhere, the changes are rapid. Some people welcome the changes, others mourn their lost world. The politics reflect the usual mix of grievances and opportunity-seeking expansion. I used to marvel at the country’s solipsistic innocence and self-protectiveness. But it has caught up to the modern world with all its attendant problems.

  Eve’s eyes are healed. The surgery was a success. She can see again and is driving. “Isn’t it funny,” she says, “all these years we came here, everyone thought we were crazy. Now everyone I know is coming here.”

  “Now everyone is crazy.”

  Eve laughs. “I remember people asking me, why are you . . . where are you going? And why do I keep coming back? No one got it.”

  “We got it. We just didn’t think anyone else would get it.”

  “Iceland was like our secret place,” Sylvie says.

  “It was the horses,” Eve says. “We came for the horses first, Jack and I did, and then we connected with Helga and Thingeyrar.”

  Sylvie interjects that it was her friendship with Helga that brought us all here.

  Eve eagerly agrees with her and continues, “And there was nothing here when we first came.” Her hand sweeps the windshield to the view of the new downtown. “There used to be one main street and it was full of T-shirt shops. This place is a city now. It’s actually got things to do.”

  “Even my daughter wants to come here,” I say. “She used to laugh at me for going. Now she wants to spend a week in Reykjavík with her friends.”

  Talking about all the changes in Iceland makes me realize we’ve been coming here long enough to reminisce, to feel the melancholy of nostalgia. We can’t help it and don’t want to help it.

  “Remember that empty bar we went to down by the wharves, ages ago? We were the only ones there,” Sylvie says.

  “I do remember. I think of that place often, Sylvie.”

  I know I have no right to be nostalgic; it’s not my country. But nostalgia isn’t a right, it’s an expression of loss. As Sylvie (and Buddha) says, “Life is about letting go.”

  We talk about the changes when we meet up with Sibba at a bakery outside of town. Her eyes widen as she intakes with that breathy affirmative. “Yeow. Iceland has changed so much, I don’t even recognize my little country. I don’t know how it happened. I can’t get over it. It’s so crowded. We have to go to the West Fjords to find our country.”

  Eve changes the subject with a bright question: “How is your grandchild?” Sibba shows us the pictures on her phone of her new granddaughter. We remark how much she looks like Sibba, who seems unsure of the resemblance. “It’s the dimples,” we point out, as if the dimples are a particular Icelandic trait.

  On the drive up to Thingeyrar, Margot and Sylvie fill us in on how their farm is taking shape. Unexpectedly, the old neighbor who had been giving them all the problems with zoning and trying to stop or slow down their plans, died.

  “I know, i
t’s sad, but he died two weeks ago,” Margot says, “he was eighty-nine.”

  “When he was alive he was so mean to us,” Sylvie says.

  “But then he died,” Margot repeats. “Sadly, but . . .”

  Sylvie interrupts, “That’s what happens when people are mean to me. They die.” I give Sylvie a look. “It’s true! People wind up dying when they’re mean to me.”

  Margot continues. “So his children are selling off parcels of his property and Sylvie and I put an offer on a twenty-acre piece of land just before we left. If our bid is taken, we’ll have a twenty-four-acre farm—with Icelandic horses. We will recreate your farm, Eve.”

  “We are manifesting this farm,” Sylvie says.

  While most people Sylvie’s age, or younger, are downsizing their lives and saving money for real old age, Sylvie is expanding her life, buying more property, more horses, starting a farm. As Sylvie gets older, she’s still Sylvie, only more so, Sylvie at the peak of her Sylvie-ness.

  “That’s great,” Eve says. But I can tell it’s not great for Eve. She doesn’t like to be reminded of losing her farm five years earlier, even if Sylvie and Margot’s farm will be only half the size of hers. The idea that this is a replacement farm probably hurts her. At some point, she gave up on owning horses again. Jack gave up saying he was going to buy her horses. And the only riding she does is at Helga’s once a year with us.

  Eve changes the subject and asks me how my son is doing.

  “He’s really good. He has a girlfriend and they are making a life together. They’ve moved in together.”

  “Do you like her?” Sylvie asks.

  “Yeah, what’s she like?” Eve asks.

  “She’s one of these big, bold, robust young women who’s full of life. You know the type? Full of life. And she brings all this good energy to the relationship and she’s woken him up. He’s back to being that kind, sweet kid he used to be.”

  Eve claps. “That’s so wonderful. I love to hear it.” She shouts, “Love cures all!”

  “That’s beautiful, it really is,” Sylvie says.

  “Women civilize men.”

  “We really do,” Viv says.

  Viv knows all this already. We talk once a week. Usually on the same day, same time, when I go grocery shopping at 5:00 on Thursdays, which is usually the time she is cleaning out the barn, bringing her horse in from the pasture. While I’m putting yogurt in my cart and she’s forking up the manure, we catch up on everything. If I have any news about the Berkshire group, I tell her, since I keep in touch with them more than she does. And she tells me all about her horse’s Cushing disease. We know each other’s family members, though we’ve never met them: “How’s mom?” she always asks. And I ask, “How’s your father-in-law?” Though our friendship started all those years ago during those long sunlit walks at midnight, bonding over our sons’ problems, we’ve gone way beyond that; in fact, our sons usually, finally, come up last in our long conversations. My son, and her son, Jonathan, have both found girlfriends and that has brought them back to us. They have survived themselves. And we have survived through it. “It must be because of the votive lighting in the church and the red rocks of Thingeyrar,” Viv says. “It must be.”

  Learning to Fly

  Do you realize how lucky we are to have this place?” Sylvie says, as we pull up to Thingeyrar. She sighs, and we all sigh.

  “I love this place,” Margot says.

  “I love this place more than any other place on earth,” I say.

  Getting out of the car, we stand at the fence and Allie takes pictures. She is the only one who still carries an actual digital camera. The rest of us use our phones.

  It is a bright sunny day, but there is a brisk chill to the wind. I know we are on the edge of the Arctic circle at 66 degrees latitude, and while I don’t expect it to be balmy, this feels colder and brighter than normal.

  Helga comes out of her house in one of her brightly colored housedresses, wrapping a sweater around her shoulders. She greets us in the driveway. “I didn’t think you’d show up the first year, and now here you are on your twelfth.”

  “Am I sensing regret you ever came to know us?” Sylvie prods.

  “No, what would I do without you all in my life,” Helga laughs. “My life would not be complete.”

  We drag our suitcases into the guesthouse and there is an older woman there—small, gray-haired, and frail looking. She is coming down the stairs from the spooky bedrooms. She appears very shy and when Helga introduces her, she nods her head hello to us, and quickly leaves the house.

  “She is a very special person to me,” Helga explains. “She was my teacher in college and she is very well-known for writing books on Icelandic plants, botany textbooks. She wrote this very important book on medicines that can be derived from Icelandic herbs.” Helga taps her fist to her heart. “She is a very special friend of mine. She is one of those women I feel honored to know.”

  And then, switching the subject, Helga says, “I have the names of the horses you will ride today up on the blackboard in the barn. Frieda is down there, waiting for you. When should I tell her you’ll be ready?”

  “Give us an hour,” Sylvie says.

  “Okay. And Oli has made dinner for you. He’s made coq au vin, and he’s very proud of it.” Helga leaves us to our unpacking.

  “Do you believe how lucky we are?” Sylvie repeats. “I can’t stand it,” she squeals.

  “This is all I want in life,” I say. “A horse waiting in the barn for me to ride; a meal waiting for me after the ride.”

  “This is happiness,” Eve says, “the best karma in the world.”

  I bring my luggage into my small bedroom, which I now consider mine. After Pippa demanded but didn’t get it, it became my bedroom, and I make it my home.

  Soon everyone is in the kitchen, making tea and munching on the bowl of dried bananas and chocolate-covered raisins that has been left for us on the kitchen table. Eve goes into the fridge and brings out cheese, rúgbrauð, and currant jam. Sylvie finds the smoked salmon. It’s four in the afternoon. We’ll ride for an hour or two, come in at seven. Dinner will be at eight. We know the rhythm of our days here, and our rides will get longer as the week goes on, and our last ride will be the most challenging.

  My first ride is on Moldi. In Icelandic, the horse’s name sounds nice. The “d” has a soft “th” sound, the “l” is basically dropped. Of course, the subtleties of pronunciation are lost on us. We call out his name like a fungus: “Who’s riding Moldy today?” He hasn’t held that against us, though. His name means earth-colored and Moldi is a robust dun gelding with an eel stripe and a black and white mane, which nicely shows off the Norwegian Fjord DNA of Icelandic horses.

  I was originally scared of Moldi. He was one of Disa’s horses and she trained primarily competition horses. Moldi was not one of those, but the second year we came to the farm, he was a five-year-old and hence not completely trained. Now he is twelve and Frieda has assigned him to me, and I am happy to ride him in his more mature years.

  Frieda takes us out to the lupine trail, but the lupine has not bloomed yet. The ground is hard, as if we are tölting on frozen tundra. Frieda tells us it has been the coldest spring, and now the coldest recorded summer, in history. And the wind is brutal. I’ve got on my merino wool buff and I’ve pulled it up under my helmet, but the wind is cutting into my ears. My eyes are tearing. The flap of my helmet keeps whipping across my chin.

  Frieda starts us at a fast speed, and keeps it going fast. She’s cold and this is the best way to warm up—have the horses work hard and the rider benefit from their warmth. Now no one says, slow down, let’s walk, not even Sylvie. It’s taken her many years to get over her need to go slow, and now, well into her seventies, she’s more than willing to go fast.

  Allie, of course, is riding a spiffy competition horse. Helga now gives her higher end horses, since Allie needs very little instruction, except to be told that the horse is very sensitive
and to be light in the hands. Allie is the only one in our group who spends no time with horses outside of these Iceland trips. And yet she rides well, better than most of us. She is unfazed and fearless when she is on a young spirited horse. When the horse spooks or acts flighty or rude, she says to it, “Oh, c’mon now,” or, “Sheesh, what do you think you’re doing?” That’s it. No trepidation, no fight, no tense shoulders. Just that Midwest pragmatic patter. And the horses listen to her. It is a lesson in how much confidence plays into horse-rider communication.

  Frieda moves back and forth in the line making sure everyone is okay. We are. When we get to a slight incline in the path, Allie asks if we can canter up it. Frieda answers her, but I can’t hear the answer. The wind is making a racket in my ears. Allie canters though, so I’m guessing the answer was yes.

  I want to catch up to Allie and I ask for canter from Moldi. Not that out on the trail these horses need much encouragement. Once my horse sees the lead horse canter, all I usually have to do is adjust my seat slightly and place my reins on his neck to give him enough room to move his head. But that is not working with Moldi. When I give him the aids, he trots faster. I know some horses don’t like to canter; it’s too much work for them, but they all can do it.

  Frieda rides up beside me and gives me instructions that are partly obscured by the wind howling in my ears. She calls out my name in her German accent, but I miss the other words. “Tauwri, do . . . bring him . . . Tauwri . . . then he’ll be . . . Tauwri.”

  “What???” I am reminded of the dog in the Gary Larson cartoon—the human gives him a list of instructions and all the dog hears is her name, Ginger, over and over again. I am ripping through the not-yet-bloomed lupine trail and have almost caught up to Allie.