• In December, with three weeks' notice, my main translation client – the one that formed the backbone of my income for the last six years – announces it's axing its English-language offerings and no longer needs freelancers as of January 1. Merry Christmas!
• Cue panic and existential angst.
• The months January–June: Various projects for other clients, periodic attempts to think about "what comes next," more panic and angst, existential questioning of whether I want to keep doing what I'm doing or whether this might be an opportunity to try something new, gradually coalescing plans to take a serious break from working to clear my head before even trying to sort out the future. Alarming realization that I haven't taken a true, complete vacation – the kind where I don't bring my laptop along and work at least part of the time – in...actually, I've lost track of how long. People ask about my specific plans for said work break, to which I tend to say, I don't know! I don't know! Maybe Iceland??
• While also seeing various friends visiting from out of town, finishing up some last paid work, trying to complete a 50-page novel excerpt in time for a submissions deadline, helping a sick friend, having root canal myself, getting my apartment ready to sublet for the summer and assembling all the camping gear I never got around to buying in eight years in Germany, I finally book a flight to Iceland. It's open-ended. No set return date, just two weddings I know I need to be back in Germany for at the end of the summer. It's terrifying, but good.
• Arrival in Reykjavík with naïve dreams of instantly ending up hanging out with all my favorite musicians, because, come on, it's Iceland. It's like a village, but one in which everyone is mind-bogglingly talented.
• Reality, instead, is a very solitary first week spent frantically revising my novel excerpt, barely interacting with other human beings, working all day and all evening and then looking up to find it's almost midnight, even though it looks like 6 p.m., because this is Iceland in summer. (I do see one of my very favorite musicians on the street, just pushing her baby carriage along and chatting with a friend, and I panic and go the other way, because I don't want to be a creepy fan.)
• Novel excerpt DONE. Three (3!) concerts by favorite Icelandic musicians ATTENDED. Ride to extremely remote music festival FOUND. The great adventure BEGINS.
Here are a few pictures of the Reykjavík days; pictures of the Rauðasandur Festival will be coming soon.
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| ÍSLAND: Reykjavík Days |
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