A Beginning

Matilda, Queen of Iceland. 

We are home. It was a long, eventful journey back - including an unexpected visit to Iceland for two days - but we are home.

I wish I knew where to start or how to articulate all that has transpired this week, but I feel woefully inadequate to the task. It still doesn't feel real in many ways, and I think that is true not only for me, but Matilda and Nastia as well. (Note: I checked. and it is kosher for me to post Matilda's name, because it is not her birth name. Matilda is the new name she chose for herself - new life, new name.)

I cannot show her face yet, but the photo at right captures her personality quite well even without her face showing. She is, indeed, an adventurer, a conqueror, and a brave climber of mountains - literal and figurative. This gorgeous shot was taken in Iceland last Saturday, just before their 3pm sunset. No filters , no fancy camera - just my iphone and the mysteriously luminous Icelandic sky. Immediately this photo felt iconic in light of her journey - a journey to a new home, a new land, a new life. And there she stands, vigilant yet hopeful, leaning into her own future.

When we first learned of our unexpected layover in The Land of Ice, I was disappointed, but Matilda was downright despairing. No amount of spin or reworking of the storyline would lift her out of that state of desolation. She was firm, her stake irrevocably thrust into the heart of her own misery. But as time passed, I started to see that this delay was anything but disappointing, random or ill-favored. It was a gift and a blessing of stillness before the onslaught of our new life.

We arrived in darkness, but the morning revealed a place of unspeakable beauty and calm. We walked for hours on end. We drank in the brilliant skies and the mysterious light that fell like a tender offering on everything.

Even the landscape buzzing past us on the bus that day was magical...

The place felt at once familiar and foreign. We hiked hills, walked long roads of ice, and travelled into town, where Leif Erikkson stood guard.

The whole accidental interruption felt anything but accidental. It felt like Grace.

The sky, the sea, the glaciers and mountains.

The horizon of ice and snow.

The dark night laced with a billion snowflake-stars.

The people we met. The conversations.

The immense silence...

It felt like the whole universe had paused. 

And just like that, it was over and we were back in time again. We were back on a plane, headed to Boston, and our blessed 'pause' dissolved into the mysterious enchantment from which it came.