Perhaps the Icelandic saying Að leggja höfuðið í bleyti translated as to "Lay your head in water" is apt at this point. It means to take time to think about something, to find a solution to a problem or a new way to do things.
September was, on the whole, an incredible month at Nes. Some friendships formed through shared experiences, we extended our creative networks, and enjoyed more than a few bottles of red wine and vodka along the way. We had a little dysfunction within the group, but it was dealt with and we moved on or went home. Group dynamics are always an interesting beast but eventually, everyone tends to find their place or space, whichever suits.
So it will probably be for October too, but I've personally found it a really tough week. I'm struggling with noise in the share house and the studio - generated by one person in particular. As a light sleeper with super-sensitive hearing (I can tell you every person who visits the bathroom at night by the sound of their door and their footsteps on the wood floorboards), the sleep deprivation is starting to kick in, not helped by lingering aches from my fall on the Höfði last week. I know it's not deliberate, just a case of zero self-awareness. Maybe it's just I'm not made for share house living anymore.
You certainly get to observe the breadth of human behaviour on a daily basis in this setting. There are some who are very ill-equipped to survive this world and others who are awe-inspiring. Most of us are somewhere in between.
Skagaströnd from the Höfði
Creative challenges
After a month of gathering new material, play and experimentation in the studio, I'd made it clear that this month would be about staying 'in the zone', being disciplined about getting as much editing done as possible so I don't have quite as much to do when I get home...and less organising of others, fewer excursions, and early sleepful nights.
However, the past couple of days have offered calm, balmy, sunny days by Icelandic standards, made for filming, recording and exploring - lots of distractions. Still on foot, this is the perfect time to go further afield. I haven't quite got used to walking uphill in wind that feels like it's slicing through you regardless of five layers of clothing. So, over the past few days I've been down to the moor to play with the Icelandic horses while filming a body of contaminated water I stumbled across as I navigated the maze of tussocks. The end of the week took me up to the Höfði (the Cape) to launch the drone from the sea cliffs, skimming past the rock face with the sea crashing below. It was quite exhilarating even for someone terrified of heights.
My equine friends on the moor
Filming from the seacliffs on the Höfði
But I'm still being creatively distracted, having taken to writing - obviously in need of another way of processing what's happening around me. I'm really not sure what I'll do with these scribbles, which actually started at home as I was trying to summarise what I'd learnt from my research and the Australian phase of Eye of the Corvus. Here's a small taste of what I've been playing with here. Consider it still in draft.
Double-exposed mountains, fog-washed,
Extend to the west;
Peaks of the Westfjords are absent.
Nor-easter presses insistently into the morning
Warm, almost wet.
Daysprings darker than last week, or the weeks before.
Lavender skies cast pink highlights across the bay,
Lightening into grey.
Kronk kronk of winter ravens
Bring me to the window;
Their numbers have grown -
Two are now six.
They know what I don’t.
Dawn at 7.30am looking across Húnaflói Bay
Fog descends across the peninsula as the weather closes in
The ravens
The ravens are still eluding me. On my return from the Höfði this week, I watched five ravens fly towards the sea cliffs as if they knew I'd finally left. Watching them fly on the currents across the bay, travelling in pairs when they aren't fighting each other, tumbling in the air, swooping and swerving - anything but the stable, smooth movements I've been trying to perfect with the drone. I've started allowing myself more 'mistakes' in my drone manoeuvres to more closely replicate the movements I've been watching the ravens perform here. Including a few rough landings and take-offs.
Next week, I've got an appointment with one of the older residents of the town who is a wealth of information about the ravens and is prepared to share it with me for a recording. She spoke to me about the raven pairings, as we watched them fly towards the Höfði, and told me about their nesting in the sea cliffs in mid-April - 9 days before the official start of summer. A raven summer being one of snow in April at the time the ravens start nesting.
This morning two of them shared a perch on the spire of the church in front of my bedroom window. It was their calls across town that brought me to the window to capture the incredible lavender light of dawn an hour earlier. As they flew towards the moor, I realised the fifth raven finally had a mate. Six of them are now calling Skagaströnd home for the winter.
Ravens share a perch on the church
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