Preparations to celebrate Sjómannadagurinn (Seafarer’s Day in English) were well under the way everywhere in the capital: people at work could be seen all around, washing cars, polishing windows, painting walls and fences, mowing lawns. Everything looked so very promising, and everybody seemed so busy and happy. Excitement over the upcoming festivity – one of the most important in Iceland – was tangible. Then all of a sudden June didn’t really feel like June anymore. The air got heavy and thick fog descended obscuring the sun, dropping a grey cloak over the capital area, obliterating like they never existed all the fervor and the excitement. The atmosphere dramatically changed.
We were out in this fog ourselves, trying to get some errands done. It all looked so strange. A cheerful summer day, a week-end starting, a national holiday one second ago, then a surreal sense of gloom, kids on their bikes with bandanas and scarves over their faces, old ladies hurrying home and windows no more being cleaned but forcibly shut to keep the sticky ash particles out of domestic life. No need to say we decided washing the car was out of the question.
You are free to imagine or to look at the images to have an idea. But don’t think it felt at all like Apocalypse Now. No serious warnings were issued, most inhabitants of the Reykjavík area didn’t look very concerned, just curious, and it’s still going to be Sjómannadagurinn this Sunday, and people will very likely be full of excitement and willing to take a stroll in the sun during the festive week-end. Still we have this weird metallic sting in our mouths and our shoes are covered in grey dusty soil. And we feel like after all the tormenting fuss over the volcano and the ash cloud of the last months, we too finally had a taste of the eruption, but only slightly, as if in our sleep.