Ocean | A Farm in Iceland

Sideways, so sly?

Or head on, so bold?

With a house for company?

With a fence for (ha ha) protection?

Or with a sandbar to still that water down until it turns to swans?

In snow?

In the midnight sun?

From halfway down a ridiculous cliff called, for some reason, a road?

From the land of the dead at the bottom of the cliff?

Among muck-raking sheep?

From the city?

From a place on no map?

From a boat?

From a coal mine?

With a lighthouse?

Through a gate while tipping over in the wind (a common affliction)?

On a lazy evening when horses come to visit and refuse to eat your apples because they’ve never encountered such a strange thing before?

At the end of the road?

Without a road at all?

When the sea turns to silver?

When silver turns to the sea?

When the sky rains gold?

Over the mouth of a river?

Or when the sea flows into a river’s mouth and speaks of deep mystery?

These are the mysteries of people who live after the landing that makes firm ground out of waves that, wouldn’t you know, is not so firm after all. Yeah, best, maybe to just wade out with the trolls.

Waiting for whatever comes!

Here is a social space in Reykjavik that’s not a park, a street, a building or a yard full of old rowan trees and mystery. It’s more mysterious yet. This is what the people of the north of the world call The Sea Room.

And on Snaefellsnes? Yes, there’s one there, too.

And in the far north, too.

Note that the Sea Room has few boundaries. It has a sense of being open, with a free flow out to the open ocean, which it is nonetheless separated from by a sense of space. Compare that to a lagoon in the East.