laWalk #1

Looking for the eye of the volcano

(Illustration (from Dagsavisen 2016): the kind of cirular crater we expected to find when climbing Eldfell volcano)

Between the Vestmannaeyar airport and the foot of Eldfell, there is a bathtub. The tub once was the source of fresh water for a young man whose ship had twisted around. This man had swum for six hours in icy cold March ocean of the north west, and should not have survived. But he did get to land, did find this bathtub, and broke the ice with his hand, and drunk. He had been in water for all these hours, and nearly dead by frost and dehydration. Frost being the most grave problem, becoming hydrated was suddenly th eeasiest available solution. 

He survived. He lives. Not so very much older than Jon, he is here somewhere amongst us. I think of him when we, a couple of hours later, enter the local bath. I plunge into heated sea water in the Vestmannaeyar Laug. Allthough heated, I find myself thinking it could be warmer. I swim for half an hour, not six hours. I swim under the sun, not the distant stars, and I am all the time safe. «The pool is guarded by 12 security cameras,» says internet. Now – I never came to the laug to pretend to be Gudlaug the brave. I came to dive under, to avoid the sounds of the local children and french tourists. I came to listen to the sound of pipeplanes going from the pool to the geothermal power central, to the ocean. And I do dive down under water, do whole lengths under water, I count one, two, twelve, sixteen strokes. Almost the full length, before breathing. I heard the ocean, heard my ocean, circulation of blood, the whistle of the pressure from behind my eyes. A pressure from all the signs, all the imagination being made possible.