autumn

The fall is definitely here, with clear sunny skies and a bit of a chill in the air. The clouds are high and have a certain sidelit pink-yellow light in the evenings. And last night the first windstorm came pounding on my windows, slamming the bedroom window shut with some authority as I was drifting off to sleep. The whistling wind continued all through the night and this morning there were whitecaps on the bay and the water was greenish and churned.

In some ways it's nice to be free of the Icelandic summer. The "nice days" are so few that when one does happen there is immense social and internal pressure to drop everything, including work, and get outside and to a café downtown and sit there until 10 or 11 at night, soaking up just as much 60-degree warmth and sunshine as one can. Now that there are no more of those days for the next 9 or 10 months, I can rest easy and enjoy the shuddering wind, the pounding waves, and the first northern lights of autumn in the Land.