GARDENING

ilLuStraTed by HeLga PáLey FriðþJóFsdóTtir TranSlated by LariSsa Kyzer

by birnir Jón SigurðSson

I get to work at 9:20 on Wednesday morning. I’m hoping this won’t be the case all summer. That I show up 20 minutes late. In so doing, I’ve broken the promise I made to myself. To show up on time. But it does make a certain amount of sense, and I’m reluctant to say it’s a problem. The long and short of it is I didn’t sleep much. Maybe five hours. I don’t know. I need at least eight. And on top of that, I woke up when Þula went to the bathroom. The bedroom air was close. I took the opportunity to get up and open a window, since I was already awake anyway. Listened to her footsteps and went to the bathroom myself, even though I didn’t particularly need to. Sat on the toilet with one eye closed. By keeping one eye closed, I can acclimate each eye to different light conditions. The open eye acclimates to the light and when I turn that off, I open the closed eye, which can see better in the darkness. That way, I don’t stumble on my way back to bed. I hate the feeling of lying in bed when you need to pee. When I was a teenager, I usually tried to sleep in, even if I really had to go. Would just lie there, half asleep and half bursting for two, three hours until I finally lugged myself out of bed. So I went to the bathroom last night so I wouldn’t have to go later, since I was already up anyway.

I had a hard time waking up this morning, dragged it out for a long time. Which is why I’m late now. Truth is, I never sacrifice my morning routine, so when I get going in the morning entirely depends on when I manage to wake up. The first thing I do when I get up is stretch my back. Getting older means needing to stretch your back more often. Being more careful about how you sit. Today, I won’t slouch when I sit, I say to the mirror. Sometimes, I don’t believe it’s me in the mirror. That happens when my head is foggy. I’ll recognise my face but have trouble believing that my entire existence and consciousness inhabits this body, that this is what people see. But today, I looked it in the eye and the image in the mirror made sense. Yes, that was definitely me, I thought, and then I spat into the sink, smiled. It’s good to recognise yourself.

I’m an independent gardener. In the summertime. Winters, I work at an art museum. One of those collections that few people visit, tourists haven’t a clue it even exists, but they keep it up and running for the sake of Iceland’s cultural heritage. I think it’s rather lovely, although for the most part, I don’t really care about art – it’s mostly landscape painting that sparks my interest. But I think it’s nice that there’s something that exists solely for a select few who are interested in it. The law of supply and demand has always struck me as stupid, and stupid to call it a law. Outside of that, I don’t have any interest in politics. I voted once, just after I’d turned 18, but that was only because everyone else was voting. But it changed nothing, at the end of the day. So I stopped voting. Alcohol’s the same story: I tried it, didn’t like it, and haven’t had the urge to try it since. I might’ve voted because of Þula, because it’s important to her. But by the same token, she says a person must vote according to their own convictions. So now I just stay home on election day.

In the winter, I sit in a corner of the little gallery and ask people to kindly refrain from taking pictures – it’s museum policy, no pictures. Myself, I’ve got nothing against people taking pictures, such that every now and then, I hold off scolding guests with cameras, at least when there aren’t many of them, which is most of the time. Let them snap one or two. It’s a cushy job. Nice and easy. I can listen to my thoughts. Or listen to nothing at all when I’ve no thoughts to speak of. Then I listen to the hljóð. In Icelandic, hljóð is a word that encompasses its opposite: it means both silence and sound. I think this is great, because to me, silence is a type of sound. But the command Hafið hljóð! has always confused me. It’s meant to mean ‘Silence!’ of course, but it also literally means ‘Make noise!’ I’m grateful to the museum for the chairs it provides myself and the staff member at the front desk. They’re tall, which means you have to perch on them. Which is better for your back. My back’s gotten worse lately, but I’ve managed to limber it up with some effort over recent months. Now and then, I’ll stand up and amble over to the other gallery to keep my blood circulating, maybe pop by the front desk and say a quick hello.

In the summertime, I’m an independent gardener. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to start my own business. I’ve never felt I had an entrepreneur lying dormant within me. I will never, for example, open a data centre or run my own hotel. But I did manage to buy my own lawnmower, gloves, and a little van and put together a decent Excel spreadsheet on Þula’s computer.

I’d never bought a car before. When I walked into the showroom there was an unpleasant new smell and everything was shiny. After the car salesman acquainted me with all my options, I stood in the middle of the polished showroom floor deep in thought. I know nothing about cars, on top of which, it was a lot of money. The salesman had started checking his watch when I finally said I’d take that one there. That one there that runs on electricity. At least it won’t create more pollution. It occurred to me that I could use it to move things if my gardening venture ran aground. I could help relatives and friends who needed a vehicle with a large boot. The salesman asked me if I wanted to test drive it for a few days to make sure it was the one I wanted. I said no. I didn’t want to come back.

The dream was to garden. Ever since I can remember, I’ve lain in the grass, smelled the soil, gazed into leafy treetops for hours at a time. I forget myself when I smell the scent of freshly cut grass, how it curls into my nostrils and tickles my memory. I took care of pet spiders, nursed injured birds, and hurried out whenever it rained to watch the worms peeping up out of the earth; it’s lovely to see them appear in the twilight, to see the earth revealing the life that thrives beneath its surface. I’d usually get soaked through, but I never got cold, rather, I felt a warmth streaming through my body and out into my senses whenever I felt the earth, felt it on my skin, in my nostrils and eyes. Þula once told me that if I were a book, I’d be Nature’s Child by Halldór Laxness. She’s clever,

Þula, and reads a lot. She also pointed out that it would be good for my vitamin balance to be outside. I hadn’t given it much thought, but she’s right. And, of course, being active is good for your back.

I try to take good care of myself. Stretch my back in the morning and keep it straight when I sit, stand, or lie down. In the winter, I take a walk every day, then come home and plank for a full minute. My record is two minutes, but that was a one-time thing. Basically, I got distracted while I was planking. There was a bird on the windowsill that by all rights, should not have been there, not in a home garden. It was a common murre, which is a seabird that nests on rocky ledges and lives in dense colonies – not in towns. But there it sat on the windowsill in our garden, moving its head just so, like birds do, looking up and down and side to side and strutting a bit for me. Then it spread its wings, flew toward the sea, and by that point, I’d planked for two minutes. People say that physical activity is mostly mental. I agree with that.

It’s really only in my head that I’m late to work. The projects I’m working on are easy ones, and I’m not obligated to start or finish them at a specific time. I mow a few gardens, clear the chickweed from a few fields, and when that’s done, I go home. The summer this year has been a good one—lots of sun, not much rain, and my face has turned brown. Although I don’t mind being out in the rain, I actually think it’s really nice. As nice as being in the sun. Just different. You can’t mow the grass, but you can investigate the flowerbeds and watch the worms. When the sun shines, there’s a tranquillity over everything, the plants and animals laze away and sun themselves, suck in all the energy from the rays and enjoy baking. But when it rains, the greenery goes to work, everything begins to wriggle.

Þula and I are very different, but we get along well. I think it’s tolerance that does it. Tolerance is the foundation our relationship is built upon. I think that’s uncommon. Many build their relationships on passion, talk about their better halves. People like that say that together, they feel whole, that they can’t live without the other. That’s not the case for Þula and me. We live together, separately. I like being around her and she likes being around me. Þula is big on culture. She thinks it’s great that I work at an art museum that I can get her into for free. She’s got the inside track on most of what’s happening in Icelandic cultural life. She reads every book that comes out and takes me with her to the cinema and the theatre. I’ve little interest in movies and plays, but I like going with Þula anyway. Because I can feel how interested she is beside me and that’s enough for me. Sometimes, I covertly watch her instead of whatever work we’ve gone to see. She finds that uncomfortable, says she can’t lose herself in the piece if there’s always someone watching her. So I never do it for too long.

I like working, but that isn’t to say that I don’t want to finish early. I think most people must dream about getting off work early. My best days are the ones where I finish around noon. That happens when I decide to get to work particularly early the next day. I don’t know why I decide that sometimes. It’s just a feeling I get. Like I need to reset myself, reacquaint myself with the person in the mirror. I can feel that it’s time. Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow’s the day.

On such days, I wake before 7:00 and arrive before 8:00. Work efficiently and quickly, break for a light meal that I eat standing up around 10:00 and then get done around noon. I load the mower and other tools into the van, drive home and take a long shower. In the shower, I let the water patter on my head and look up into the spray. The muscles in my body relax and I feel good, I’m floating into a state. My thoughts begin to organise themselves in my head and the fog clears from my eyes. After I shower, I go into the garden and make ready for a long outdoor sojourn. I fill a pitcher with water and bring out some food. Then I lie in the grass on my stomach or back, stand up, stroll around the garden, and look at my plants, the trees, the grass, the insects, and the birds. I take in every detail of my surroundings; I somehow see clearer, the vegetation smells stronger. I eat the food I’ve brought out with me, lunch bleeds into afternoon coffee, which flows into dinner. Þula comes out with her book but goes in when the sun goes down and it gets chilly. But I stay outside. Standing, lying, or sitting, straight-backed and listening to the birds, listening to the grass and the sky.

The day dusks and darkens. Þula comes to the window and calls to me that she’s going to bed. I tell her I’m going on a walk, I’m full of energy. I walk down into the valley, there’s no one about. People have to go to work tomorrow. The nights are no longer bright, rather, darkness has once more started to make its presence known. It doesn’t arrive suddenly, but takes its time, unfurls slowly but determinedly across the day, deepens. The dew condenses on the grass, and I can see my footprints in it. My feet get wet. I walk down to the brook and watch the ground mist steal alongside it and towards me. It’s been waiting for me. A familiar tickle trembles down my spine. My back is strong, my mind clear. I sit on the dew-damp bank, close my eyes, and listen to the birds singing with the brook in the background. I listen with my whole body. The sound enters my fingers and toes, courses through my veins and into my heart, then pumps up along my neck until collecting behind my frontal lobe. I lie down, eyes still closed, and the grass awakens, the scent of wet aliveness crawls amongst the roots of my hair and down into my eyes. A mossy green smell paints the inside of my eyelids. Life resides in wetness. I am alone, the only one awake, the only one alive in this moment. I open my eyes. The clouds have clad themselves in dusky red dresses, my eyes are full of scent, my heart sings, life is wet. I breathe deeply and let the sound drain from my forehead. A low hum that transforms into a profound energy. Inscrutable worms cheering on their surroundings. My feet dip themselves into the brook of their own volition, my fingers crawl in different directions and get lost in the grass, my head sinks deeper into the bank. The wind gets its bearings, wakes up, gusts across the grasses that sway all around, the blades grow nearly half a metre, the brook overflows its banks, my blood runs faster, the clouds coil downwards, coalesce in the ground mist, dusky red and trembling in my spinal column, the scent swirls in my eyes, the voice grows louder, from the depths of my heart, from the depths of my consciousness, I’m soaked through but not cold, I’m hot, smoking to the touch, and I am alive, I become one with the fog – the ground mist, the clouds, the wind and my soul – give a great cry and become one with the earth. A tornado of all that lives, all that dies, and me reclining in its eye.

On days like this, I come home in the darkness and Þula asks me in a sleep-drunk voice:

“Is that you? Did you get your feet wet again?”

“Yes,” I answer, “there’s dew on the grass.”

“There’s a paved path into the valley, you know.”

“I got caught up in the moment.”

“Don’t you have to be up early?”

“Yes, I’m going to try to be there by 9:00.”

“That seems unlikely,” she yawns, pulling up the blanket.

And she’s usually right. I don’t get much sleep, maybe five hours, and it takes me a long time to wake up. But I look in the mirror and smile. I recognise myself. I get to work 20 minutes late.

Bio

Birnir Jón Sigurðsson is an Icelandic writer and performer working with text, film, and theatre. His works often revolve around environmental matters and the individual in the context of the commercial and attention economy. In addition to his individual work, Birnir is a member of devised theatre groups CGFC and Ást og Karóki. He is Reykjavík City Theatre’s official playwright for the 2022-2023 season. Birnir is the founder of tóma rýmið experimental theatre space in Reykjavík, Iceland. He has produced and co-produced various cultural events, including experimental theatre nights in tóma rýmið, experimental theatre festival Safe Fest, and Gullmolinn Short Film Festival.

Photography by Golli Words by Jelena Ćirić

The sun rises higher and the weather warms, melting openings and passageways that lure curious explorers into the ever-shifting empire of ice.