Life

This was originally part of a different posting. I had thought of it as being two sides of the same coin: someone's death and my life. But since Paul, for whom I have tremendous respect-or something like that-commented that I should have posted twice, I thought it might be a good idea to just change it...
Today is the third most important day of my life so far. Today my Bachelor’s Degree in biology is officially over. I’ve been awaiting this day since I was about 13. You may be asking yourself why it took me so long and what was I doing in the meantime and all that. Well, there we get into some very unstable ground. It has to do with some idea of destiny and some idea of religion. Ever since I stopped wanting to die, I have taken life as it came. That is to say that I haven’t really worked very hard to push myself in any particular direction. It seems to me now, when I look back, that at every crucial point in the last 18 years something was telling me which direction I should turn. Here’s where I’m a bit unsure. Usually, I think of it as God’s guidance. Laugh if you will or mock me, but I have gone through several experiences where I am convinced there was another consciousness telling me (almost in words) what is the best option. This is a very comforting prospect to consider, let me tell you. One of the real purposes of religion is the elimination of the loneliness that can well up in one’s individual experience of the world. In the end, we are all alone and though many of our choices have effects on other people’s lives they have the greatest effect on us. So, if one can feel that there is a God out there who is willing to help if only one believes, why not believe? One of the strongest contacts I’ve felt with God occurred on Mt. Fuji. At that point in my life things were swirling around like in a hurricane. All the crap with my father had just happened; I was coming out of a bad relationship; I had no idea where I was going in life. Then I felt all of a sudden as though a presence had filled me and I felt a calm of spirit that I had not had in years. For the first time in decades I felt like everything was going to work out if only I would be patient and listen. I did so and things really have turned out well. This is the story of the tattoo on my lower back.
Sometimes it feels like fate or destiny. Sometimes-especially when there’s not a tough emotional decision to make-one path just feels right, as though the choice has already been made for me. Like when I made the switch from working at CB Fisk to working at Noack Organ. I just knew it was right to change and just because the money was so much better. I just had the feeling that I was supposed to go work for Fritz. Now I know that if I hadn’t done that I would never have gotten to where I sit today.
So, here I am. Years have gone by without my investment of very much ambition. I’ve gotten to where I’ve always wanted to be.

Death

I haven’t written for a while because I didn’t really know what I should say. Well, that and I’ve been really enjoying a few days of extreme laziness in my summer vacation!
But one to a bit of a serious topic. Let’s discuss death for a moment. Recently, Inga’s grandmother died at the age of 95. I had only met her a few times in the nursing home where she spent the last years of her life. As I understand from Inga, she had bad days when her mental capacity was not up to snuff. But for the most part, her health problems were in other parts of her body than her head. In the end, she passed away in her sleep after a long life of stubborn fighting. I don’t know what to say about her because I didn’t know her. I hardly know anything about her life at all except that her son is my father-in-law, Atli Viðar Johanesson. He has the same last name as his mother, unlike most Icelanders. That’s because she was furious with the father of her son and decided to Christen him with her last name instead of using his father’s name as is the tradition over here. I think that’s a respectable thing to do. In fact, that’s one of the things that I have in common with her. My son’s last name is Ericsson rater than dos Santos because I don’t want to continue my father’s family name. Well, that and he is half Icelandic and I thought it would be better for him to have an Icelandic style name-although Eric is not an Icelandic name.
But her death reminded me that I don’t have much experience with death. Many of my relatives have died but most died long ago when I was too young or too screwed up for it to have much of an effect on me. I don’t even remember who it was that I saw dead last. It was probably my uncle Ernie. He was a really fun guy. Actually, all of my grandmother’s brothers were a lot of fun. I especially liked uncle Arthur. It’s interesting how death causes one to remember things that one has not thought of for years or decades. I remember as I write the way my uncle Arthur’s cologne smelled. But maybe it hasn’t had much effect on me because it’s never been anyone with whom I had any close relationship. I have to admit that for the first time, I didn’t really know what to do around my wife. She was obviously very strongly affected by the passing of her grandmother (as I will be when I experience it) but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or if I should say anything. So I just sat there trying to be respectful and supportive. It was yet another of those experiences you can only have when you are connected by someone through the bond of caring that accompanies a commitment of long term love.

Right Back At'cha

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decidesto take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides totake the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads herbook.
 
Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman andsays, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"
 
"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, "Isn't that obvious?")"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her."I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."
 
"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at anymoment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
 
"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.
 
"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden."That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."
 
"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

My Reality or Yours

Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy.  I don’t mean the type of crazy like when someone smiles at you and says, “You’re so crazy” because something you did was silly and spontaneous.  I mean the old fashioned kind of crazy. My head is sometimes a world unto itself, that’s what I mean.  Every now and then, something happens that gives me hope that I may not be alone in having a world of understanding that does not extend beyond my own skin.  Tonight is one of those nights.  Here’s what happened in two such personal realities in Vogar Iceland.
Here’s what happened in the 13 year old girl’s mind.  She barely woke enough to stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Pretty much asleep, she locked the door and apparently took the key out of the keyhole.  When she was done, she turned to door handle.  The door did not open.  Dreamy panic took over and she cooked up a phantom outside the bathroom trying to get in.  All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door.  The ghost was trying to communicate!  She tentatively knocked in response.  The voice of her mother’s husband came to ask her what she was doing.  “Trying to get out,” she explained.  The voice came again to point out that the door was locked and that’s why she couldn’t get out.  
Now, here’s what happened in my reality.  I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sure sound of a kid who’s locked themselves in the bathroom and can’t get out.  Now, in my reality, the thought that my 6 year old son must be the one on the other side of the door, but just maybe it’s my 13 year old step-daughter.  So I gently knock on the door to find out who it is.  The reply comes as a gentle knock back and more rattling of the door handle.  So I ask the 13 year old in the bathroom what she is doing.  She says she’s trying to get out.  I peer into the keyhole (yes, old fashioned skeleton key locks on the doors in my house) and see that the key is not in the lock.  I twist the door handle and push.  Verdict: the door is locked.  In order to lock it, the key must be inside the room.  However, a couple of years ago, I was trying to figure out which of the 12 unmarked skeleton keys in the house go with which door.  In this quest, I turned one key in the lock and after locking the door the teeth part of the key broke right off in the lock, leaving me with a locked door with no method of unlocking it.  Finally, I had to go get the ladder, climb through a tiny window, pop the pins out of the hinges and finagle the door out of the frame.  Flash forward to about 3:15 AM June 7th, 2006 and we suddenly understand a smidgen of panic as the image of driving across town to pick up the ladder at my friends house to climb up through a tiny window armed with a hammer and a screwdriver while a 13 year old girl becomes increasingly more panicked pops into mind along with the dread that another key has given up the ghost.  Anyway, sense took over as it often does and the next thing out of my mouth was, “The door is locked”.  My ears detect the sound of a skeleton key being picked up off the linoleum floor and sliding into a key hole.  One turn and the door opens.  Out stepped the 13 year old and thinking the problem was solved I climbed back into bed.  

Now, in this instance, there was not even a small degree of aggravation in my personal realty.  My wife, however, has her own personal reality to add to this story.  After I lay down to finish the night’s sleep, she got up and walked out of the room. I thought nothing of it until she returned and said that I need to be more sensitive of the dear girl’s feelings.  Taken aback, I asked what she meant.  Her reply was a description of how she believed I had been feeling since sometime early in the evening.  Her account was not much further from the truth of my emotional state this evening than my irrational dread of going out in the bad weather to get the ladder and all that or my daughter’s imaginary ghost.  But she believed and may still believe that her personal reality is the right one.  

I wonder how many personal realities there are in the world.

Mamma's little angel. 

Sleep

When I was about 17 I decided that I would never have children.  Now I have one of my own and I’ve taken responsibility for a part of the upbringing of a second.  I would not give them up for anything.  But this was not my plan.  They bring a lot of happiness and I feel that I’ve grown considerably because of having them in my life.  It’s also very rewarding when I can interest one of them in something that I can teach them-I’m a terrible teacher.  Right now we are babysitting my wife’s sister’s two children.  They are beautiful and well behaved children.  They have no outstanding flaws beyond the behavior of a normal child.  But having two kids to keep an eye on makes me wonder why and how anyone would want to have two in quick succession.  I take my hat off to all the people out there who have the energy to do this right (as my sister-in-law and her husband are clearly doing).  I know I wouldn’t want the job full time.  Like I said, these are good kids, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have two little difficult children at once.  For example, there is a child at the playschool where Guðjón has been for the last 4 years who is a real terror.  Ironically, his name is Engill (which is Icelandic for Angel).  A couple of weeks ago I got Guðjón at school and saw that he had two bite marks-one bloody and one heavily bruised-on his forehead.  These injuries were incurred during an attack by Engill.  When I was getting him ready for bed that night I found four more bite marks-one on his arm and the others on his torso.  One shakes his head upon finding such on a kid who doesn’t instigate fights.  I wonder what the boy’s parents are like.  I don’t know them.  But I doubt that the troubles this little boy has stem solely from some behavioral problem in his head.  The old nature v. nurture question rears its ugly head once again.  
Right now both Hólmfríður and Björn Hermann are lying in bed.  Björn is asleep and Hólmfríður is quietly tinkering with something-she is relaxing into a sleeping state of mind.  For anyone who doesn’t have babies you should look forward to watching them sleep when you do have some of your own.  Watching a child sleep is one of the most calming things in the world.  Their little faces are unscarred by life and when they sleep peacefully they ooze tranquility and simple honest beauty.  Just looking at a baby who is sleeping happily makes me feel like there really is peace on Earth.  

Positive Teeth