over coffee

"Have you ever been engaged before?", he said.

And then, "Oh". Followed by a short pause.

"Haha, clearly I have been engaged, I was married you kn...", I replied before shock shut me up.

"Did you HEAR what I just said?!", he gasped.

"If I...? Oh...", I stirred my latte while shock stirred my thoughts once more.

"I was thinking something and I think it came out. Ari, can you read between the lines?".

no stabilisers

Many years ago, I shared a flat in London with a friend who alleged that true writing could only come from baring your soul and that, in order to do so, one should be physically naked in front of the page. Today, I am doing just that, wearing nothing but my birthday suit and sitting in an empty house in Sweden with only Islandese music, black coffee and my thoughts for company.

And despite the space at my disposal, it feels crowded.

One week has passed since I arrived, one week of blissful yet counted normality. I know that the precarious equilibrium that I have temporarily achieved is unlikely to last. Or is it? 

Is this IT? 

The face in the crowd greeted me at Copenhagen airport. Time stood still again, just as it had done that night by the Seine a month ago. Electronic words and distant voices became a reality once more, a reality that swept away all my defenses, doubts and fears in one single look. Suddenly, I found myself wanting nothing because I had found everything I have always needed, wanted and searched for. 

On the other side of Europe.

Thankfully, this means little to either of us. We are both professional travelers, both word people, both enquiring minds ready to embrace another culture which is just as well.

"You're looking a bit distant", I said over dinner. "What is it?".

"A little jealous perhaps. With you, it's always the archipelago, the archipelago, more archipelago", he replied, "but I understand".

"Quite, and that's non-negotiable", I smiled. "But I am here now, aren't I?".

In practical terms, this means being based in two places rather than one and the two are actually complementary. As are we. 

But are we ready for a complete life overhaul? Are we ready to change our ways?

Is this IT?

hello dolly

"I am always thinking of you, even when I am in the bathroom. I know it's not a very romantic place but what matters is that you are always in my thoughts". 

This is what the daily text message from the island read yesterday. Should I be flattered, amused, put off?

I replied with vitriol, lumping originality, derision and a comment about creativity being the hallmark of a real journalist into a few chosen words. In Islandese. If I can now bitch like a local, it means fluency cannot be that far off.

"It took this text for you to realize I am a real journalist?", he replied, piqued. I pictured the tight uncomfortable smile followed by the almost imperceptible chest puffing and butt wriggling combo that always accompanies his 'good night' greeting as the weekly program starts.

I also recall with fondness the softness of his cheek and the delicate make-up remover scent that mean Sunday and a late supper of fried octopus with him basking in the glory of another faultless televisual appearance despite the skew-whiff tie and the jacket that never fits. 

I should already be home. My jobs abroad are done until the end of May but I binned my return to London and stayed in Paris instead, only absconding back to the mainland for a 4-day conference. When I left the island, impoverished after a long hard winter of cancelled assignments, I just purchased a one-way ticket to the Continent. I have been homesick since March 10 but I am still away.

On Sunday, I'll get on a plane again, going North. From there, the ocean will go all the way home and I will have a fortnight to figure out what happens next.

What is important is to live. 

"Oh, I never know whether you are being funny or just strange", I replied. 

"I was joking. Kisses dolly", he wrote back without a trace of irony. 

For the last 7 weeks, I have searched for human warmth in words that only came forth when prompted, I have stared at an inbox too infrequently filled with a few cold platitudes, I have willed myself to accept a life devoid of passion but with someone that seemed to care and didn't begrudge me the freedom required by my job on the island and abroad.

Then, one night, a face in the crowd smiled at me...

down boy

I can sense the fear as soon as I walk through the door. My presence inconveniences them. I know they're hoping I will only buy something today - most days I actually do - rather than make THE gesture that terrifies them. 

"Hello", I say, "how are you? Erm, would you mind awfully...", and I present my wrist to the lady behind the counter. Her face collapses instantly, she looks resigned and disappointed. 

"No speak please", she says in a wobbly voice. Measures. Sighs. And asks again whether I have been to the hospital yet. "You know you have been here three times this week and...". I have already thanked her and walked out. I don't want to hear it. To make amends, I'll probably buy another ridiculously expensive lip-plumping gloss that gives me a strawberry-scented trout pout for 5 seconds then leaves me with the feeling I have been snogging a frozen lamp post for about 4 hours. I know they wonder whether I'm going to drop dead on them every time they see me. I wonder that too, every time I wake up, every time I think, feel or experience something. And with every sleepless night that happens, like this one.

These days, having someone accidentally give me real coffee rather than the usual decaf pleasantly surprises my tastebuds but sends my nervous system into a frenzy that my mind only knows how respond to with tears. 

"Here she goes again", whisper my friends as they watch me well up. Little do they know it is act of coffee and resulting frazzled nerves rather than an emotional overflow. 

"I know you are far away from your family", says the sweetheart. Bless him for always coming up with excuses as to why I am a flake.

"What family?", I smirk. "Look, I've been away from them for over 17 years, I've had time to get used to it". Later, I tell him about the email my father sent me yesterday about tits and the surgical procedure pertaining to the lifting of said female protuberances. That from the man who told me at 15 I had 'droopy buttocks'. For the record, my chest does not sag and I couldn't quite find it in me to afford him the courtesy of a reply. Yet.

My mind has been going into overdrive over the last couple of months, torn between bouts of enlightened creativity and sudden panic, besieged by doubts and frustration, unable to switch off. I have ideas, I have found people who are willing to listen to them and quite possibly make them happen - so far so good but then I stupidly get scared, paralyzed by self-doubt. Instead, I go and sell my soul to the commercial world in a bid to survive and subsequently expand pointless energy fighting clients for payment. This is the land of many tomorrows and those tomorrows take a long time to happen. And when they do, there's always a whiff of yesterday about them. 

"Ah, Ariel, LOVE your work! By the way, how much was that invoice?", beams my client after he air kisses me. He's of course talking about the very same invoice I have been trying to get him to settle for the last month, in vain. 

"You, er, you did get it, right? The revised invoice with the 15% discount?". He whined, I got all sentimental and whacked some money off in the name of that shared burden otherwise known as credit crunch, or in my case credibility crunch. 

"Sorry, can't remember. Look...", he says while opening his wallet and plonking a bunch of notes on the table. Right there in the coffee shop. In front of the staff, the other clients and the freelance web designer. 

"Thhhh... yeah... ta", I just about manage with a grin that is more mortified than nonchalant. I count, for good measure, while he watches me.

"Oh, I know I'm missing 40 hon but I haven't got change", he says before announcing with a flourish that my 60 cents decaf has been paid for and vanishing, leaving me red-faced, dirty, insulted. After all, I'm just a word whore. Four days later I am still mulling this over and penning the perfect e-mail. In my head.

I take a fancy to muscovado sugar, preferably eaten straight out of the packet in the middle of the night. It contains vitamins and minerals, apparently. I speed eat croissants and various loafy things from the coffee shop. I angst about everything, not least the size of my thighs. I coax my brain into learning Islandese - I seem to be doing rather well until things get complicated and complex, conflicting attachments form. People start speaking to me very slowly again, asking if I UN-DER-STAND. I do, but I don't always let on, for the sake of my somewhat privileged fly-on-the-wall status. I may come across as stupid, but at least I'm welcome everywhere. Which is nice.

So there it is, my new life. It has potential though, the potential to include a fair amount of normality, which scares me. 

"Forget them", says the sweetheart when I tell him about my bizarre family, "you can always have your own". He even smiles encouragingly, or is that reassuringly. I forget because I'm so caffeinated that I start welling up again. And have to stare at the wall ahead to avert his gaze. I cannot possibly have him think I am more fragile than I already am. Him, me, a couple of brats and a mid-Atlantic happy ever after complete with an extra two last names? It is far from being a foregone conclusion but that is a distinct possibility. Unless the sex is truly hideous. That remains a mystery as our courtship is a long and drawn out, erm, courtship. It's a novelty that delights and exasperates me equally. So much for the Latin temperament. 

I think about the terrorified ladies at the pharmacy, about being away from the island for almost two months starting in 2 weeks' time - no doubt one of the main reasons I am currently in advance panic mode, about finally meeting someone my own age who treats me with respect and care, about embracing a culture that is alien yet so familiar, about... I forgot to buy toothpaste again. Right in the middle of very important life thoughts and momentous conversations my brain burps up these little nuggets of nonsensical domesticity. Earlier, I shaved the same leg twice. Something is definitely amiss. And I have made up an imaginary four-legged friend, a fictional dog called Blood Pressure, which is my own cutesy quirky way of dealing with what currently worries me most. Some people go to the doctor's, I have an invisible friend. 

"Down boy!", I mutter under my breath when no one is looking. And I feed it croissants.

So yes, babies. Hearing about the possibility of a family of my own makes me burst out laughing. I laugh so hard in fact that my head spins and the sweetheart looks at me askance. "What is so funny?", he asks. I gulp and say nothing. I imagine petting the dog and this brings me comfort. I can certainly see a dog in this picture-perfect future that the sweetheart paints with so much candour and sincerity. But I cannot see a family. I don't think my body is up to it but how do you share that kind of stuff with... anyone? When it matters? How?

And he does it all over again , reads my mind unwittingly. "What's so funny? You don't have any kind of deficiencies, do you?". So I make a funny face, smile at him and grab his hand. And the moment passes.

under pressure

"You are like a volcano", he says. Hmm, I think, extinct, green and with a big hole in the middle, presumably where common sense should be? This seems like a fitting analysis.

"Why?". I have to ask as certain things do get lost in translation still, plus it's a rather odd comparison even though we live on volcanic soil. Perhaps he is trying to tell me there is a lagoon where my brain should be? Or that I sport enviable curves? Nope, I don't get the metaphor, if metaphor there is.

"A volcano has a lot of energy, a lot of strength, a lot of fire - it's just like you", he replies. 

I am stumped by his response because the person he sees in me is not the person I know, or at the very least not the person I feel I am and I wonder what I may have done to cause him to think this. Only a few minutes ago, I was too upset to even speak, so when did I suddenly become a volcano? 

To him, perhaps I always was. In what is essentially a very traditional culture on an island where most cannot afford to travel, my bohemian curriculum, the decision to come and settle down here and my determination to create something out of nothing have led him to believe that I am imbued with superhuman strength.

The reality I am experiencing however couldn't be more different. But for now, I have unwittingly become somebody's hero.

"Why do you say that?", I ask him. 

"Because I feel it. I just hope you won't disappoint me", he says. 

slowly please

"I think that you should lock me up in a room and only open the door when I have finished thinking and writing all the bullshit that I think and write on a daily basis. If you do that, maybe you'd find a normal person when you open the door again rather than this batshit crazy chick you seem so fond of hanging out with". I entrusted this to Google Translate, it came out mangled so I gave up trying to re-arrange it or send it to the person it was aimed at. The frustration of trying - and failing - to be articulate and funny in a language that I barely master is sorely felt.

The general sentiment I am trying to convey is however understood, in a telepathic, roundabout, bizarre way. This is a small island, maybe there is a higher proportion of mind readers here than anywhere else or maybe I am finally in tune with my new surroundings. The idea that I may have finally grown up is one I have to dismiss if the last few weeks are anything to go by, weeks of late nights, midnight picnics, getting in cars with boys, kissing, kissing, kissing... Heck I have never kissed so much in my entire life!

Actually, there is some very old-fashioned courtship going on here in the middle of the Atlantic, which is all the more charming as it contrasts starkly with the leering animals I have to put up with on a daily basis. This is an island where people meet and marry young so the odds of meeting someone my own age who isn't already spoken for are therefore extremely slim, never mind the fact that he should also have manners and a warped sense of humour to boot.

"I like you as you are Ari", he keeps telling me, "because if you were normal like all the other girls then I wouldn't be interested". This one is a keeper, clearly. Plus he claims to have conveniently forgotten my attempts at funny in Islandese when we met. Someone said that the first words you learn in a foreign language are always the bad ones. "Nope, not true", I replied then turned to him. "Excuse me, how do you actually say fuck?". I don't believe we had even been introduced at that point and I have no idea why I singled him out.

Either way, since you ask, no, not yet. The closest we got was last night's conversation:

"You know Ari, I think I'd like to wake up next to you someday, you'd open your eyes and...", he said.

"Say good day to you in my bad Islandese with my bad accent? Yup, I think I'd like that too", I replied.

"Would you actually say that I am, er, you know, some kind of girlfriend to you now?", I asked.

"Well, I'm still thinking and hope to reach some kind of conclusion soon, in a few months".

It's a bit like me when I speak Islandese. "Slowly, slowly please", I tell everyone.

And he evidently does understand me, bad accent and all.

eff off

As I twittered one morning, you know you're in for a special kind of day when your dental floss breaks. And gets stuck. And you have to insert some small nail plyers in your mouth to cut the floss with after you've dribbled a mixture of blood and toothpaste all over the bathroom floor. And stepped into it barefoot.

Life on the island is making me feel like some odd Samantha Jones figure, minus the varied and plentiful sexual activity however but only because I am a dab hand at fending off would be suitors who leer at me every time I step out the front door. And go anywhere, be it for a walk, to the supermarket, to the mall. Men stare openly, some whistle or stamp their feet, last year one even crossed the road to come and growl in my face. I also acquired a stalker the day I arrived back from the US. On New Year's Eve he unexpectedly stuck his camera in my face - since I had the incredibly blind and bad luck of standing next to him in a crowd of hundreds of people - so now he even has a picture of me to wank to. New Year's Eve night was also when some young bald bloke thought that pursuing me with a fluorescent wand and trying to whip me on the arse with it might constitute a come-on. All in all, 2009 started rather interestingly.

And it seems to continue that way. Only Wednesday as I was walking down the main drag towards the coffee shop where I have become a regular fixture - owing to a chronic absence of t'internet at home - a chap stopped me. I was rushing and nearly ran into him so smiled a sorry smile, causing him to glare at me and speak a little too loudly. "You-ah speak-ah Ennnglish-ah? Me-ah I speak-ah Islandese", the denim-clad, checked-shirted, bespectacled man informed me. "AhyesgoodiunderstandislandesebuticannotspeakitwellnowexcusemebutiamterriblyLATE", I rattled off in one breath while walking away from what increasingly looked like a mad man. He started walking too and yelling "Girl, GIRL, stop, STOP". I stopped. Good manners never go amiss even though being called a 'girl' at my age is weird. "Look I am really late, I gotta go", I replied. "I want to see you tomorrow, please, PLEASE", he pleaded.

Here we go, another one, but at least this one actually made it past the grunting, foot-stamping, growling stage and used language. "Eh, gotta go man", I replied and ran. I was late so saw this as the perfect excuse to just leg it. However I wasn't prepared for the fact that he would run after me, thankfully only for a couple of yards but still! Were I less friendly, I could easily earn a reputation as the fuck off girl here, but this is one trap I don't want to fall into. No need to be mean, the ability to run suffices. Were it not for a bad knee that adrenaline made me forget. Ouch.

The fact that I am more of a moon-faced Fergie during her leaner days than a blonde bombshell doesn't seem to bother anyone. I am 33 years-old but someone here thinks that calling me his Barbie amounts to paying me a compliment of worldwide magnitude. Admittedly, certain things do get lost in translation and I'm sure he means well, and if Barbie had been left in the sun so long that her face had melted sideways, he might even be factually correct.

And when I relate the latest pursuit incident to him, he is not exactly sympathetic. "You looked at him though, didn't you?", he asks. "Well, yes but...", I don't get the chance to finish. "Ah, well, no wonder then", he says, "men here, when you look at them, they think...". My mind has deliberately blanked the rest of that conversation that I have decided to attribute to the warped sense of humour of my interlocutor even though I suspect he wasn't being funny in the least.

There are other oddities: the hours I keep are unfathomable to most including myself, sleep has become elusive and only occurs in nightmare form, sometimes featuring some overtly sexual content when it's not a mixture of a very Scotchly grumpy Gordon Brown and a very brash Jeff Randall ranting about the economy , the economy, the economy... Since BBC World is mangled on our cable service and makes everyone look incredibly tall and incredibly thin, I rely on Sky News for information from the increasingly alien motherland. I know I am progressively losing touch with the UK because I don't shout at the TV as much as I used to. Instead, I watch our national broadcaster, if only to improve my Islandese which seems to be coming along nicely, much to my surprise considering that I have been coming here since October 2007 and yet have learnt more vocabulary in the last month than ever.

Truth be told, I have been getting some help...