Iceland Diaries: Chasing Waterfalls

March 1, 2017May 22, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

Tuesday, Feb. 14

Sleeping in the back of the Land Rover is what I imagine it’s like to sleep in a Japanese capsule hotel. There’s not quite enough room to sit up so you are stuck sort of propping yourself up on an elbow. In order to change your clothes, a complicated process ensued that included lying on one’s back to shimmy into pants, then sliding through the window into the front seat to put on one’s boots.

The night had been too overcast for any potential Northern Lights viewing, and the morning greeted us with soft rain. We snacked on granola bars for breakfast and got teeny cups of coffee from a gas station. I’m all for downsizing ridiculously gigantic American portions when it comes to pretty much everything except coffee. I could easily go through 3 Icelandic-sized coffees each morning, but that would cost me over $12 so I savored each sip of my little cup.

“Where’s my precious??”

Tuesday was a day full of waterfalls, which made for a lovely scenic backdrop for Valentine’s Day. The first stop was Seljalandfoss, which is one of a series of waterfalls along a rocky ridge. We wandered up and down the road, getting closer glimpses of each set of falls. Plenty of people were out in their rain gear, taking group photos and selfies. I saw a tourist climb up a small hill to pop into a tiny cave-like opening in the rocks for a photo. Since I like to think that I am half woodland creature, I clambered up the muddy slope so Kurt could take a photo of me in the same cave. As I tried to make my way down, I lost my footing on the slippery mud and skidded the rest of the way down on my bum, sentencing myself to wearing my other (snow)pants for the rest of the road trip. In his rain jacket and waterproof pants, Kurt ventured into one of the cavernous openings and got right beneath Gljúfrafross. Changing in the Land Rover promised to be even more interesting after this outing.

Kurt in front of Gljúfrafross

After a brief drive, we arrived at Skógafoss, a gigantic waterfall which now also has the dubious distinction of being featured in a Justin Bieber video. We climbed the giant set of stairs to see the falls from the top to get some photos, then spent a little more time at the base of the falls. In the parking lot, Kurt was slowly backing the Land Rover out of our spot when another car suddenly honked at us. It was our friends, who had left the Airbnb a day after us for a road trip to Höfn and coincidentally pulled into the parking spot right next to us. Small world! We chatted for a bit before we continued back on our separate journeys.

By the time we reached Vík, the town at the edge of the black sand beach, visibility was practically nonexistent. A thick fog hung over the area, preventing us from being able to see much of anything. We followed another car up a steep series of switchbacks to arrive at a scenic viewpoint, but the detour was worthless as we could see nothing from what was probably a scenic vantage point (later, we deduced that we were atop the Dyrhólaey peninsula). We white-knuckled it back down the switchbacks and found another place to park and view the black sands beach and a few of the rock formations in the water.

We had a late lunch at the Black Sand Restaurant, giving ourselves time to dry off and warm up while utilizing their wifi. The sky was already growing dark when we got back on the road, but we wanted to get some more miles in before we stopped to camp. Our plan for the next day included Glacier Lagoon, which is in southeast Iceland. Stuck as a perpetual passenger due to my lack of manual driving skills, I played DJ while Kurt navigated the wet roads in the dark. Just west of Skaftafell, we pulled over at a rest stop. According to our map, we were on a small unmarked road that led straight to Skaftafell National Park (there’s a funny story about this which I wrote about in detail for Drinkers with Writing Problems and I will entice you to click the link by mentioning it’s about a brush with death, sorta). Parked out on the open road, we got a taste for the legendary Icelandic wind that the car rental place had warned us about–the kind of gust that can damage a car door if you don’t open it cautiously with two hands. We ate sandwiches in the back of the Land Rover, drank boxed wine, and watched some Netflix shows Kurt had cached on his iPhone while the wind howled outside. Not a bad way to spend Valentine’s Day, not bad at all.

Valentine’s Day dinner

Iceland Diaries: On the Road

February 28, 2017May 22, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

Monday, Feb. 13

Kurt and I woke up at 8 a.m. and repacked our backpacks, leaving our city clothes behind in the Airbnb which our friends and I had rented for the full week. We only brought along stuff we’d need for our 3-day camping road trip. Iceland was having an unseasonably warm winter, much like Chicago, with temperatures for our entire trip staying in the 40’s during the day. I left my winter coat back at home and wore my nano-puff jacket, which I layered over a wool hoodie and t-shirt. I packed my rain jacket, which could fit over all of my layers. I also brought a pair of camping pants and waterproof snow pants. For pajamas, I packed long underwear and a Thermawool base layer.

We took a cab to Kúkú Campers, the company through which we booked our rental. The cab driver was a friendly local who, upon hearing our American accents, proceeded to grill us on our thoughts on President Trump. He chuckled while listening to our moans of outrage and disbelief over what was going on back home. “I have a friend from Oakland who wants to move to Iceland,” he told us. “I told him to wait 2 years and come here as a political refugee.”

At Kúkú Campers, we checked in and got the keys to a rental Land Rover, our home for the next few nights. The team at Kúkú has an irreverent sense of humor; their business card reads “In case of emergency, use this card to wipe your ass.” Along with your camper, you can rent items both practical (sleeping bags, pillows, GPS) and recreational (guitars, surf boards), and purchase the unexpected (an ‘outdoor sex mat’ along with a map of good locations for doin’ it, with a disclaimer “P.S. This map is not intended for gingers”). The Land Rover’s back cab consisted of a folded-up bed, a seat that could be turned into a bench with storage underneath, a small cooler and butane stove, and a wall of cubbies to keep kitchen items from rolling around.

Our first stop was at a local grocery store so we could save money on meals, and picked up bread, lunch meat, plenty of Skyr, burgers, hot dogs, and snacks. After that, our journey officially began. Instead of doing the classic Golden Circle loop, we skipped Pingvellir National Park (knowing we’d get there near the end of the trip as part of our Game of Thrones tour, but more on that later) and drove to Geysir, with a quick stop at Keriô, a volcanic crater lake.

Strokkur

Geysir is the inspiration for the word we use in English, ‘geyser,’ so you can say it’s OG. It’s located in an area with high geothermal activity by a few other hot springs, including Strokkur, which erupts roughly every 10 minutes and has a pretty metal name. A walkway circles each of the hot springs, and the whole area is flanked by a restaurant, parking lot, and souvenir store. It reminded me a lot of Yellowstone, both for the scenic wonder, sulfuric smell, and hordes of tourists buying overpriced sweatshirts and shot glasses.

Gullfoss

From Geysir, it was a quick drive to Gulfoss, another incredibly popular tourist attraction and one of the waterfalls you’d most likely recognize from photos. The Hvítá River widens and drops dramatically into a giant waterfall which from certain views, looks like it vanishes into a crack in the earth. Some legends say that Gullfoss (‘gold’ and ‘falls’ in Icelandic) got its name because of a farmer who couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else taking his gold after he died, so he locked it up in a chest and threw it down the waterfall. This would not be the first time on our trip that we’d hear an old tale of someone not wanting anyone to touch their stuff so they threw it down a waterfall, hence, many waterfalls being named after gold or discarded mistresses.

Secret Lagoon

During our last few hours of daylight, we visited Secret Lagoon in Hvammsvegur. Secret Lagoon is a natural pool with a much more local vibe than the sprawling Blue Lagoon (though there’s still tourists aplenty). The steamy hot water was a welcome treat at the end of the day. Kurt and I waded through the pool, walking across the pebble-covered bottom to make our way closer to the bubbling hot spring just beyond that was the obvious source of heat. A few tourists in parkas stood on a path by the spring, taking photos. Light chatter in an assortment of languages filled the pool area. We soaked and watched the sunlight slowly fade, but not before creating a double rainbow in the distance.

With the last of our light, we found Airhus Restaurant in Hella, which offers a winter campground. The facilities (bathrooms, rec hall and dish cleaning station) were closed for the season, but we were allowed to park the Land Rover for free in a small grove hidden by a row of trees, creating a nice private space. After cooking burgers on our butane grill, we went inside the restaurant for a drink and to use the wifi for a bit. Right before close, we used our headlamps to find our way back to the Land Rover in the darkness. We folded down the seat to make our bed and crawled into our sleeping bags. In the tree-lined grove far from any main roads, we had our first night of outdoor solitude under the stars, just on the cusp of the Arctic Circle.

Iceland Diaries: Blue Lagoon

February 26, 2017May 22, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

Sunday, Feb. 12

We slept in soundly. For most of us, it was our first full night of sleep (I probably slept the most on the plane ride out of the 7 of us, and at most I got 3 or so hours of decent sleep). We had hit the gas pretty hard on our first night out, as evidenced later when we finally began checking our online banking accounts and saw those rounds of beer add up ($70 per round, wheee!). In a stroke of perfect planning, we had booked our day at Blue Lagoon for Sunday afternoon, so we had nothing but relaxation on the agenda.

Blue Lagoon is located back by the airport, but it’s easy to set up shuttle service to and from most hotels. Our Airbnb was a 10-meter walk from a boutique hotel that became our pickup/drop-off spot for the duration of the trip, with the bonus of having an easily pronounceable name, Hotel Holt (in comparison, our street’s name consisted of 17 characters). A friend and I managed to wake up relatively early, and we ran out for coffees and yogurt (I fell in love with Skyr on this trip). Most of the group, hit by the double whammy of jet lag and hangovers, stayed in bed right up until it was almost time to go for our 3 p.m. reservation. Finally, everyone got up, shoved their bathing suits and flip flops into bags, and made their way out the door.

Blue Lagoon is pretty famous for being a tourist spot, but it’s worth a visit at least once in your life. There are geothermal pools all over the country (even the tiniest towns consisting of a gas station, grocery store, and cluster of houses had a pool), but Blue Lagoon is notable for its milky blue water, rich in minerals including silica and sulfur. If you plan to visit, make a reservation in advance (time slots fill up quickly) and be sure to check the fine print on your shuttle reservation, as your ride may show up as much as 45 minutes early depending on where your hotel is located. We opted for the middle tier option, Comfort, which included silica and algae masks, a free drink, and a towel.

took a gamble and brought my phone into the pool for a quick selfie

It was drizzling cold rain when we arrived. Our group consisted of two women and five men, so we split up into our locker rooms. I lost my friend at some point near the showers, so I entered the Lagoon area on my own. I walked onto the deck in my swimsuit in 40 degrees and light rain, and beelined into the warm water. It was heaven.

Within a few minutes, our group reassembled and waded over to the bar. Upon check-in, you are given a wrist band that keeps track of any food or drinks you purchase during your stay. I opted for the prosecco for my free drink (you are limited to 3 drinks per wristband for safety reasons). One of our friends struck up a conversation with a lifeguard, who shared some stories about recent celebrity visitors (Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Justin Bieber have all been to Blue Lagoon recently). The lifeguard tower overlooking the pool had a giant windshield wiper that would periodically clear the glass window.

After soaking for hours, checking out the sauna, and applying our silica and algae masks, we were ready to board a shuttle bus back to Reykjavík. To save some money, most of the group walked to a grocery story to get food we could prepare at the Airbnb. Sunday night was a much calmer affair, as we rested up for our next adventure. The next morning, Kurt and I would begin our Iceland road trip and leave the city behind.

Iceland Diaries: Arrival in Reykjavík

February 26, 2017May 22, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

It’s impossible to visit Iceland and not fall in love with it. Kurt and I, along with 6 of our good friends, just came back from an 8-day trip on the northern Atlantic island nation, and I can’t stop thinking about it. With a few more friends planning upcoming trips and asking for advice, I figured I’d write up my travel diaries so I can keep my notes in one easy-to-access place.

Friday, Feb. 10/Saturday, Feb. 11

Our flight left O’Hare on Friday night at 6:30 p.m., and landed in Reykjavík the next morning at 6:35 p.m. We also learned shortly before our departure that the night of Feb. 10 would also see a full moon, lunar eclipse, and a comet passing close to Earth. Given these unusual circumstances lining up together, I joked that we’d have Outlander-esque conditions lined up to accidentally travel through time and arrival in feudal Iceland, to which my friend replied “Geothermal Tub Time Machine?”

We tried to get some decent sleep on the plane, and landed in Rekjavík without incident or unexpected time travel. First things first, we followed the advice of our Airbnb host and stocked up on beer, wine, and booze at the airport Duty Free. We had been warned that alcohol in Reykjavík is extremely expensive, and we could get it for nearly half the price at the airport, which is something even the locals do. Afterwards, we took a Flybus (roughly $20 in USD per person, a pretty good deal) for the 50-minute drive from the airport to the Reykjavík bus terminal. Our Airbnb wasn’t ready until 2 p.m., so we stowed our luggage in the large lockers at the bus terminal, which were roomy enough to fit 2 fully packed bags, or house a down-on-his-luck muppet.*

Reykjavík

We walked into town, and kicked off our trip by taking the elevator to the top of the bell tower of Hallgrimskirkja, a cathedral. It offered one of the best views of all of Reykjavik and was a nice way to start our day. Afterwards, we got coffee and a traditional breakfast across the street at Cafe Loki. I picked a sampler plate and gave the fish paste on toast and sheep’s head jelly a whirl (mostly because I wasn’t entirely sure what I ordered). I’m a pretty adventurous eater and finished most of my plate.

After walking around a bit and checking out some shops, we picked our bags up from the bus terminal and checked into our Airbnb. Our house was conveniently located just a few blocks from all of the bars and restaurants on Laufásvegur. Even with 7 people, the house was roomy and comfortable. A few people napped while the rest of us sampled our Icelandic beers in the kitchen. We weren’t that into the Viking Light, so we’d have to give Viking Hev** a shot later.

Once everyone woke up, showered, and assembled themselves, we had our first group dinner at Vegemót Bistro Bar. Just as we’d been warned, it’s pretty impossible to get a meal in Rekjavík for less than $25-30, even a burger and fries. Beers are an additional $12-14. The flash sales on IcelandAir may convince you that Iceland will be an affordable vacation spot, but once you land, it’s an entirely different story. At least dinner was good. We followed up with drinks at Ölstofan, which reminded me of the Ukrainian Village bar scene circa 2002. Memories get murkier after we moved on to Bar Ananas, a tiki bar where Icelandic rappers happened to be performing. Outgoing Americans that we are, we chatted with a few locals including one performer who I decided to call “Icelandic Justin Timberlake” for the rest of the night (it was the hair). After many rounds of Einstok, we staggered back to the Airbnb to catch up on an overdue full night of sleep.

*Who doesn’t love a Great Muppet Caper reference?

**similar to Bud Hev

New York

December 28, 2016May 22, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

The line outside the bar was one-in-one-out. My friend and I huddled in the December wind on a street in New York’s West Village, waiting for enough patrons to exit so we could be let inside. The bar was a half level below the sidewalk, and piano music and raucous singing drifted through the window near our feet. It was around 10 p.m. We had spent the day doing other vacation-y things: brunch in Brooklyn, visiting the New Museum where locals took selfies to a whole new level, cocktails in a speakeasy hidden off of a hot dog joint in St. Marks Place. Now, we were here–waiting to get into a packed-to-capacity piano bar that solely played Broadway show tunes. As the line inched forward, we made our way to the front and then inside. The small, packed bar area exploded with sound; a full capacity bar was singing at the tops of their lungs “How we gonna pay… how we gonna pay… how we gonna pay… LAST YEAR’S RENT?!”

I grew up worshipping MGM musicals with the same fervor my classmates had for hair bands; Gene Kelly was my Brett Michaels. In high school, I found my Happy Place when I was cast in my first real musical (outside of a grade school production called In Quest of Columbus where I played the railing of the Santa Maria). While my all-girls Catholic high school in a north Chicago suburb was hardly the setting of Fame, I had at least found a place among the teenagers whose CD collections were dominated by original cast recordings. When people learned my name was Kim, they typically responded by blurting back Miss Saigon lyrics: “I have a heart like the seeeeaaa…… A million dreams are in meeeeee!”

At Marie’s Crisis Cafe, I was once again among my people. It’s hard to explain the power of music, the way it creates a sense of community and gives a venue full of people a shared–at times transcendent–experience. Hedwig sang it best: “All the misfits and the losers, well you know you’re rock and rollers, spinning to your rock and roll…” In the packed bar, regulars mixed in with tourists; a decent amount of patrons appeared to still be wearing stage makeup from earlier in the night. Most of the crowd recognized a song from the first few chords, and the energetic vocals from the pianist helped the stragglers catch up. There were enough professionals and music buffs present to break out into harmonies, fill in the backup chorus, and interject lines of dialogue. We broke out into goofy grins and joyous laughter each time we recognized a song, then dove right into belting it out along with everyone else. It was impossible to be unhappy in a place like this, where even the most jaded New Yorker wasn’t too cool to sing “Little Surrey with the Fringe on Top” in public. We tore through numbers from Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, Mary Poppins, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Oklahoma, Les Miserables, Showboat, and A Chorus Line while throwing back cheap domestic beers in the cramped tavern. We sang until 3 a.m., when we reluctantly called it a night and caught the subway back to our rented apartment. With the piano playing on in my head, I thought back to all those nights on the stage, with pancake makeup on my face and my feet crammed into character shoes, finding my joy through music and performing. A million dreams are in me.

Spring Green, Wisconsin

October 24, 2016May 27, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

October is my favorite month, and every year I love to revel in it as much as I can. Shockingly, we haven’t done fall camping in Wisconsin before, so we recently righted this wrong and visited the Spring Green area for a beautiful weekend outdoors with friends.

We arrived at Friday night at our favorite campground, which is nestled against the Wisconsin River. After setting up our tents, we stopped by the local bar for some Spotted Cows and burgers, then spent the rest of the night enjoying the crisp coolness and crackling campfire. The temperature hovered in the 50’s, and a mist lingered on the surface of the water, like ghosts rising from graves.

On Saturday, Kurt and I had booked a double-header of local, spooky exploration. First, we went on a tour of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Spring Green. The home was originally completed in 1911, and was designed and built for Wright’s mistress, Mamah Borthwick. Horrifically, she was murdered in the home along with her children and several workers; the killer was a disgruntled servant who set the house on fire and attacked the victims with an axe as they tried to flee for their lives. Before booking the tour, I had no idea about the home’s tragic history. This added cast another dimension to the tour, as we imagined Wright’s grief and the weight of his loss as we walked the halls and looked out the windows that framed landscapes of the hills and valleys.

After the tour, we joined up with our friends for the next destination: the House on the Rock. The original house was built by Alex Jordan, an architect who had a tense rivalry with Frank Lloyd Wright. The Japanese-inspired design was a direct nod to Wright’s personal aesthetic. As Jordan grew older, he turned into an eccentric recluse. He had his friends who traveled the world bring back trinkets and oddities to add to his growing collections. The tour includes the original house plus the grounds that hold (among other items): a dollhouse collection, a warehouse-sized replica of a squid fighting a whale, rows of suits of armor, music machines that take up entire rooms, and the world’s largest carousel. More of a museum than a house, the attraction is dimly lit and random music played by mechanical violins and horns drifts down the halls. Some of the older machines aren’t quite in tune, making everything seem even more surreal and slightly askew. A friend once perfectly described the house as “like being inside somebody else’s nightmare.”

And yet, this wasn’t even the main event of our trip; that came a few hours later. We went back to the campsite to make dinner over the fire, have a few beers, and rest after spending the day on our feet. Once the sun set, a few of us who sought more thrills drove back to the House on the Rock for The Dark Side experience. In the few hours between closing the main attraction and reopening, parts of the grounds were turned into a haunted house. We started down an outdoor path lit solely by torches, turning into a human knot as we clung to each other, seeking protection. None of us had been to the Dark Side version of the house before, and we had no idea what to expect. To add to the horror, we seemed to be the onlypeople there… until a clown leapt out of the shadows and spooked the shit out of us. We dissolved into the nervous laughter that immediately follows a jump scare. The clown silently gestured us toward a path back into the house. Inside, the lights were now completely turned off, and occasional strobe lights burst through the space like lightning. We walked into the carousel room, which was (even more) eerily lit, making the wooden animals appear nightmarish and leering. For the next 40 minutes, we wound our way back past dollhouses, empty suits of armor, and through the Organ Room. Along the way, other ghouls and zombies leapt out at us from the shadows, startling us into more screams.

We drove back to camp on an unlit country road, through the darkness of the trees. A cheery campfire greeted us, and we joined our friends for beers and boxed wine under a harvest moon.

City Museum, St. Louis

September 18, 2016May 27, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

A week ago, I drove to St. Louis, MO, for the day with my sister Lauren to see a concert. We arrived early and had several hours to kill, so we took up the suggestion of one of Lauren’s friends who recommended visiting the City Museum. We knew very little about the museum before we walked through the front doors.

The City Museum is difficult to describe; often called a playground for adults or a artsy funhouse, it is 600,000 square feet of weirdness. Upon entering, Lauren and I faced a large atrium where we were attacked by stimuli in every direction: a long slide full of shrieking children, a giant tunnel whose entrance was the mouth of a white whale, columns covered in shards of mirrors, mosaic-tiled sloping floors, a ceiling dripping with silvery feathers.

When I looked for a map, I saw a sign that stated no maps existed; the purpose of the museum was to let yourself get lost and find your own route, making discoveries along the way. Lauren and I began walking through the first floor. We heard noises above us and looked up to see people in the ceiling, crawling through wire-framed human habitrails. Ramps and stairs took us to dark corners and hidden alcoves; I wouldn’t have minded having my camping headlamp. Upon entering one of the tunnels, we saw that the way out was to climb through a hole in the floor.

“I am too hungover to go down that,” Lauren said. We backtracked and found another way through.

The City Museum reminded me of the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, another twisty-turny maze of curiosities, arty weirdness, and bizarro reality. As we traveled up to the City Museum’s roof, the spirit of the place began to inhabit us. I defied my fear of heights to climb into an airplane frame hovering in the sky, 10 flights above St. Louis’s sidewalks. I got down on my hands and knees to pass through a crawlspace in order to access a spherical birdcage suspended in the air. We rode a 10-story tornado slide from the roof to the caves; the slide circled a dark stairwell and as I shuttled around the dimly-lit tight curves, I could imagine myself passing into another dimension. We tried to escape the large cave, trying one tunnel after another which all seemed to lead us back to a rock formation lit by a glowing crystal. Somewhere on another floor, an organ began to play, and its haunting music drifted to where we stood lost in the dark.

The museum reawakened memories of our favorite childhood fantasy movies from childhood and beyond, causing us to make references such as:

“I halfway expect to turn a corner and drop into a shaft where the Helping Hands from Labyrinth carry me down.”
Are those the oracles from Neverending Story? Do we need to pass a test to get through?
“This looks like the cave where Jon Snow lost his virginity.”

Our explorations ended in MonstroCity, an outdoor garden of ball pits with a snack bar. My palms and knees were dirty from crawling through tunnels, my clothes were grubby, and the muscles in my legs and arms twanged from pushing my way up cargo nets and down ladders. For a few hours on a Friday, I wasn’t a 37-year-old adult; I was a kid testing the tensile strength of something I wanted to climb. I was an explorer, willingly lost. I was someone who refused to believe that the fantasy worlds I grew up loving were anything other than real.

Maps

March 19, 2015May 27, 2018 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

Every line in a map is a new possibility. I love tracing the routes with my eyes, imagining the experiences that each detour might bring. Unfolding a map is unfurling a new adventure; I want to spread them out on the hardwood floor, studying the topography, noting the landmarks, exploring the options.

Looking at a road map brings back a rush to my senses: the roar of a motorcycle engine cutting through the light spring breeze, the overpowering smell of sulfur while driving through Yellowstone National Park, the Trampled By Turtles album that filled the car as we drove through the Smoky Mountains in a light rainstorm, the unsettling beauty of the Pacific Ocean just beyond the steep drop-off of PCH. It reminds me of how much of the world lays out there that I have yet to see, beyond the 23 inches of my computer monitor.

A Chicago city map is a different kind of map to me: it is a map of memories. I don’t need to look at the street names; I know them by heart. The phrase “know by heart” is in itself very sentimental. My heart knows these places because I lived in them, and they are a part of me. When I drive down California Ave past my old apartment, I always crane my neck to see if I can spot someone beyond the fence in the front yard. We used to stay out there all night, the patchy grass littered with beer cans, sitting in camping chairs and talking and laughing until the sun started to rise and the smell of baking bread wafted over from the nearby panaderia. Dodging traffic in Ravenswood reminds me of the sprint from work to home to roller derby practice, a routine that dominated most of my evenings for a portion of my life. 17 years, 2 dorm rooms and 7 different apartments in 6 different Chicago neighborhoods–that’s a lot of push pins on my heart map. Now, I live in a house with my husband–our first real house. Our street is lined with old, towering trees that create a green leafy canopy in the summer over the quiet, one-way street. There’s a hot dog stand on the corner, which brings back a bear-hug-embrace of nostalgia for the street where my grandparents live, not very far from this house. As kids, my siblings and cousins and I were allowed to bike up and down their block, and when we were lucky, one of our parents would take us to the hot dog stand on the corner. Being in my our own first home, with our own hot dog stand, feels like I’ve come full circle. I may not be very far on the map from where I started, but I’ve visited many places along the way.

Hello again…

August 13, 2014August 13, 2014 / Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

It has been a long time since I’ve written on this blog. For the last 10 months or so, I’ve been a regular contributor to the literary blog Drinkers With Writing Problems. While I am still an active member of the group, lately I’ve been itching to return to Ponytail Up; however, I wasn’t totally sure what focus I wanted this blog to take. I have decided that I will continue to post fictional and conceptual work at DWWP, while I will use my this blog to write more personal stuff–streams of consciousness, opinions, and stories from my own life. There will be lots of words and not a lot of pictures. I don’t guarantee beginnings/middles/endings. We’ll see how this goes.

Right now, I am sitting in an airport waiting for my flight which is delayed by nearly 2 hours. I have been on an extremely short business trip in Atlanta that is only meant to be 24 hours long. Last night, I exited the plane and saw on the first TV screen that I passed that Robin Williams was dead of apparent suicide. Like so many other people on the facebooks and twitters have commented, this celebrity death has hit me harder than most deaths of famous strangers. When I was a kid, during the summer my siblings and I would spend the hottest part of the summer sleeping in the basement in the cool subterranean darkness. Sprawled out on couch cushions and sheets, we would watch Nick at Nite with the ceiling lights turned off, bathing in the black & white flicker of The Patty Duke Show or The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Our absolute favorite was Mork & Mindy; I can remember laughing and trying to force ourselves to stay awake well beyond our usual bedtime to see Mork’s manic streams of jokes. As we grew older, we accumulated even more favorites among Williams’s work: Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji. In college, Good Will Hunting was my #1 jam. I am thankful to him for all of the beautiful memories he has given me, and am saddened that his life ended in such deep unhappiness.

There are countless think pieces on suicide, depression, and loneliness currently circulating on social media, and I am glad that at least one positive thing to come out of this tragedy is that people are remembering to tell others that they love them and that they are there for those that may need help.

I am incredibly thankful that I so rarely feel alone and that I have such amazing love in my life. I know that I am lucky and I cherish the people I care about. At my old job, I would travel more often for work and for longer periods of time, and I can remember the loneliness I felt at being physically separated from my family. I’m sure that most people who travel for business feel the same when they are away from their loved ones, unless you’re a hardcore loner or George Clooney in the first half of Up in the Air. When I am in a different place than my husband, I feel highly aware of just how big a chunk of Earth separates us. I worry that if some sort of worldwide disaster were to hit, we wouldn’t be together (I’ve always been more prone to anxiety). Each additional minute of delayed flight pushes our reunion further away, and I want to shake my fist at the aviation gods for holding my plane hostage at whatever small commuter airport it’s currently stuck at. For now, I must sit here with my headphones and laptop, The National streaming into my ears in place of my husband’s laugh. And when I finally get home sometime tonight, I will hug him and tell him that I love him.