Almost every day I have walked. Concentrated on simply being, really trying to absorb everything that is around me. Trying to capture the sounds, the sights, the sensations. Allow the island to press on me, weigh on me, permeate my being and sink in through the skin. And in this way she – the island – has been my healer. I never feel alone when I’m walking in her landscape, as though she wraps me in her arms, gives me a cuddle. I begin to recognise the person in the mirror – someone I knew, someone I remember from a time before. I take deep breaths of sweet nothing, watch the moon and stars, and stare off up the winding valley to the distant mountains, those mountains that always call, those mountains that are like a drug. Every minute you are not in them, you stare off into them, or think about them, longing to be there, in them. It is Mother Nature’s great love affair with us. And up here, you feel it. You feel her. Even when you leave you cannot escape – not once you’ve been caught; not once you’re in love. And I am in love. I know it now. The island is a love affair of the most acute kind.


A love affair with the mountains, the tundra, the animals, but mostly it is a love affair with the light, the dark, the shadows, the seasons. I’m not sure that I’m ready to leave, that I’m ready to let the love go – the love of this land – that I’m ready to find new love in a new land. Not sure that I can let even this present become


past, but I must leave the past where it belongs – in the past. If I let the memories inhabit my present, I will forget to live.


On this island I have fallen out of love, fallen in love, been pulled close and pushed away. Now I feel on the verge again of falling in love, but this time with myself, the most important person in my world. I cannot remain attached. Not to the people. Not to the memories. Not to the perceptions.


I find my way to that familiar glacier that has been frozen in its onward march towards the town. Today I decided to cross it. I am alone; though I am never really alone. Niorun – Norse Goddess, diviner of dreams whose home will always be mine – is smiling at me. “It is time”, She says. “Do you think I will make it?” I look across the


snow and see, beyond the ice drift and chilled wind, a southern sun. “Yes”, She replies, “I think so. But remember to


walk as lightly as you can. My caverns stop near that boulder and after that, if you break through the crust, you will fall.”


I shudder at the thought of plunging to nothing. But I persevere and make it across, just as I will find a way to a new life in my old home down south.


Suddenly I am no longer afraid A quarter of a degree left. Clink. The mechanics of the clock of Time adjust slightly and fall into place. Time reclaims me. She picks me up and readies herself to move, with me,


onward. My last day. Along the snowed-over road towards the fjord, the first ice sheets covering


the water have broken up, discarded blocks on the snow. Between the sky and the still waters, the white-covered land, despite its many peaks, cracks and crevices, seems to recede into the horizon, a floating land between cloud and water. And in the space between me and the horizon I find freedom, breath, and the energy to move on, to begin searching again. I walk the length of the town, forage once more among the shelves of


books in the farthest north art gallery. Lost amongst the many pages, I find a book entitled Ghost Ship. I pick it up, turn its old cover in my hand,


breathe in the unaired pages, open the front cover. Just because. But wait. There’s a personal note, handwritten and taking up the whole page. “To the Admiral. A man of ships and adventures. A great traveller.” It is from the author, who sent it from Cape Town to the Arctic. This book – this story – is a great traveller too. I have uncovered a mystery, a hidden story about a story. A mystery, just by opening a page. Enough to start my imagination. And I realise that this is what the island has done for me – it has let me imagine again. Open a new page. Out on this mountain, beyond the city limits, the angels dance once again in


the heavens, cascading down the rim of this sky-bowl. I know: this is my send- off party. She is telling me to leave. My time has come to stop dreaming and start again – push forward – because one must, eventually, move ahead. No good comes of dwelling on the shadows of the past. n


The above is an adapted extract from August Cyr’s memoir, Searching for Snow Trolls. August Cyr has previously published in OutsideIn Travel and Literary Magazine. Her writing explores folklore in modern life.


JULY 2015 9


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