Just a slow day, a day i expected would be continuing festivities but not so when last night didnt end until four, indeed for some didnt end at all. Sari prepares to scrape windows ready for painting, Hannes reprimands her, nobody should move in the village while the church service is on, from twelve until one. How quaint. Sari scrapes and I walk.
A woman walks towards me, looks vaguely familiar, she does not speak but my brain ticks, Cissy! From magenta. I ask how it is going and she says it is fine, that in fact she has done little exploring on her own as yet but has been to Mykines once. Living as she is, in a different village from the guest house, her experience will be very different from mine and she says it is not busy. I ask how she enjoyed Ovastevna and she says, at first i didnt and then i did, and ive no idea what she means by this but I feel her accrid manner towards me and i wonder if she may be on the spectrum.
All around me i find people on the autistic spectrum. Such a small community, prevalence of intermarriages and high functioning autism appears very very common. Other traits suggestive of interbreeding are common and i have also been saddened to see children with simple deformities, ears folded down, cleft lips that have not been addressed.
I have found the head teacher of Nolsoy school the most uninviting, unfriendly, unwelcoming, frankly rude character i thunk i have come across here. Many times I see how he behaves warmly to others yet ignores my smiles and my hei hei, looking stony, cold and aloof. I remember the first evening I saw him, jangling a big bunch of heavy keys and said something to Hannes about finding his manner slightly odd. Hannes informed me that he is very proud, proud to be headteacher of the school. I only discovered he is Ann Maries husband two days ago, she a friendly swimmer and runner, main organiser of the festival. Not until this last day do i realise that perhaps he might also be on the spectrum. It is Sarah who suggests it to me. He comes to the stall i was working at and looked straight over me, aloof, spoke to the local girl working with me, over my head.
When I wait for my ferry to leave, he talks with Evy, she in her car he on his bike. I want to say goodbye to Evy, he moves for me to do so but does not acknowledge my greeting just as he has not acknowledged the many times our paths have crossed. Afterwards i think, i could have held out my hand, shook his, I could have directly addressed him, asked him to say goodbye to Ann Marie for me but feeling intimidated, i did neither and i think yes sarah, maybe you are right.
I try to make a grounded reflection on island life but realise i only really know the stories of women, have not heard from the men, apart from Hannes, who compares it with East Germany and arrived in his twenties so im unsure that counts. He loves everythung about it and is desperately seeking citizenship.
Ive asked about being gay, whilst its not illegal nor is it condoned and is widely frowned upon or ridiculed. When i broached the subject, i was told who, in the Faroes, is as 'camp and camp can be' and who is currently undergoing trans gender operations, i hear of one guy who came out to family and friends and was taken to see so many therapists and shrinks that he finally claimed he was cured and went back into the closet again. Then of course, everyone knows who has Aids and just how they contracted it. No privacy. No personal life or freedom. Opportunities for women fall far behind those of men and little is done to challenge this, i hear this from Sari who has come here with an outsiders viewpoint.
Im unsure why ive reverted to wriitng on paper. Its as though i dont want to type any more, as though i have lost the sense of writing for myself but have dragged myself into writing for other ears with all that entails. Ive been unable to move past typing my last Australian journal and on to beginning the next even though i think it was just about in my capacity to get it done before i left. It was as though, once i had given myself two days to be a tourist again, i couldnt return to that single minded focussed head space. It will come.
Sari and Leevin returning home didn't help. Have i moaned about this before? I dont recall the airbnb ad saying that i might be sharing my food with a two year old, that i might have to gallop my meals down so as not to give him a third helping, that he would be able to open the door of my bedroom and demand i play with him, climb onto me, want to twiddle my ears, forcibly try to drag me around. It is interesting for i gave him no attention whatsoever and he ignored me back until he asked for my food the first time, pointed at it, drew a chair up beside me, gave me his plate. I felt reasonably safe eating a vegetable curry but he lapped it up and that was the end of me enjoying my meals.
Sari likes to talk too, wants to engage in conversation, unlike Hannes who i found to be a quiet soul. Undoubtably Nolsoy suited me much better when it felt like a backpackers hostel than it does as somebodys home. I know that, ive known it before yet im using airbnb for my next accommodation not seeking out backpackers.
I like writing on paper, it feels more ok, less permanent even though the reverse is actually true, writing is way more permanent than type that can be so easily deleted.
I have little idea what the next thirty six hours hold. will i find power points to charge my phone and ipad? is that a pointer as to why im writing here? This is a nasty scratchy pen but although i have others i could swap it for there is something about its disappointing nastyness that mean i must use it up, run it dry so i can throw it away. The sooner it goes the less i will be reminded of how nasty and scratchy it is. I wonder if there is any logic in that or psychology i might read into it, that i make myself have things i do not like in preference over things i love.
Im sitting beside a chocolate counter of the taxi office in the ferry terminal. i can see they have twix, snickers, caramel bars, other Faroese or Danish confectionary and wagon wheels. Chocolate doesnt really bother me, i dont remember the last time i had any, oh yes, before the end of July at the guest house, individual portions that sat around in dishes. But wagon wheels tempt me greatly with the biscuity, marshmallowy chocolaty mix.
I realise i have little idea of where i am going or how i will get there. I know its a three train journey or a direct drive but know not my final destination address not train times. These things will pass. I am going to Denmark without ever having had a notion of wanting to go there. I have ample time on the boat to clarify such travel matters.
Oh, i spy ice creams, thats it. Four pounds fifty later im eating a cornetto type confectionary and have a wagon wheel in my pocket. Good job im not really drawn to them at that price.
For a while, i drift and forget where i am, look out of the window and think, oh, those buildings remind me of Torshavn and then realise i am, of course, still here. I am tired. My mind has already left. I realise i begin to feel trapped, hemmed in by my journey and wonder why im making it. There will be no rescue should we go down mid oceon. Im anxious about not being able to find good coffee or enough food, ive only booked breakfast and evening meal although of course, i do have my wagon wheel stashed.
Im anxious i will get seasick, this notion did not occur to me until on the little ferry leaving Nolsoy. It is an unnecessary anxiety, apart from my time on the prawn boat, i have never been seasick. As time draws on and the teminus becomes more crowded the noise increases my anxiety, i feel afraid of the number of people. The noise they make and of the size of the boat. Am i really growing so afraid of things or just as i grow older am i less afraid to express the anxieties that reside with me. I feel trapped, hemmed in. Some of it is the echoey room and the sounds being amplified, some of it my uncomfortable chair, some that its all foreign voices of which i understand little and some that i am not free to move unless i take all my belongings with me.
Perhaps reading might help to make the noise disapper, at the moment it is playing games, reverberating loudly into a crsecendo and it beats around me, drumming before fading again. My mind plays strange games at times.
