Fire and Ice

Ever get to visit a truly magical place?

Maybe even the same magical place twice in your life?

I did just this, visited the land of northern lights and geysers. The land of Vikings and druids. Iceland! And more specifically, Gullfoss Waterfall in Haukadalu.

But this second time I went there, I thought it was my first.

This is what being human does to us. This is what having a fragile memory does. We can have life-changing experiences decades apart and not even remember them.

Why should I have remembered Gullfoss? Because it is gigantic.

It is the largest of all waterfalls in all of Europe (by volume). Summers, water flows at the rate of 130 cubic meters per second.

That’s a lot of water.

When we visited just last week, my boyfriend and friends and I stumbled along dirt pathways, navigating crowds and pausing every few minutes to capture images of a perfect rainbow that circled over the water’s path. The light was pristine, the air crisp, the water golden from glacial silt. (Gullfoss actually means golden waterfall in Icelandic.)

And later, back at home, I combed through photos of a cruise we had taken to Iceland as a family when I was young. Only then did I realize that I went to Gullfoss then, too—in June 1972.

Exactly 40 years ago, to the month.

At that time, I was twelve, going into eighth grade. I was thinking about boys and nervous about starting field hockey in the fall. Wondering whether I would like my south team of teachers at Peterborough Middle. I remember swimming in the Blue Lagoon, a massive geothermal pool. And going to see icebergs.

But there I also am, in a picture with my mom, dad, grandmother, and sister, standing on a well-worn pathway in front of Gullfoss waterfall.

Geologists believe that Gullfoss formed at the end of the last ice age, fed by dramatic glacial floods. This means it was formed over 11,000 years ago. It flows southward from Hvita glacial river, fed by a lake at Langjökull Glacier.

As I walked along the pathways this time, I kept thinking about how persistent these falls are. How powerful the river. Night and day, this puppy just flows. And flows. And flows. Millions of gallons of water moving southward.

For thousands of years.

And today, four decades later, three of the people in my picture are no longer here. These same massive falls have flowed past the lives of my grandmother, my father, my mother.

The water kept flowing, even as the people didn't.

And now, the water is flowing past mine.

This year, I saw many other families visiting with kids about 12. And I think about those kids coming back 40 years from now, and noting that in their own carefully staged photograph, they look different. They have now become their mother. Or their father.

And some people in the photo who meant everything to them are no longer here.

Stand in the shadow of anything remarkable such as this, and it can easily make one feel small.

But just as easily, it might also make one feel eternal.