The Sun Never Set

By the end of three months in five time zones while in constant communication with friends in a sixth, my body was well and truly beyond knowing what day or time it was. In Iceland, the sun never quite set, the night never really appeared. 

After that first day, it was Sophia and Jamal and I all out, and then it was Holly and Kyle and what's his name, and that was one of the best nights I've ever had. I danced until four in the morning, I danced with Jamal, I danced with Holly and Sophia while the music resonated around us. We all talked for hours; at one point Sophia and Jamal went to get the car and got completely lost. Kyle and Holly waited with me, past three in the morning outside in Iceland while the sun broke through the dusk. Time was infinite and meaningless and something to play with. We were young and drunk and insanely happy. We were free. I fell in love twenty times over that night with beauty and souls and feelings, the cold and the light. And still the sun did not set.

Each passing day grew more intense. Iceland was pure magic, the kind that freezes mortality and lets you live completely in the moment of awe. Barren land stretching for miles on end gave way to huge capped mountains, melting through the black-sanded sea and shaping into crystalline glaciers. Precarious moments on back roads reminded us of the fragility and utter strength of life itself. Peaceful stillness on the clear blue ice lent itself to the simplicity of breathing. Poetry before our sight. Nighttime just out of reach. 

We could walk for hours not ever seeing more than the flat gravel earth, and then find ourselves climbing up jagged rocks of jet black. We soaked in remote pools, steaming from the natural temperatures, and ended one day eating at an Ethiopian restaurant in the absolute middle of nowhere. We argued over driving on the steep icy roads and laughed about it later. Five days of pure magic hidden in the light of day, the day that never ended.