PNewL PNewS
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Volume 34 Issue 1 “All the pnews that phits.” Aiming at April—missed it by a day 2026
Editor’s Note: And so, a new year of the PNewS begins after two years of not much. I’d like to think things will change. Wouldn’t you? Like all around the world? Specifically with regards to the PNewS, I have some hope. Meanwhile, carry on and do good things whatever they might be.
And let me add, I acknowledge that this is a bit longer than the average issue, but several lines are a report on the shipping of a package and then there’s all those Issues I haven’t written in the last two years—I have some making up to do--so stop reading when you’re done. Know that it’ll be here when you have nothing better to do.
Iceland Part V
I keep pretending I’ll write special issues about Iceland, and I get home and don’t so I’m going to get ahead of the procrastination. I am in Reykjavik after my fifth Iceland Writer’s Retreat (IWR). Tomorrow, I fly to the Faroe Islands. One can only fly to the Faroe Islands on certain days of the week and today isn’t one of them, so I had a lazy half-day in Reykjavik—the Retreat ended at noon—and I have been, yup, writing! Eek!
This year’s lineup (lineup is one word?) of IWR teachers was a really good one for me. As I mentioned in the last issue, I am focused on how different our brains work so when I kept saying to regulars at the Retreat, don’t you think this was THE BEST EVER?? (or wasn’t that a hugely helpful workshop???) and they didn’t, I figured I need to say, for me in my current frame of mind with my current needs, this Retreat was super duper helpful and seemed to say some magical things I needed to hear with suggestions and support and..stuff. Yay.
So here’s a little about before and during and after.
I love to travel—I just typed I live to travel and I fixed it though it might be also true—but it isn’t always smooth and easy for me. I am a worrier at heart. Arriving this time, I was so tired and nervous about the rental car and the drive and the ferry and when was I going to sleep again. When I landed, I found an email from the ferry company saying that due to “sea levels,” the ferry would be taking off from a different port, somewhere I hadn’t been before and frankly had only a vague idea of location, and no map. Sleep deprived after an overnight flight, I stood in line for my rental car and wondered, while trying not to fall asleep, if I could get there in time for the departure.
As is often the case, it all worked out. I have a very busy fairy godmother/angel on my shoulder who takes good care of me. I knew how to get part of the way to the port and had a vague idea of the shape of the Icelandic word that identified the port so I felt mildly confident leaving the airport though it still amazes me that companies give automobiles to people who are exhausted and foreign.
Upon arriving at Þorlákshöfn I pulled into the only open business I could find—their equivalent of a 7-11 gas station— and got directions to the ferry: “It’s behind this house here.” (I looked out the window and there was a warehouse—indeed, a sort of house…)
I checked in at the ferry office and found I was waitlisted since they were running fewer ferries. I had a lot of questions, like what was I supposed to do if I couldn’t get on, but the person at the desk didn’t seem interested in a lot of chit-chat. The ferry was supposed to depart at 10:45 and it was 11 and the ferry had just arrived and hadn’t started disembarking arriving cars.
To make a long story short, I made the ferry—I was the third to last one on and it felt like my car was kinda clinging to the stern of the boat. (On the way back, I was the last one admitted to the top level of cars and was at a steep angle which worried me because I am a worrier, but when I came to get my car at the end of the ride, it had flattened out. I was apparently on a moveable ramp!)
By the way, I was taking this ferry to the beautiful Vestmanaejyar, a group of islands off the southern coast of Iceland. It’s a 45-minute ride but because of the aforementioned sea level issue, it was four hours. That chewed at both ends of my trip as I was only there a few days. I returned to the islands this year because last year when I went, everything was closed for yup…Easter. Who knew?
The highlight this year was a visit to the Volcano Remembrance Museum, which has detailed coverage of the volcanic eruption in 1973 that caused the entire population to evacuate (no casualties) and amazing photos of the fire and ash, and the months of clean up and the stories of where the people went.
Upstairs, they cover the evolution of the island Surtsey which is the newest of the islands in the archipelago. It sprang up out of the water on an ordinary day in 1963—there was suddenly land where before it was unbroken water and they’ve left it to evolve on its own, without human intervention, while we observe from afar and hope for the best. Only scientists can visit. I find this fascinating.
Getting from the islands to the “mainland,”
was uneventful and less worrisome and I had a lovely drive back to Reykjavik,
with a brief stop to hoard buy yarn and for a pricey lunch (this is,
after all, Iceland.) The Retreat, as I mentioned, was inspiring. My time in Reykjavik
was comforting and comfortable. The weather and food were lovely. And then the
next adventure began.
The flight from KEF (Keflavik, where Iceland’s international airport resides)-FAE (Faroe Islands airport is on Vagar, the first island of size that you come to from the west—it may be the only spot they could put an airport. There’s not a lot of wide-open space there) is 90 minutes. I was on a prop plane. For 30 minutes, we were over Iceland (and remarkably, it was clear so following the southern coast of Iceland was fun).
Coming through the clouds into the Faroe Islands was the big reveal: We are not in Kansas, Toto. I took a video. It was amazing. Massive cliffs ring much of the islands. Waterfalls everywhere. It’s like Iceland with grass. The scope of the vistas reminded me of Alaska—and these are tiny islands. Distances are itty bitty but it looks huge. I would get up in the morning and look at my plan and realize my destination was 45 minutes away. I was going to have to beef up my itinerary.
One of the descriptors of the Faroes is that there are more sheep than people (55,000 people, 70,000 sheep). Here, the sheep live out in the wild. One of my proudest accomplishments? I did not hit any sheep but wow, they are bold. They are wandering around in towns. Missed getting a picture of one standing on a street corner. They sleep in the road because the asphalt is warm. It’s a real thing. Oh and it was lambing season so there were babies everywhere. I was smitten.
I spent a week wandering around, hiking, taking a knitting class, hiking some more, taking a lot of pictures of sheep, driving through tunnels that run through mountains and under water and eating really good food. The tunnels took some getting used to. There is a “new” tunnel (2020) that runs over 11 kilometers under water and has a roundabout which is apparently beautifully adorned with art. I did not go through that tunnel because, frankly, it scared me. When I read it took 15 minutes to drive through, I figured there were other ways to spend my time, breathing fresh air and looking at sheep in the real world. (They are building a really new tunnel that will be longer and more terrifying but the goal in this tiny country is to make the “mainland”—the island where the capitol is—accessible to as many people as they can. I salute them on this, but I’ll find another way, thank you very much.) I did get to a point—after two eight tunnel days in a row—that I lost count of how many tunnels I went through, which I believe is progress.
It is a lovely place to visit. Getting around is easy. The people are pretty straight forward and friendly. The fish is so fresh. The scenery is stunning. And they call themselves The Wool Islands. What’s not to like?
PS As I was finishing this up, I looked at some photos from my trip and was reminded of all the things I forgot to say--each and every town had the most gorgeous football/futball/soccer stadium, meticulously maintained, oh and at the bottom of the under water tunnels, there was a pretty blue light display so you knew from there on you were heading back up...there are undoubtedly other things, but those seemed worth including.
Things I am Learning
& Miscellaneous Observations
• Spring Cleaning: It’s a thing! Who knew?! I was reading the NY Times, and they had all sorts of suggestions—how to clean a shower head, dealing with clutter blah blah blah. I mean really—does anyone clean a shower head every six months? They showed a picture of a showerhead that had languished for EIGHT months without cleaning. It’s amazing those people can hold their heads up—they should be ashamed. I confess I hit the bottom of my bathroom faucet with a tissue (by accident) and it came back…well, not clean. Huh, I thought, so I did a little scrubbing. When I was at the hardware store, I noticed that they sell aerator replacements and we are supposed to replace them, well, more than every 18 years! Again, who knew?
• Why does everything feel like an eye chart these days. My phone, my computer, the back of every box and jar and bottle whose ingredients I might want to read. What’s the smallest line you can read? Well, none of those I can tell you!
• I think I have developed Princess and the Pea feet—not that my feet prove I am royalty (at this point they look like they belong to one of the wicked stepsisters, but alas, I am mixing my fairy tales) but they have become incredibly sensitive to everything. What were once work horses are now delicate and awkward. Another chapter in the Aging is Fun Saga.
• I have heard from a lot of knitters that they are perfectionists. A burden they must bear. That is not my problem. I am all about “good enough.”
• I was reading something by a person who had experienced a significant loss/emotional upheaval and she said it was hard for her to have people say, what can I do and more helpful when people said, I'm going to the grocery store, I'll get you some supplies or I'm going to the park, wanna take a walk and this made so much sense. When things are already hard, the burden of having to come up with something for someone else to do, even when it’s an offer of help, is not helpful. (If this is a duplicate, apologies—consider it a friendly reminder.)
• I booked a ticket on the ferry to Vestmannaeyjar. When I put in my birthdate, it said something like this date does not apply to this category of person—not exact wording but it was equally awkward and took a second to figure out what they meant. Turns out they had senior discounts, so I had to start over, but I found it oddly exciting to get a deal in the land of high prices.
• It’s a funny thing about the way I do tax prep. Perhaps it has something to do with my authority figure issues but there are days of angst before I even get started then I pull out the papers and sort, then I go through the document my CPA provides and start filling it out. I am screaming through it, sticky notes and cross referencing and scanning using my antiquated muti-step process* and I am panicking and it’s awful and then there’s this kind of quiet, and suddenly, surprisingly, I’ve done my part. It’s over—not with a bang but a whimper. It happens this way every year.
• My antiquated muti-step scanning process: Several years ago, Ernie gave me an old printer. It’s an old reliable and I like it. It doesn’t speak to my new laptop, but it will speak to two laptops ago. (My last laptop had multiple organ failure and doesn’t speak to anything anymore though it is still in my house with a bunch of other old technology.) I scan to my old laptop and email the files to my new laptop or put them in the cloud—for some reason I am inconsistent in whether I email or transfer to the cloud. I can’t remember why. I just got bored writing this as I do when I am doing this, so that’s enough.
• I am old school. I like cash and checks. I like snail mail—I try to support the USPS, sending cards and letters when I can, buying stamps, shipping the most ridiculous stuff around the country for ridiculous amounts of money.
Recently they have disappointed me. The last package I received took seven days to get from Athens GA to Weaverville NC. (It’s approximately three hours away by car and 58 hours if on foot.) When I finally got it, all that was left of the label was the barcode and it had been opened—perhaps by machine. The contents were intact, and an apologetic oft copied note was inside saying (and I paraphrase), we do our best but occasionally sh*t happens.
The following is the history of another package’s journey from Anaheim to my house. I am doing this because, well, hopefully, no one is printing this out. I am fascinated how close it got in two days and then left the area for another four. I decided to post it at the end because it’s distracting and possibly only interesting to me. **
• As a follow-up to the above, I blame Amazon for making us feel like we had the right to receive whatever we want as fast as possible. I no longer expect that, but it makes me a little sad for the USPS.
• When I researched renting a car on the Faroe Islands, folks online recommended renting from a local company. That felt good to me, so I did. And I chose the “used car” option because it was cheaper and their description about how expensive it was to get cars to the islands made sense. My car is 10 years old and reliable—how bad could it be? I got a Skoda (Czech) Scala. It felt solid and looked great. One of my favorite parts was that on the few scratches and dings there were little stickers that said “Reported Damage.” Clever! All was fine until I was driving back from a lovely hike to the top of a cliff. The car started losing power going uphill, and many little lights came on on the dashboard. I got ahold of the rental co. They told me to bring it to the shop which was in the next town ‘near the little boats’ And I found them with that description--GPS couldn’t find them, but I did! They tested the car and gave me a new one. There’s a post it on the dash of the new one that says, “Just ignore the sensor light.” I did and all was fine.
• Packs of young men are the same around the world—they usually smell of cigarettes, they are teasing each other, and make more noise than they need to. Small children are also similar everywhere—they like to throw rocks in the water.
• At IWR, there was a panel of Icelandic writers which I really enjoyed. They talked about their experiences—one was from Switzerland but has lived in Iceland for 20 years, one wrote children’s books, and one was an academic whose family was from Norway, I think. They talked about becoming writers, the challenges of being writers in a country where everyone is a writer, and they talked about language. Not like words, but the language that they write in. The Swiss guy said that despite being fluent in Icelandic, he could never write a book in that language, he had to write in German. The others agreed that they wrote in only one language—their native one. Huh! Afterwards, I talked to the moderator of the panel who is an American (I think…or maybe Canadian?) living in Iceland for decades as a translator and said, finding a translator from German to Icelandic must be a challenge and he said, most translations go to English first and then to the next language. He agreed something could be “lost in translation” but interestingly, the Swiss guy said he thought sometimes the Icelandic version was better written than what he wrote in German!
• I took a workshop with Jesse Thistle, a Metis-Cree writer and academic living in Toronto Canada. He told us about his life but it wasn’t just about him—it was about his people. His story was the story of him but also about all of them. That would not happen in white America. I liked it. Then I go to the Faroe Islands and hang out with Susanna who teaches knitting in her shop in Kvivik, a small town on the island of Streymoy. She was telling me about her life but it was all firmly planted in the Faraoese culture—it wasn’t a “and then I did this” kinda story, it was a story of her people and their culture and how they reacted to things and moved along in the world and where she fit in. I’m sorry we have lost this connection.
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“Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn but is still being woven and mended and washed." Rebecca Solnit
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** Scan History of a package that bobbed around in the USPS system for several days. Start from the bottom.
TODAY Expected Delivery between 9:15am and 1:15pm
Feb 17 6:10 am Out for Delivery, Expected Delivery Between 9:15am and 1:15pm
Feb 16 4:51 pm Arrived at Hub WEAVERVILLE,NC 28787
Feb 16 6:27 am Arrived at USPS Facility WEAVERVILLE,NC 28787
Feb 16 4:06 am Departed USPS Facility ASHEVILLE,NC 28810
Feb 16 4:06 am Arrived at USPS Facility ASHEVILLE,NC 28810
Feb 16 2:37 am Departed USPS Regional Facility GREENVILLE SC DISTRIBUTION
Feb 15 10:26 pm Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility GREENVILLE SC DIST
Feb 15 3:47 pm Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility CHARLOTTE NC DIST
Feb 14 5:54 am Arrived at USPS Facility WEAVERVILLE,NC 28787
Feb 14 5:37 am Processing at USPS Facility BELTON,SC 29627
Feb 13 11:20 pm Arrived at USPS Facility ASHEVILLE,NC 28810
Feb 13 11:20 pm Departed USPS Facility ASHEVILLE,NC 28810
Feb 13 6:22 am Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility GREENVILLE SC DIST
Feb 12 4:36 am Arrived at USPS Facility MISSION VIEJO,CA 92690
Feb 12 3:58 am Departed USPS Regional Facility SANTA ANA CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Feb 12 3:03 am Arrived at USPS Regional Facility SANTA ANA CA DIST CENTER
Feb 12 2:35 am Departed USPS Regional Facility ANAHEIM CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Feb 12 1:23 am In Transit to Next Facility
Feb 11 9:44 pm Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility ANAHEIM CA DIST CENTER
Feb 118:29 pm Accepted at USPS Origin Facility ANAHEIM,CA 92806
Feb 11 2:18 pm Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item, ANAHEIM,CA 92806
