Decay

I suppose this year has turned out to be absolutely anything other than what I had planned or expected. I’ve done next to no writing, and I have nothing really to show for the seven months that have already elapsed. Maybe two weeks ago, I wrote a blog about everything that was going wrong in my life, but I didn’t publish it. It was cathartic. But basically, nobody will take over my store space, and my business partner is now out of the country. The space is empty and unused, but still costing me my entire monthly salary to serve no purpose whatsoever after my accountant failed to tell us very important information until too late.

We found out my apartment has been leaking and is filled with mold and bugs. Ironically, the bugs and mold aren’t a problem. The problem is that I’ve been living with that for so long, unaware. And we all know how trustworthy the guy I bought the place is… So, I’ve been staying with my partner’s family out in Mosfellsbær for the past month which has been a challenge of its own. Though I do enjoy being out in nature and up in the mountains. When will I be able to move back into my own home? Who knows. I’ve been waiting on a “piece of steel for the roof” for two weeks now.

That’s the essence of my unpublished piece I aptly titled, “1,000 Years of Misfortune,” because that is exactly how I feel: like I’m being forced to endure 1,000 years of misfortune in one year for no reason whatsoever. After all, all I’ve ever done is try to help people. In fact, my store got one girl to start her own jewelry line which is taking off. Meanwhile, my life has been me saying that I want to sit and play the piano for seven months. Now, I don’t even have access to a piano. I hope it makes sense why I would feel like endless misfortune has befallen me for no reason.

I’ve decided to leave Reykjavík. As soon as I can, I’m moving south. I have an offer accepted on a place in the countryside, and that’s why we found the mess at my apartment — while getting ready to sell. Every time I go downtown now, all I see are confused tourists, busy people in a rush, and traffic. It’s sad to let go of everything I started in Reykjavík, but all I can say is that that place is toxic. I learned so much about how things are run there and how people make it/the kind of people who make it. Anyone can, in truth, but what’s the point of banging your head against a wall for years in the name of hope? It’s hard to believe that three years already passed here for me.

Not that I have any regrets about anything. I learned a lot. Even all this wasted money taught me a lot about business: how to work with people, direct things, manage things, run things, organize, etc. It also gave me a good taste of the business world. Primarily how ruthless everyone is.

What’s next for me is a lot of rest. I’m frustrated because I don’t really have any space where I’m staying now. That’s nobody’s fault, but I’m supposed to have a driver’s license and an apartment in the countryside. Instead, I’ve been cleaning useless spaces and throwing money in a trash can.

The saddest part is that my writing group really did restart. And I’ve been so tired and overwhelmed that I’ve both been missing sessions and not had the energy to actually write anything. On the bright side, I’ve been reading a fair bit again. I even went back and wrote all my missing book reviews. I haven’t uploaded them here yet, but they are written.

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go downtown and set up my exhibit in the city museum’s window. My plan was to take new pictures for that, but I haven’t so much as touched my camera in months.

I did write one poem aptly titled, “Cruelty.” Here’s a small excerpt:

The sun shall rise again some day; my hope is to cast her surrogate shadow. Perhaps if mine should grow and grow, the sun should have no fear. If darkness all around me grows, then soon I’ll eclipse the moon. The weight of the world shall weigh my shadow till darkness swallows dark. Round and round the earth it goes; swells of darkness crash against me.

No concerts. No events. No meetings. Nothing. It’s been a harsh few months. Yes, I am learning what exactly is important to me, what I want for my life, who I want to be. But does it always need to be so difficult? For example, can I really not just accomplish one thing I set out to do? The gallery/store was a miserable failure. Now my home is a moldy construction site, and I’m essentially homeless. I was supposed to be writing a new book and taking pictures. I haven’t sat at a real desk in as long as I can remember. And forget learning Icelandic. I hardly have time to sleep as it is. Hence my poem.

The last thing I’ll say is something very dangerous: The creative community I so loved is ultimately a terrible mess. There’s no organization. There’s no distribution of tasks. There is no communication. I joined the board hoping to do something and make things happen. I wanted to organize groups and get our wonderful creatives out there. As in, hosting events both in and outside our private space, bringing people together, giving opportunities. What I learned is that nobody is really interested. I guess everyone has their own lives, and that’s the end of it. But the community is still marketed like this miraculous cure-all to community and creativity. That’s a lie. I’ve seen how things are run. Some things take off, but everything else fails because we’re expected to do all the work despite being the ones who pay to participate. One single guy runs the whole show. What else could be expected? And it’s all beholden to some mysterious board (above mine) that has nearly zero interaction with the members. A few of us have tried to speak out on all this, but like I said, nobody cares. At all.