Music Monday: Sæglópur by Sigur Ros

I got the heck out of dodge. By dodge, I mean ‘Winnipeg’ for a short gateaway. Technicially, I needed to stay home for 14 days to make the vaccine gain full immunity. In the end, I wanted to get out and have some time away from my condo, away from the city, and return to a place with a lot of memories.

We used to go for short trips in the summer, staying with friends at Winnipeg Beach, then loading up adults and kids for a walk around Gimli. It’s hard to say the town’s name after Lord of the Rings and not think about about Elf-friendly dwarf played to perfection by John Rys Davies. However, Icelanders did settle here in the 19th Century. It proudly displays its roots and I will talk more about the trip in another post.

The town sits on Lake Winnipeg, a freshwater lake that’s the 11th largest in the world and the third largest lake within Canada. A friend of mine doesn’t like it, describing its waters as ‘angry’ but said something that stayed with me:

It’s like an ocean.

No wonder some Portuguese loved having cottages around the area. We are land-locked in Manitoba, but we do have some tasty fish like pickerel. The commercial fisherman in Gimli set out before 7 am to begin their day and saw them head out during a day when I got up at -gasp!-4:35 am. (I got up and stayed up.) Gimli’s pier also holds a special memory for me. I had a teaching interview up in Arbourg and I really wanted the job so I can live in the area. The interview felt weird and I learned later the job went to the husband of a resident. On my way back, I parked my car and walked in my heels on the pier. I closed my eyes and got the sense this teaching path was not for me, not in the way people say it must be done. It kicked off two years of getting a feel for what I wanted and I left the teaching profession. I never forgot the waters, temperamental they may be, and once again closed my eyes to listen to the water.

The song popped into my head. The title means something like ‘lost at sea’ and has Icelantic and a Hopelandtic, a nonesense language based on Icelandtic according to my quick look ups. I first heard it on a Netflix show called Sense8 (RIP this show) as the characters makes a gateway after rescuing one of the members. (It’s from one fo the makers of The Matrix and that should tell you why going into detail would be difficult.) The piano chords sound like calm waters before the wind kicks up to make them choppy. It’s a pretty song and it made the most perfect good-bye song for this trip. Sometimes you have to return home and learn to see things with some new perspective.