objects in mirror

Still and clear, -10° C. Uncommon cold. Even the heated pathways are dotted with round lenses of ice. Facing Vífilsfell from in front of the main University building (usually the apparent source of all wind but today weirdly becalmed), a rising column of steam is visible in the distance, over the hill, past what used to be marshland, on the far side of Hellisheiði.

Sometimes the visibility here is shockingly good. Gott skyggni. Esja towers over the downtown, despite the intervening old harbor between. Things in the far distance hang just beyond the fingertips. Snæfellsjökull glitters too near. Bessastaðir and Keilir poise themselves to rush down Suðurgata at the careless driver. Every lava outcropping and tussock on Suðurnes imposes itself on the eye.

Other times I am grateful for the suffocating fog, and sometimes when that insulation lacks I wish I could hire Georg Guðni to work his magic on the landscape just for me, dull the sharp edge of sight so that it does not cut so readily or deep. Skyggni is not an unmitigated good, and some days I would prefer my skyggni mitigated.

I heard once of a seer, a woman who was skyggn and saw things other people did not, who didn't care much for parties. In a crowd, she could not tell the living from the dead or earthly men from hidden folk and so greeted everyone. This was both distressing to the host and other guests and taxing for her, and so she avoided social events.

I think of her on painfully clear days, when distant things crowd the mind's eye.