It was my carpool night when I remembered that the bird mask was resting on the back seat where the girls from my daughter’s gymnastic team would soon sit. When I turned to check if it was still there, the fluorescent glow of the gym’s parking lot lights hit its eerily long white beak and hollowed out eyes in a manner that made me feel like a freak-mom for carting it around in my minivan for the last two months.
I’m embarrassed to say it’s just the latest move in my dance with the Medico della Peste, the plague doctor mask. Earlier that day I failed again to hand it over to the perplexed-looking person at Goodwill.
My son Leo brought the mask back from Venice when he went to Italy the summer after fifth grade. My friend Ilaria is from Milan. We met as founding members of the self-proclaimed Neurotic Mothers Group that spontaneously formed on our sons’ first day of kindergarten seventeen years ago. It was an oddball group of capable but anxious women, mostly first time mothers, that hovered at the end of the hall to compare worries.
Ilaria’s son and Leo became fast friends. By third grade Ilaria promised that if the boys were still good buddies at the end of elementary school she would take Leo on their family’s summer visit to Italy. I still have a clear memory of Leo’s only phone message from his Italian adventure bellowing out from an old school answering machine – “It’s Leo. Happy Father’s Day from Venice!”
Although the Medico della Peste is considered one of the typical masks of the Venice Carnival, its true origin dates from the 17th century and credits Charles de Lorme, chief physician to Louis XIII, as the likely inventor. He designed the mask and costume for doctors during the Bubonic plague that ravaged Europe, killing nearly two-thirds of the population. Plague doctors wore the protective dress when they visited their patients. Below is Charles de Lorme’s description of the full gear.
The nose [is] half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils, but that can suffice to breathe and carry along with the air one breathes the impression of the [herbs] enclosed further along in the beak. Under the coat we wear boots made in Moroccan leather (goat leather) from the front of the breeches in smooth skin that are attached to said boots, and a short sleeved blouse in smooth skin, the bottom of which is tucked into the breeches. The hat and gloves are also made of the same skin…with spectacles over the eyes.
In 1630, Venice was devastated by the plague, losing 46,000 of its 140,000 inhabitants which likely contributed to the downfall of the Venetian Republic. Over the centuries the mask’s association with death has lessened and it has evolved to become one of the most popular costumes worn during Carnival.
When Leo returned, he placed his newly acquired mask on his bookshelf. A few years later it made its way to the back of his closet. I knew it was in his room but it was not until four years ago, when we moved, that I became aware of mask’s influence.
Anyone who knows me will confirm that I have a getting-rid-of-stuff super power. It protects me from being swayed by sentimentality or emotion on my mission to unburden myself and others of the clutter that holds them prisoner. My rule for stuff is simple; if the item is neither useful nor beautiful then it needs to find a new home or purpose.
The bird mask is my kryptonite. Since our move I have tried to give it away a gazillion times, sell it at garage sales, and send it back to college with Leo. The mystery for me becomes evident at the moment when I should close the transaction – I can’t. It’s like the mask has me under a low-grade possession that doesn’t cause me any harm except for the fact that I cannot rid myself of the thing.
I’ve researched the Venice Carnival and the mask’s history in search of answers and scoured my motives to find the key to my release. I can’t point to a single rational reason why I cannot let go of the mask.
I know this sounds crazy but each time I’m at the edge of giving it away, I get this gnawing feeling that the mask is like a thread, that if released, will unravel my entire life. Maybe this is how hoarders feel about every item in their house.
So I’m stuck with the mask. It’s still in the back of my minivan. I’ve stopped explaining myself to the man at Goodwill because there really isn’t an explanation. He just rolls his eyes and asks if I would like a receipt for the other items.
We arranged to have an agent from Route 1 Car Rental meet us at the airport. We set off immediately on the 90 minutes drive, southeast, to the ferry that brought us, and our car, to Vestmannaeyer Island. Across from the ferry stop is the famed Seljalandsfoss Falls which was our introduction to the waterfalls in Iceland.
We then took the ferry back to the mainland and continued southeast, first to walk the black beaches at Vik and then northeast to Jokulsarlon and the Glacier Lagoon. Stops along the way included Skógafoss waterfall, hikes through bizarre desolate lumpy flatlands, and playing with cows.
Jokulsarlon, about 250 miles (400 km) from Reykjavík. The Hali had a good restaurant with accomodating hours for meals and the best black-out curtains in the rooms. It was freeezing and after suiting up in protective gear our group lauched at 8am, before the crowds, in two small boats of eight people. When I say small boat, I mean an inflatable row boat with an engine and no seats. We sat on the sides and held on to a rope. A person can only survive in the water for 30 seconds, so hold on tightly. We toured the bay for about an hour, going all the way up to the glacier. The entire time Georgia baited me with pretending to fall back overboard. The light in Iceland is very flat and that morning it was also thickly gray which made the blue ice more pronounced. Complete silence except for the sounds of the glacier moving and the river flowing below. Spectacular!
Iceland. Invest the time to research and ask the locals where to go – add stops if possible.
eastern highlands. In 1965 and 1967 a group of Astronauts from NASA came to the area to prepared for the first moon landing. Iceland has so many waterfalls that I stopped photographing them. It’s like the entire country has sprung a leak.
The view of Lake Myvatn is fantastic. From there we visited the Myvatn Natural Baths which are located just 65 miles from the arctic circle. They are manmade pools made from runoff water from the nearby Bjarnarflag geothermal borehole – which also runs a power station. Because of an algae that lives in the water, the pools are the color of a blue raspberry popsicle.
We stayed in a sweet guest house, The Hrafnin, in the center of town near pools and restaurants. Make time to see the bonanical gardens and the Akureyrarkirkja Church which is the symbol of Akureyri. It is a Lutheran church and was designed by architect Gudjon Samuelsson and consecrated in 1940.
donuts (lots of donuts) and drinking terrible coffee in the town square. Iceland has the best donuts I have ever tasted – now the coffee is another story. Icelanders probably do not need coffee because I have found that they’re naturally cheery and industrious – a spike in caffeine may throw off their even-keeled temperaments. The red stop lights in Akureyri are shaped like hearts – these are not people who need coffee.
established in 870 AD, which is touted as the whale watching capital of the world. The drive from Akureyri was about 40 minutes and was our most northern stop of this trip. We went out at 6pm with an unusually small group. They gave us astronaut-like thermal suits to keep warm but it was still so cold. The reality of the cold sea made me wonder about what possessed the Vikings to get into a their wooden boats. It takes an hour to sail to the where most sightings occur.
Can’t speak more highly of North Sailing for whale watching! I also recommend eating at Naustid next to the pier. We drove back to our guesthouse at midnight.
hobbitesque rock formations. In Icelandic lore the place is home to the Yule Lads, 13 mischievous trolls who have morphed over the centuries from children eaters to modern day prankster Santas. We then hiked up the Leirhnjukur crater and walked around the Kraft Lava Fields. Georgia has a hard time with the intense sulfur smell that is ever present. Leirhnjukur was one of the smelliest hikes that we had taken so it was more of a sprint than a hike.
produced all the milk for the dairy products. We had the most unbelievable ice creams – one was made with a local flower that tasted like clover and the other was made with pieces of the local dark, sticky, brown bread and it tasted like
grape nut ice cream.We finished dinner at 10pm but the Myvatn Natural Blue Baths were calling to us and are open until midnight in the summer. The near full moon, midnight sunset, and the steam rising from the ever-lowering air temperature made the pools look like another planet. It was about 11:30pm when we headed back to Akureyri.
It was magical and lovely until the sun went down further and the fog closed us in so we could not see further than 20 feet to any side. Icelandic roads are two lanes with just barely enough room for two cars, no guard rails, sheep everywhere, and 90% of all bridges allow for only one car to pass at a time. We did make it back, very slowly, but it’s not the end of the story… so when we finally get to our guesthouse, exhausted, we see a car pull up to meet another car at the end of the parking lot. We don’t think anything of it. I have never been worried about traveling as woman, alone with Georgia, in Iceland – even in the most remote areas. It honestly feels like the safest place on earth … until one of the men in the back of the second car jumped out wearing a Scream mask. Georgia and I ran to our guesthouse, and of course fumbled for our keys like all characters in a scary movie. We made it inside and they drove off. It was probably nothing, it’s Iceland – just another twist in a dream-like day.
3) They need to have trained their bladder prior to the road trip because no one wants a bathroom needy co-pilot. 4) The job includes music maintenance, first-aid, and gas station reconnaissance. 5) Co-pilots need to be cheery when on duty and can only sleep with permission from the driver. It sounds like a easy list to master but it takes a bit of practice for driver and co-pilot to fully synch. Georgia earned her co-pilot certification as we left Akureyri. When I got in the car I immediately noticed that she had placed 2 pieces of my new favorite Icelandic Eucalyptus gum in the compartment above the stick shift, the map was on the dashboard AND folded correctly, the GPS was programmed and the radio was playing a hipster Icelandic song. The synching of driver and co-pilot – now that is the meaning of a road trip.
spectacular tunnels. It was getting late and it took us a while to find our little apartment at Room With A View hidden in the center of town. The place was recommended to us by a friend who recently visited Iceland and it was perfect. I left Georgia to rest and walked to the grocery store to buy food for the next couple of days. After we ate, I walked around the city a bit to get a sense of the place. By then it was close to midnight and everything was quiet. I was first struck by the San Francisco-color-palette monopoly shaped houses, quirkily arranged. The city pulsated with a creative energy that felt a bit rascally in a very understated Danish way. I know that sounds like a messy scramble of images but it was my first impression.
sophisticated. The Icelandic creativity is everywhere – in most window sills, back yards and front stoops, in the graffiti (both sanctioned and not), in each flower pot, in the communal caring of the city’s cats, in the abundant public art, in the plentiful kind helpfulness.
up and yet their biggest city is created on a modest, comforting human scale – no detail or invention is too small to add to the cityscape. Like the tiny purple and yellow flowers that thrive in the cracks of the black volcanic rocks of the country’s dramatic terrain, the people of Iceland have found a way to masterfully adapt to their environment. I made a hybrid plan of day trips out into the country from our home base in Reykjavik but the focus was to live among the Icelanders. We grocery shopped, cooked meals, found favorite cafes for coffee and soup, talked about politics and favorite hot springs with locals and tourists from all over the world, did laundry and washed dishes, laughed a lot, swam in the public pools, listened to music, played and relaxed in the parks, visited art museums, and rode horses at Laxnes Stables. We walked everywhere. We were Icelandic.
historical and geological wonder that is Thingvellir National Park, where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart at a rate of a few centimetres per year. 
This is where most tourists visit when in Iceland. Having just completed our journey around the country, Georgia and I felt the Golden Circle was a bit like the Cliff Notes’ version of Iceland. We enjoyed Thingvellir National Park the most. In addition to the natural beauty, it is the historical site of Althing – the oldest legislature in the world still existing. It was founded in 930 at Thingvellir and continued until 1798 as an open-air assembly representing the whole of Iceland. We topped off the day with an evening at the famous Blue Lagoon. It did not disappoint, even though it was very touristy.
On our final day in Iceland, we took an early morning bus, about 45 minutes outside the city, and hiked to Thrihnukagigur. Inside the Volcano is the only place in the world that you are able to be lowered down into a volcano’s magma chamber – usually volcanic chambers are plugged or sealed shut during the eruption. In 1974 the chamber was discovered by young skier who was lowered, with a rope around his waist, 440 feet to the bottom. In 2011 National Geographic did a documentary on the chamber and 
devised an elaborate method to lower people into the volcano using an open elevator, similar to that used by window washers. The elevator holds only 5-6 people at a time and it takes seven minutes to ride to the bottom. Thick cable wires move the elevator up and down. The volcano was opened up to visitors in 2012. I’m very scared of heights and a bit claustrophobic so I looked at a lot of footage and pictures of the chamber prior to our decision to go for it. I was expecting the colors but not the enormous, cathedral-like size of the chamber. The guide explained the colors as being like glaze on pottery. I read an account that described the colors as looking like spilled oil on water. Each group has about 40 minutes at the bottom. Again, it’s a place to experience and not to take a lot of pictures. I have found that Iceland just shakes it’s head at my puny attempts to capture the true power of it’s landscapes.
in Reykjavik are organized much more sanely than in the states. There are many small museums throughout the city linked under an umbrella organization. I love it because it serves up art in easily consumable portions with no underlying panic that you will run out of time or attention span – even a teenager’s attention span. Each exhibit is also muti-sensory. As you can image, the landscape is central to the country’s art. We were pleasantly surprised to find how well women artists are represented at every museum.
Our favorites: Júlíana Sveinsdóttir (1889-1966 ), Ruth Smith (1913-1958), Kathy Clark (1967-), Hulda Hakon (1956 -). Of course we loved the the most famous Icelandic painter, Kjarval (1885 – 1972). He is beloved for his fanciful style and his love affair with Iceland and its people. We first saw a sculpture of Einar Jonsson (1874-1954) on the Westman Island and were grateful to find that he donated his home and all of his work to create Iceland’s first museum, located next to the Hallgrímskirkja Church in Reykjavik.
15 minute walk from our apartment. We swam, soaked, steamed, and Georgia did flips off the old-school diving board. We stayed until 10pm and headed back to pack. We look the bus to the airport which was easy and much cheaper than a cab.
Days in the Fifties 