Anna

Anna

I was going to miss my flight if I didn’t start running. I hoisted my massive backpack onto my already strained shoulders, grabbed my tote bag and sprinted down the corridor toward what I was hoping was my actual gate. Navigating foreign airports was nothing new to me as a travel photographer, but the Malpensa airport in Milan was quite the maze. As the gate finally came into view, I heard my name called out over the loudspeaker in beautifully accented Italian. “ Ava Kim, please proceed to gate D17 and board flight 924. Departure is imminent .” It took every ounce of energy I had left to accelerate my tired feet. The door of the plane bridge was almost shut when I nearly fell into the podium trying to hand the attendant my boarding pass. “I’m Ava Kim! I’m here!”, I breathlessly spat out . Without missing a beat, the attendant took my pass and ID, opened the bridge door again, returned my belongings and wished me a safe flight. I was the last to board and there didn’t appear to be an open seat . I made my way clumsily down the tiny isle trying to hold my backpack up out of all the faces that were watching me, some obviously annoyed. Just as I was about to give up hope that a seat would appear, a small, gnarled hand waved to me from a few isles away. The hand belonged to a kind looking little woman who seemed to be bent by years and arthritis. She patted the seat next to her after I had gotten my backpack firmly stuffed into the overhead bin, and I all but collapsed beside her. “Thanks so much for rescuing me! I’m Ava Kim.” She reached her little hand out to shake mine and introduced herself as simply “Anna”. “You're very welcome to sit and enjoy the journey with me.” Her heavily accented English peacefully lilted around us. Her eyes were nearly shut as she spoke. Not from weariness but restfulness. “Tell me where your travels are taking you Ava Kim.” As tired as I was, I didn’t mind chatting with Anna. I felt familiar and at ease with her, as if I had always known her. “I am on my way to the WestFjords of Iceland to photograph village life.” “Ah the beautiful Westfjords!” Anna’s face lit up as she continued. “I have so many lovely memories there! It is a place like no other in Iceland. So still sitting on the edge of the world. The only visitors are the Aurora and the wind. But the people are strong and good. They know what it is to work hard and to be joyful!” I found it wonderful to be sitting next to someone who knew what it was to be among these remote people. I wanted her to keep speaking and tell me all she could. We talked through the entire flight. She asked me of my life and work, somehow pulling my deepest fears, heartaches and dreams out of me with her wizened smile and her little gnarled hand resting on mine. I was shocked as the words poured out of me like a long dormant river. Powerless against the beautiful spell she had weaved around me, I asked her more about the village and what I would see. She spoke as if in a hazy dream of rugged fishermen and farmers. Of the women who knitted the lopapeysas. Of pink cheeked children returning home from the village school on their sleds. Of ancient cliffs that gave way to an often turbulent sea. Of the green and purple fire that lights the night sky. I pulled out my laptop to begin recording all that she had said. “I’ve never used one of those.” she chuckled. “Really? You don’t own a computer?” She chuckled some more at the shock on my face and explained that she had never needed one. “Oh I suppose I understand how necessary and useful they are these days. But Ava, there is magic in the written word, remember that! It’s something so many can do yet, your words are yours alone. An extension of you given life on paper!” With that she reached into her ancient looking wool bag and handed me a small black notebook. She placed it in my hands and wrapped hers around mine. “Ava I want you to do something for me. But you have to make me a promise. Don’t open this notebook until you get to the village. Can you do that?” I paused, not knowing what to say at first. My hesitation quickly faded at the look of longing on her face. “Yes, of course I will do this for you Anna.” She squeezed my hands and placed the softest kiss on my cheek. “You have made an old woman’s heart very happy!” Too soon the pilot announced that we would begin making our descent into Keflavik airport. This had been the strangest time of my life. I simultaneously felt unsettled and healed. I realized as we began deplaning that I didn’t ask where Anna was headed. She wasn’t moving out of her seat so I assumed she was traveling on to the flight’s next stop. “Are you headed on to Norway?” I asked . “Oh yes, that’s the plan my dear Ava.” Anna took both my hands in hers then and spoke to me in her native Icelandic tongue. I didn’t know the language but I understood her meaning as the words soaked into my heart. She loved me and wished me all the goodness of a life well lived. I hugged her and promised I would do as she asked with the notebook. “Wait, how can I contact you again? Do you have a phone number?” I was feeling a bit frantic at the thought of losing contact with her. “ It’s all in the notebook little one.” That relaxed me and I gave her another quick hug as I shuffled off the plane, once again loaded down by my belongings. The next day was a blur of various forms of travel. There was no easy way to get to the Westfjords. The final leg of travel was a terrifying flight on a tiny plane that I was sure would crash into the mountains, then a long wait to catch a ride with a returning villager. With just enough room in the farm truck for me, my backpack had to ride in the bed along with a sheep and some wooden crates. The farmer’s name was Asgeir. He was pleasant and spoke jovially of the villager’s delight that I was coming. The icy road hugged the craggy coastline below with nary a guardrail in sight. It was so narrow at points that I wondered what would happen if a car tried to come the other way. There was nowhere to move to but into the sea. We arrived in the village as the golden winter sun slipped away beneath the horizon. It was a strange sensation to me because it was only four in the afternoon. I began taking pictures as soon as we stopped. The homes there were small and colorful. The village looked like what I imagined a fairytale to be. Absent were the noises of civilization that I was used to. No cars and horns. No clicking and clacking of heels on a sidewalk. Just the crunch of feet on the soft snow, the giggles of children who ran to meet me and the occasional bleating of sheep in the distance. The stillness was disconcerting, but alluring. I would be staying in a bright little blue house. The family made a very hearty dinner consisting of a truly delicious fish and potatoes. I was full very quickly. I was shown to my tiny room next. It wasn’t very late but I was extremely tired. I laid on the bed’s soft mattress and knew that sleep would claim me soon. Just as my eyelids were too heavy to keep open, I remembered the little black notebook Anna gave me. Curiosity won against sleep and I retrieved it from my bag. It was old but still in good shape. Well crafted to stand up to time and travel. The first few pages had various notes jotted down as if she would write something quickly if a thought or something she observed inspired her. There was a sketch of a flower and a bee. A page of notes observing the patterns of sea life there. Even a half written letter to someone named Bjorn. Anna’s musings fascinated me.In her youth, she had been curious and hungry for knowledge. She wrote happy things and sometimes heartbreaking things. I was deep in Anna’s young world when a very old, neatly folded letter fell out of the notebook. At first I thought it was another nature sketch, but as I looked closer I realized it was a map of the village with the words “Please find” scrawled in the corner. Was this what she wanted me to do? I was sorely tempted to take my flashlight and go looking right then. I knew though that it was dark and cold and I didn’t know the lay of the land. In the morning was determined to find whatever it was Anna wished me to. When it was light enough, I grabbed my camera and the notebook and set out on my quest. The map led me to a bridge nestled over a waterfall stream. She had drawn a circle around one of the ends of the bridge. I looked to see if anything was there. I felt around and my hand ran into metal. I pulled out a rusty can that had probably been there fifty years or more. My heart raced in my throat as I worked the lid open. I blinked again and again trying to understand what I was seeing. I counted it twice to be sure I was actually holding twenty thousand dollars! Was it for someone there? I went back to the can and noticed there was a letter at the bottom. It was another letter from Anna to Bjorn. This one was not the light imaginings of a schoolgirl like the other in the notebook. It was a confession of deep love and desire. A gut wrenching goodbye to the man she never had the courage to share her true heart with. She was leaving the Westfjords but had left the money in the hope that he would come after her. I had to find out what happened to Bjorn. After lunch that afternoon, I asked the family if they were familiar with someone named Anna that may have lived there long ago. They suggested I talk with a villager named Bjorn who they thought had known her. Could it possibly be THE Bjorn? I soon found an elderly Bjorn sitting outside of his little boathouse. I wasted no time asking him about Anna. I gave him the letter and the twenty thousand. He asked how I could possibly know her. I explained my meeting her to his continued expression of shock. “Impossible” he whispered to me. “She passed away nearly fifty years ago. Died in a storm at sea. She’s buried in the town churchyard.” He shuffled back in the house and brought out a wrinkled old photograph. It was her. Even so much younger I knew. Chills ran up my body. I pulled out the notebook searching for an answer. There was a previously unnoticed note freshly written on the back page. “Now he knows. Thank you dear Ava! Live fully ! Live well!”