24.5.2009

Here are a few chances from my own life:

 

Here are a few chances from my own life:

 http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/Ljosahlatur.mp3

1.

    In 1991 I was working as a deputy whose job was to find employment for disabled people in and around Keflavik, Iceland. For the reason that I wanted to find out what was happening in employment-matters of disables abroad I applied for and received a financial aid from the European Council allowing me to travel to London England. In London I got a great reception by people who worked in the employment-field and they lead me around this great city. I visited many places where disabled people were working alongside those who weren't disabled, job-centres and preserved workplaces, where met and had a chat with many, both regular and administrative people. One of the bosses informed me that he was connected to my hometown Keflavik; his son being the manager of the American bank on the NATO-base and was married to an Icelandic woman whom I recognized having been a neighbour of mine and a daughter of close friends of my parents as I told him. Of course he found it to be a remarkable coincidence. And that isn't all, for at the same moment I'm chatting with you your son's in-laws and my parents are together in sunny Spain licking the sun.

 

2.

    A week after my former fiancee broke off our love-affair telling me to stop calling her and she didn't expect to see me again, unless by accident; I was sitting alone at home in total idleness feeling bored, sorry and heartbroken. Then I get this brilliant idea of making an old dream come true, the dream of driving around Lake Elliði. The weather is quite meanless but with heavy skies this day in question when I drive along up towards the lake which is located in the outskirts of ReykjavÌk, my hometown. I'm able to drive by its shore farther and farther, the paved road becomes a track and finally a path completely impassable for ordinary vehicles. But on my tiny car scrambles, until the journey comes to a stop by a gate with a sign: Private road. I'm forced to take a U-turn, but because the clock is on the fourth hour pm I decide to go visit Kaffitár (coffee-tear) in the Kringla-mall.

    When I've entered the Kringla I stop at the escalator from where I'm able to look down at the coffee-shop, but infront of me on the second floor I see Hagkaup's cloth-store. By some preternatural impulse I postpone my coffee-drinking, but instead I walk into that large clothstore, where men's wear happens to be on the left side and the women's on the other. Again I seem to be guided by some invisible hand turning me to the right. On I walk, further and further without having an idea what I'm doing there. At the end of this department there's a women's measure-room and just when I reach it I notice a familiar behind-sight. The lady who'd told me she hated buying clothes happened to be here anyway. I close in on her addressing her with her name. She gets angry and accuses me of spying and pursueing her. But we know the truth. Was this not yet another coincidence.

 

3.

    My uncle told me an incredible tale:

    Before one of his acquaintances went to USA on a business-trip along with another he visited his high-aged mother intending to saying good-bye to her appropriately. His own uncle had himself journeyed to this promised land 70 years before, but no-one had heard from him since then and no-one had any idea about his whereabouts in this enormous country. Having embraced his elderly mom she asks him with her broken voice:

    -If you happen to come across my brother, please give him my best greetings.

    - Ye,ye my dear mama, I'll do that for you, he promises her, without really believing that he'll ever meet him.

    Having arrived to the USA the two Icelanders standing among the millions on a square in the heart of Chicago, chatting together in their Icelandic-language about their next measures, when an elderly gentleman approaches them speaking his American English when he asks them what was the strange language they were using, him finding it somewhat familiar. Just for making a short tale even shorter they discovered that this happened to be the relative who was to get greetings from his sister living in the land of Ice and snow.

 

4.

    My parents Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdottir and Eirikur Olafsson used to own a small leisure-fishing boat named after my grandfather Oli Ingibers. They fished a lot on marine fishing rods using several each time. Once when they were located in the so-called Gard-sea just out of the Gard-penninsula one of the rods broke loose and disappeared into the ocean.

    Several months later when they'd forgotten about the rod they happened to be fishing somewhere thereabouts, when mom hooked on something she believed to be a small fish and she reeled in expecting to get some tiny fish. When her hook emerges there's no fish but just another hook with a rubber-bait. Attached to the hook there's a fish-line. For some time she draws in the line. On the other end there happens to be a marine-rod, which happens to be an old friend.

 

5.

    In September of 2002 I sit down in the familiar Kaffi-tar in the Kringla-mall. In a short while a couple of American tourists approach me asking me whether they're allowed to sit at the next table and that's of course allowed. After we'd introduced ourselves our chatting becomes quite merry, and they ask me a lot of questions which I'm quite happy to answer proudly which is a typical Icelandic custom, but they tell me that they're living both in sunny Hawaii and California, him being the proud owner of several malls like Kringla back home and a millionaire.

    I happen to mention a woman from California I came acquainted with last spring several months prior to their visit, which I happened to come across in that same mall. Her name being Kelly Finn working as an ecologist. In April when I happened to be shopping there Kelly Finn greeted me as she was shopping also. We started chatting as it goes and after a few minutes I ask her whether she'd like a ride in my car and she says yes. She told me that she's fond of my country especially the Blue Lagoon which she's allready visited twice in her four day visit. We took a trip to the east where she got an opportunity to see Icelandic horces.

    This certainly is a small world they tell me for this Kelly is really a good friend of ours!

 

    Having published my story; My Incredible Life After the Accident, I drove around the south west part of Iceland where I live, selling the book in homes and companies. Sometimes there were various happenings that some scholars would probably pass as coincidences, and really did a lot filling upp the gap in my memory-bank about what really happened this awful week-end in question and really should and could be a part of this book you're reading. I'll tell you two stories that come to mind.

 

6.

    I used to visit companies and sell the book to friendly managers, maybe because in my former jobs I had come acquainted with many of them. Once when I'd spent hours on end in Reykjavik I got this crazy idea (one of my disabilities happens to be them crazy ideas I always make come true often with terrible consiquenses) to drive along to Gljufrastone, the home of Iceland's only winner of a Nobel-prize, author Halldor Kiljan Laxness asking him to exchange books with me. And on I drive, through Mosfells-town from where I take the road to Thingvellir.

    Having been on the road for some minutes I get the idea of visiting one of the farms or houses by the road with the intention of selling a book or two. On a hill to my left side I spot a wooden house, by which there's a car and there I turn. Having introduced myself and the reason for my visit the husband and wife surprise with a stunnig story, that the two of them happened to be one of the first people to arrive at the site of my accident 22 years earlier just before midnight September twentieth 1975. I was unconscious at the time so I didn't know about them.

    A few years after this surprise in our lives I and the mrses happen to teach at the same school in Mosfells-town. Is this a small world or what?

 

    Another coincidence-tale:

7.

    Another time having been selling my book in Reykjavik I was driving back home to Keflavik, but in stead of speeding home on the highway I take a turn to the right at Kuagerdi (cowfwnce) aiming to drive the sideroad by the coast because of some strange urge. On I drive not really being satisfied with my strange decision for going this much longer way.

    Midway I happen to see a couple, a man and a woman attending to a potato-garden by their summer-cottage. Should I try my luck? I stop my russian Lada at the gate, pick up my bag and walk along to them folks. As I come closer and closer my eyes become larger and so do theirs making them stop working, putting down their forks. This chance of fate was too incredible for the three of us. The couple picking up the potatoes happened to be my old math-teacher, Egill at the junior college at Laugarvatn and Gerdur, his fiancée and an former teacher at the Housewife-school located there in the village. The kitchen and girls in that school wasn't visited just by us boys!

    Having chatted some about old times I happened to pick up a book from my bag, but then Egill surprised me telling me that prior to our accident we had been partying at his place. This I didn't know.