Duglegur
Kneeling over the garden bed, I stab my trowel into the compacted soil, pull out a long dandelion root as thick as a carrot, and toss it onto the pile of upturned weeds. Dandelion greens are edible, but after seeing the neighborhood cats use my yard like a truck stop bathroom, these will not make it into a salad.
A volcano an hour away spews gas into the atmosphere — sometimes I check to see if the toxic fumes are headed towards Iceland’s capital area, but breathing in sulfur dioxide seems inevitable — it’s the fifth eruption in three months.
I hear the click of a cane hitting the paving stones and turn to see my neighbor walking towards me.
“Þú ert svo dugleg,” she says, meaning that I’m a hard worker. Duglegur is a tricky word to translate. It means to work hard but also implies a person of strong character. Resilient.
The early morning sun shines on her closely cropped silver hair. Her thin frame is draped in a cardigan. She was the resident gardener of our apartment building before a bad back took her out of commission. Now that task lies to me.
And what a task it is.
There’s grass growing in places where grass shouldn’t grow, like on top of the moss covered stones. Before we purchased our apartment I noticed the neglected beds, which contrasted to the well-maintained lawn, but was too pregnant to do anything about it. Now that my newborn is a good sleeper I have time in the mornings to play in the dirt.
“What are these?” I ask my neighbor in Icelandic, pointing to clusters of leaves that look like bedraggled parsley.
“Sóley,” she says, which I understand to mean creeping buttercup. She tells me I can pull them out. Their spindly stems branch off in every direction, rooted between actual flowers. It’s a hopeless cause.
I pick out faded yellow wrappers of Þristur licorice candy buried in the tall grass. Nicotine pouches, plastic yogurt cups, Sómi sandwich wrappers, and a bent piece of metal. Underneath the trash are flowers trying to come out. Flowers whose names I don’t know yet.
When I moved to Iceland, during record-high tourism, long-term apartment rentals were scarce and the already challenging rental market grew even more desperate. Gardening seemed like a luxury, a sign of stability just out of reach.
Digging up another dandelion, a fat pink finger pokes out of the dirt. No, not a finger. A worm. A well-fed worm. The air is crisp and I’m glad I’m wearing a wool sweater, even in June.
When I go on vacation, I learn that the volcanic eruption has ended. Lava breached barrier walls, threatening a power plant and the famous tourist destination, the Blue Lagoon. I come back to a garden messier than when I started. A vegetal mutiny.
Weeds have spawned weed babies: they’ve held a family reunion in my absence. The dandelions are knee height; the stalks make a hollow, resonant snap when I decapitate them. The creeping buttercup is, dare I say it, pretty with perky yellow flowers that add a visual punch to the beds. Wild grasses choke out the columbine and lupine. Arctic poppies dot the periphery in pops of high visibility orange and yellow.
After two hours of pulling weeds, my hands feel numb with cold. The yard is scattered with bags filled with garden waste for the recycling center. When I observe my work from the balcony, it looks like I’ve done nothing. I resign myself to the fact that the garden is a multi-year project. These weeds may be duglegur. But so am I.