by Clara Parkes
Which was, as it turned out, well worth the humiliation. We steeped in steaming water, heated from the depths of the earth itself, while moody, snow-capped mountains gazed down at us. In the distance, the setting sun had turned the Snæfellsjökull glacier bright pink.
Someone had left an inflatable beach ball by the pool. Reynir (who was still grumpy from being locked out of the men’s dressing room by our one resident couple) picked it up and spiked it into Fanney’s face. She gasped, grabbed the ball, and retaliated. Soon we had a full-scale volley. The pool’s bottom was coated in a slippery mineral muck that made moving a challenge. We mostly took turns making dramatic leaps that went exactly nowhere.
Later that evening over candlelight and glasses of wine, we compared notes on the bruises forming on our thighs—gifts from the horns of all the sheep we’d wrangled. Ragga pulled out a cardigan and showed us how she cuts a steek. Lou Skyped with her cat, others shuffled sweater pictures to one another from their iPads. In the next room, a TV was playing Grease, complete with Icelandic subtitles. We all sang along to “We Go Together,” the knitters in one room, Icelanders in the other.
The next morning, we loaded up and headed north across moonlike terrain. We dodged glistening potholes and navigated bridges that got narrower and narrower until, finally, we reached one that belonged more on a miniature golf course than a formal roadway. Reynir stopped at the peak and yelled, “Everybody out for a swim!” Amidst our cries, he explained, Ragga translating, that the bridge was actually too narrow. He couldn’t open the doors for us to jump out, even if he tried.
We stopped at another grocery store and partook in more yarn; donned white cotton gloves to touch centuries-old handknits at the textile museum in Blönduós; continued to consume our weight in butter; and added swans and a lone falcon to our list of wildlife sightings. Over time, the persistent dramatic beauty became almost exhausting. Darkness gave welcome relief from the constant stimulation.
We returned to Reykjavík after sunset, our headlights joining a few others in what Ragga identified as an Icelandic traffic jam. And a day later, we assembled at a long table for our farewell dinner. We’d drunk our wine, made sentimental toasts, exchanged email addresses, and crunched the caramelized tops of our crème brûlée, but Ragga had one final surprise in store for us. Outside the restaurant, a row of taxis waited to whisk us to the suburbs, to a church where Ragga has been leading a knitting group for several years. Tonight was their big autumn gathering, we were their guests, and I was their guest of honor. They’d even announced the event on the radio.
The room was barely half full when we arrived. The more outgoing members of our group immediately trotted off, inserting themselves into conversations in that endearingly loud, unselfconscious way of Americans abroad. I, on the other hand, excused myself and went to hide in the bathroom. I always get jitters before public appearances. I worry that nobody will come, and I worry that the few who do come will be colossally disappointed.
When I did emerge, the room was full of women. Gone were the supermodels in high-heeled boots, the Viking reenactors in Converse sneakers. These people were quieter and more real. It looked like my old knitting group back home. Needles were already in motion, the room a murmur.
Following Ragga’s command of “Go mingle!” I took a deep breath and picked a nearby table. I walked up, put my hand on one of the empty chairs, and asked, “May I sit here?”
They glanced at one another, confused. Finally, their ringleader, a prison matron in a black leather blazer, looked at me and shook her head. I rebounded to the next table where they, too, consulted one another and shook their collective heads.
I spotted Helen from Rhode Island, perched at another table. She was knitting away while the others ignored her. She looked up at me and smiled a defiant smile that said, “I’m going to sit here all night if that’s what it takes.”
It was all going so terribly wrong. This evening was to be our cross-cultural triumph. Armed with nothing but the universal language of knitting, we would break down our cultural barriers, hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” Instead, it seemed like we’d blundered into something that wasn’t ours. I returned to Ragga’s table to lick my wounds.
Door prizes were another revelation. In the United States, the giving out of door prizes at any knitting event is like a game show. Everyone hollers and applauds for the prizes and winners. But here, as Ragga pulled names and handed out prizes (mostly copies of her knitting DVD), I soon realized we were the only ones making any noise. Everyone else seemed mortified at being singled out when their name was called. We quieted down and prayed we wouldn’t be picked.
When I finally got up and tried another circuit, I did find some people willing to talk. I met an older woman who’d knit a complete pair of mittens that night. Her granddaughter was with her, and we talked about Ravelry and popular hand-dyers and I gushed about how great it was to buy yarn in supermarkets here. She patently explained that this wasn’t actually considered a universally good thing. The availability of cheap yarn in the grocery stores hurts the smaller, more selective yarn stores. Just like it does in the United States.
Later that night I remembered the blanket I’d hoped to knit out of my supermarket yarn. It had already been reduced from a throw to a lap rectangle, the bouncy Icelandic roads telling my stomach I needed to keep the rows short and my gaze on the horizon. Now, I was determined to finish it—regardless of what it ended up being. I would not bring home yet another unfinished project to add to my pile of unfinished projects. If this was to symbolize my time in Iceland, it had to be finished in Iceland. I became determined to pack as many stitches into that thing as I could, as many experiences and lessons learned, before binding off, slipping the keys under my apartment door, and catching the bus for the airport. I wanted my departure to be steeped in symbolism.
The church bells tolled a fifteen-minute final warning as I plowed through that bind-off row. I’d been holding two strands together to make it go faster, but I’d still barely made a dent in the yarn. What would I do with all the leftovers? The Skyr was gone, and I’d poured the last of my Mjölk down the drain. But here, I faced a conundrum. My bags were already bursting with several sweaters’ worth of Plötulopi. I could only fit the lap rectangle or the leftover yarn. Not both.
Ragga had left for a gig in the States, and I was too embarrassed to ditch my yarn on her doorstep. After a quick hunt, I unzipped one of the couch cushions and tucked the yarn inside. I had just enough time to grab my bags and run for the bus. But I like to think that a little bit of me remains in that apartment, waiting for the next knitter to arrive.
When you first touch Icelandic wool, you might think it feels itchy, even off-putting. And so the Icelandic people, too, seem to have their soft and prickly parts: what they show to outsiders and what they reveal to one another.
In Iceland, you take the scratch with the soft, the darkness with the light. It’s a place of contrasts. Of many sheep and few words, of haunting vistas and freshly upheaved earth, of methane-powered garbage trucks and family trees spanning a thousand years. Pick a town, and half the people will be related, most will have seen each other naked at the local pool at least once.
It’s a lot to absorb. But with time and a good, long soak, it seeps in and leaves you longing for more.
BIG FLEECE AND FRIED DOUGH: West Friendship, Maryland
AFTER THE LONG MAINE WINTER, it’s always a shock to arrive in Maryland that first weekend in May. The air is so warm and sweet, the trees in full leaf, the dogwoods already past their prime. I fly through Dulles, an inconvenient airport but an essential part of the ritual. It makes me think of Madame Gehrels, my AP art history teacher, who first introduced me to this architectural landmark in high school. More than that, it reminds me of my grandparents, who lived nearby and begrudged this monstrosity when it was first plunked smack dab in the middle of nowhere in 1962. And last but not least, Dulles affords me a nice long drive north toward Frederick and then e
ast, through an increasingly rural landscape, to the Howard County Fairgrounds and the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
Though some might be older, few fiber festivals are as legendary as the Maryland show. It was launched in 1973 as a one-day Sheep and Wool Crafts Festival in Carroll County, attracting just 1,500 visitors. It soon became a two-day event, and by 1980 it had outgrown its home and was moved to the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, just a halfhour west of Baltimore.
Entry has always been free, with funding provided by the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association, and with additional support from the state agricultural fair board. That will be your first and biggest clue that this event, despite its overarching retail side, is deeply rooted in the agricultural tradition. Whether in the show ring or the adjacent barns, the sheep are the real beauty of Maryland Sheep and Wool. More than 600 of them are in residence all weekend. You get to watch young people caring for sheep, or showing their sheep, listening intently to the judges, proudly pinning their hard-won ribbons to the back pockets of their jeans. People come to take shepherding workshops, to watch shearing demonstrations, to find out about the latest, greatest livestock techniques. This is where the culture of sheep and wool, in its essence, is celebrated and passed on from one generation to the next.
The fairgrounds are buzzing with setup on Friday, with sheep and merchandise alike being unloaded from vans and trailers. A few civilians will wander about on their way to one of the more than forty shepherding or fiber arts workshops that began on Wednesday and run through Saturday. People come early to learn about everything from hand-carding and needle-felting to basic shepherding and methods for determining if your sheep need deworming.
While the gates are never locked, the fair doesn’t officially open until Saturday morning. At the crack of dawn, two sets of uniforms appear along the sleepy two-lane road outside: cops and Boy Scouts. The festival has grown so big in recent years that Howard County police officers show up in full regalia to direct traffic. At the height of the Saturday morning festival crush, traffic backs up nearly two miles to the closest freeway exit.
Once off that main road, the Boy Scouts take over with their freshly pressed uniforms, waving their orange hazard flags and looking adorably earnest if not slightly overwhelmed. Their task is to convince tens of thousands of drivers to park in orderly lines within a vast field that was only mowed a few days earlier. A good hour before the event begins, cars are already streaming in, people headed toward the gates, the air thick with the smell of lamb meat over flames.
In addition to the farmers showing their sheep, more than 250 vendors are set up across six barns and four exhibition halls, spilling out into fields and parking lots. Most vendors sell yarn, fiber, textiles books, tools, and even dye plants, but not all the vendors are directly related to sheep or wool. There’s the man in overalls who’s been cheerfully making and selling brooms for years. Or the couple that specializes in old hotel silver. Or the creepy guy hawking hunting knives. Who gets in, and how the volunteer-led committee decides this, is shrouded in mystery.
One thing is certain: Once you’ve managed to get a booth at Maryland, you don’t give it up. It’s like a rent-controlled co-op on New York’s Upper West Side. You include it in your estate plans. “He left a wife,” the obituary could read, “two sons, two grandchildren, and one booth space in the Main Exhibition Hall at Maryland Sheep and Wool.”
Eager beavers have already slipped in and surveyed the merchandise, browsing the booths and occasionally nudging vendors to sell before they should. Like sands on a beach, the vendor lines shift slightly each year. When I first started going, The Fold had a line easily 100 people deep. A decade later, Miss Babs and Jennie the Potter are both completely picked-over by 10:00 AM. Always, there’s a line outside the 4H barn for T-shirts and other festival souvenirs—and, always, another line outside the women’s restrooms. The lines seem to feed on themselves. We spot a line and get in it before checking to see what it is. Can so many people be wrong? Nowhere is the human flocking instinct more obvious than at a sheep-and-wool festival—and, in particular, Maryland.
Over the PA system, a steady soundtrack of announcements plays. It’s been the same man all these years, his deadpan delivery never changing. He scolds the owner of a blue Ford Taurus, Maryland license plate repeated three times, for leaving a dog inside the vehicle. “If you do not return to your vehicle immediately”—he pronounces each syllable of that last word slowly—“the Howard County Police will have no choice but to liberate the animal by any means necessary.” The next minute, it’s a report of a lost child. You’d be surprised how many upstanding parents lose their children on these fairgrounds. Other times, it’s a lost husband, or news of a sheepdog trial that’s about to begin. Always, the same voice, low and slow, shifting from cheerful to fierce as events warrant.
Those who stood in line with armloads of yarn for an hour, two hours, emerge from the checkout line triumphant. “What’d you get?” is the greeting. “I snagged three skeins of Zombie Grandma,” says one person, to which the other responds by showing a skein of something called “Skanky Hag” in the exclusive Formica Puppy colorway. (Hand-dyers are like microbreweries when it comes to naming things. The more nonsensical, the better.)
Pictures are posted on the Internet. Stories are circulated. Who has the biggest line? Who is the It vendor this year? Grand projects are plotted, excuses made, schemes hatched, sweater quantities stuffed into bulging bags.
Soon we run out of arms to hold all our purchases and the walks of shame begin. I use walks, plural, intentionally, for nearly anyone on his or her first trip to Maryland will make more than one walk back to the car. We smile and nod at one another in the parking lot, that unspoken, “You too, huh?” of the mutually guilty.
Back on the fairgrounds, the pace soon slows to a collective saunter. It becomes impossible to get anywhere quickly. Entering barns is like being swallowed by an earthworm. It’s best to surrender to the natural flow of its digestive tract, knowing, eventually, you’ll be pushed out the other side.
Feet begin to operate independently of the head. Our eyes dart to and fro, overwhelmed yet still trying to take it all in, while our feet, not quite receiving the signal to stop, keep propelling us forward, barn by barn. We’re like kids in a moving car, swiveling our heads behind us rather than breaking our gaze. We walk into one another. Baby strollers make the terrain even more perilous (another reason to wear closed-toe shoes).
Meanwhile, our natural signals of hunger become jammed by the sight of other people eating, by the smell of food cooking all around us. By 11:00 AM, we’re suddenly famished and ready to spend an hour in line for lunch.
Nowhere does the notion of “reasonable eating” go further out the window than at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. You’d better like lamb because that’s all you’ll find. Lamb sausages, lamb kebabs, lamb gyros, lamb chili and stew. If there’s flesh on the menu, it came from a sheep. The only exception being the food vendor in the permanent food building, who gets away with selling your basic mystery meats in tube and patty form.
Maryland is the place where freeze-dried scallions count as a vegetable, where I tasted my first deep-fried Twinkie, and where a bucket of glistening french fries slathered in Velveeta passes, quite reasonably, for lunch. Need a snack? Help yourself to a bag of candied nuts from the guy stationed outside the main barn. Do not be dismayed if your cone of vanilla soft-serve “ice cream” retains its shape long after melting. Or maybe you’d like a funnel cake? This fried dough squirted with strawberry goo and sprinkled with powdered sugar is a major festival tradition. Just be sure to eat it before the fat has time to coagulate. What happens at Maryland stays at Maryland, except for the food, which will remain in your arteries forever.
Last year, one brave newcomer managed to slip in with fresh tamales—including, gasp, vegetarian ones with shiitake mushrooms and kale. You could get lime-marinated coleslaw on the side. No mayonnaise in the slaw, just ve
getables. Word spread like wildfire. Business was swift. The line grew. And just as we were adjusting our ideas of what to expect at the festival from now on, organizers caught wind of change and shut it down. The vendor was told to leave that vegetarian garbage at home. This was a sheep-and-wool festival and they were to sell lamb tamales only, no exceptions. We’ll see if they’re allowed back.
Tables are at a premium at mealtime, as are benches. Soon people sprawl wherever there’s shade. Like pigeons, we line up under the eaves of barns. We gather in shade spots under trees. Some years, the heat is unbearable—once it topped ninety degrees. Packed cheek to jowl in a barn filled with wool, it’s easy to wonder if you’ve lost your mind. But other years, a glorious, temperate wind keeps the flags waving.
By the afternoon, the crowds and starch and sugar begin to take their toll on even the strongest of constitutions. We become artificially stupid, unable to think clearly or make wise decisions. Vendors love this time of day. The rest of the lines shift over to ice cream, or soda, or Styrofoam cups of instant coffee, anything offering the sugar or caffeine we mistakenly think will give us more energy.
When the stupor strikes, I head over to the animals for relief. Here is where I can see and touch wool on the hoof. Not just one or two sample breeds, but usually forty in total, representing the full spectrum from puffy white finewools to curly ringleted longwools and dual-coated primitives alike. Their bleating noises become your entertainment, the high-pitched urgency of a lamb or the deep, guttural belch of a Romney ram. One by one, we all begin imitating them.
The sheep are there to be shown, judged, and sold. They tend to be overheated and nervous but otherwise oblivious to the human politics of the event, unimpressed by the number of skeins you bought or the blue-ribbon Corriedale fleece you managed to snag at the fleece show and sale. Your regret over that last tub of curly fries goes completely unnoticed. All of which makes the barns a great place to be.
