Safe Words

Before the farm, there was Siglufjörður, my childhood home. 

The place I was born, where I grew up.

Where the cold winters melted into a wet spring, followed by a brief and unreliable summer that then retreated into a long fall.

Omnipresent in every season was the smell that permeated everything.

The smell of money, the adults called it; it was the pungent smell of the factories melting herring or other small fish I didn't know the name of, and pouring dark smoke into the clean air from their unfiltered chimneys. Day and night sometimes.

The adults told us we were supposed to rejoice in the bad smell. This was good; this meant money for everyone. It was the smell of money, the smell of happiness.

It still smelled awful, like something rotten had died, then died again and been left to rot a long time, before being incinerated. 

If this was the smell of money, then I wanted no part of it.

I remember that place in fragments: the way the light bounced off the water, the smell of fish and cold metal, the sound of voices that didn’t belong to our house. I spent my first year of elementary school there, living with my grandparents while my mother settled into life on the farm.

At the time, my life there felt temporary. Adults spoke about it that way — just for now, until things are ready. I accepted this without question. Children are good at waiting.

With my grandparents, life had edges but not claws. Mornings had rhythm. Words came easily. No one watched my hands when I spoke. No one corrected my tone.

When I moved to the farm full-time at seven, I thought I was joining my real life at last.

I didn’t realize I was leaving the last place my nervous system had felt safe.

I spent one full year in the local school near the farm.

That’s how I measure it now — not by age, but by duration. One year was enough.

I don’t remember the lessons clearly. I remember the feeling of being out of sync. 

Of trying to call someone "Father", but being ignored or told to shut up.

Of arriving at school, already tired, in the middle of the night, or so it seemed. 

Of words tangling on their way out of my mouth.

The stammer came quietly.

At first, it was occasional — a hesitation, a repeated sound, choking at the top of my throat. 

Then it stayed. It lodged itself between thought and speech, as if something inside me no longer trusted language to be safe. 

Teachers noticed. Children noticed. I noticed most of all.

At home, no one commented on it directly. Silence had always been the preferred response to visible damage. Acknowledging it would have meant acknowledging the cause.

I adapted.

I spoke less frequently.

I used smaller words.

Easier words.

Safe words.

Exodus

My grandparents came to visit one summer day.

I don’t remember it.

That absence in my memory used to bother me, until I understood what it meant. Moments that change the course of a life don’t always announce themselves to the person living inside them.

I was told about it years later by my grandmother.

She said she had observed me while the adults talked during that visit. She noticed how I hovered. How I flinched at raised voices that weren’t even angry. 

How I struggled to get words out, how my eyes searched faces before I spoke.

She said I looked smaller than I should have.

Something inside her snapped.

She told my mother that I was coming back home to the fjord with them. 

Not for a visit. Not for a trial period. Home.

Mother did not argue.

That fact matters.

I don’t know what passed between them in that moment — whether it was guilt, relief, or exhaustion — but I know this: when someone finally named what was happening to me, mother did not defend the farm.

She agreed.

Leaving

I don’t remember packing.

I don’t remember saying goodbye to the house, or to Orren, or even to my brothers in any clear way. Memory blurs there, as if my mind understood that it was better to let someone else handle the details.

What I remember is the car.

The back seat.

The steady sound of my grandfather driving.

The way my grandmother kept turning slightly toward me, as if to reassure herself that I was still there.

The thick smell of diesel from an aging engine that was still able to carry people where they needed to go.

No one explained what was happening.

They didn’t need to.

My body understood before my mind could catch up.

Something inside me began, very slowly, to unclench.

My words returned to me, timidly at first, wary of danger and ready to bolt again at the first sign of trouble.

Safe, without knowing it. Alert, suspicious, sceptical.

But alive, and not looking over my shoulders anymore.

Alive.

Aftermath

Living with my grandparents did not fix everything.

The stammer didn’t disappear overnight. Fear doesn’t dissolve just because the threat is no longer present. It has momentum.

But words became possible again. 

Silence became rest instead of vigilance.

School became something I could participate in rather than endure, even if I never felt like a part of the tribe.

I stayed in touch with my mother. With my brothers. The distance rearranged our relationships, but it did not erase them. If anything, it made certain truths easier to see.

I was not taken because I was rebellious.

I was not removed because I was difficult.

I was taken because I was being destroyed slowly enough that only someone looking closely from a distance could see it.

Someone did. Someone spoke up. Someone acted.

If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump out to save itself. The danger becomes obvious.

If you place a frog in a pot of water and only increase the heat gradually, it will stay.

For a long time, I believed I had failed by leaving. 

That something was wrong with me.

It took years to understand the truth:

Leaving was not my choice.

It was a matter of survival.

And survival, sometimes, arrives in the form of a grandmother who refuses to look away.

That chooses to speak up and take action, rather than just looking away in silent acceptance.

Of someone who cares enough to intervene.