Apparently our house has good feng shui. The front windows look to sea and the back windows onto this mountain. I don’t know anything about feng sui, but I like the views, particularly of our mountain. In the early summer it’s a wall of rock, in mid summer people wander over its green slope collecting berries and walking their dogs, in the autumn – this time of year – the low vegetation changes to deep oranges and reds. In the winter it’s a field of white: skiers sometimes swoosh past our dining room window, the steep walls behind them draped in icy sheets.
There are no trees on our mountain. No trees. That’s something that takes a while to get your head around. When we moved to Greenland, our son was five. He would draw pictures of our house surrounded by trees and flowers. Eventually, his little brain caught up with his new environment and his pictures transitioned into similar, but slightly different scenes: the house was still there, but the trees and flowers were replaced with rocks – lots of rocks.
I’ve always loved the rocks. They are beautiful in themselves – ancient grey walls, solid against the winter sky, peeping through the melting spring snow, pouring with water in the autumn storms. Rocks are just fine with me. But they don’t do it for everyone.
One spring morning I was chatting to a new employee in the lift at work. “What do you think of Greenland so far,” I asked. “It’s fine,” she replied, “but all these grey rocks are a bit grim.” She won’t last long, I thought.
But despite my love of the stark landscape, even I can admit that lush, green vegetation is a highlight of my trips outside Greenland. And I am not the only one. Discussing an upcoming visit to Australia, my son said wistfully, “I’m really looking forward to grass.”
