Greenland. Day 28: The Last.

It's only when the little plane on the map shows you leaving Greenland behind, heading out over the Atlantic towards Iceland, that you feel the first sense of loss. You think back - inevitably, predictably, wryly - over your time there, to slips on the ice, to unimaginable, ferocious grandeur, to sheer, sharp blues and whites, to mountain panic, to the red of the seal's organs, to the flowers left for the man who crashed a stolen car, to the lovers who married in 1408, to the musk ox burger, to the elusive Thai restaurant, to the awful music, to the kids waking their teachers at 5am. You think back and you realise you fell in love with it, just a little, just enough to feel protective towards it, warm towards it, kind towards it, just enough to want to spend time with it again. And you realise that's because it offers no escape. 

There's no escape from dark and light and day and night in Greenland. There's no escape from the earth and the sun and the sky, from the real and the unforgiving. 

There's no escape from our collective past. There's no escape from the recognition that we've all run a long, long way from what made us, from what gave us life and will take life away. There's no escape from beauty and mundanity and everything in between.

There's no escape from culture and belief and language, from our ancestors' ancestors, from spirit, from our need to create stories that can explain, charm, defend, lash out, foretell, embed. 

There's no escape. And you realise then there's no escape from the desire and the love and the choices you've left behind either: and you're glad. Because Greenland won't let you avoid. Reflection is everything, everywhere. The place shines a light on you, one that lets you see yourself - a little - without noise or shadow. And that's why you need to love it, just a little.