Butterflies and Goosebumps
Next Easter, April 16th, exactly five years will have passed since they day which was to be the highlight of my otherwise inactive religious life; I had my confirmation. In my religion - Lutheran Protestantism - the confirmation is traditionally supposed to be the most important day in the 13-14-year-old teenagers’ life; it is the day when they confirm the vows their parents made for them, when they were only minuscule human beings, to ’accept Jesus as the leader of their life.’ However, the latter part of the 20th century has seen the confirmation changing from being about confirming your faith in God into a secular festivity, involving big parties and a lot of expensive presents for the teenager. It is and has been, though, a rite of passage for a young person into adulthood. Obviously 14-year-olds cannot really be considered fully matured, but it is at that age that they stop being able to get away with things children can, and the line “you of all people, practically an adult, should know better!” starts ringing in their ears on a regular basis.
I remember waking up early on the day of my confirmation with butterflies in my stomach, or were they perhaps hummingbirds? I was both nervous and ecstatic at the same time. This was a day I had been looking forward to for months, since the preparations for the event had begun the previous autumn. Since thousands of kids confirm their faith in God around the same time in the Spring - usually the confirmation season lasts from March till early June - mothers race each other starting months before the big day, booking a venue for the party; booking caterers (professional, or as in my case, relatives); having colour coordinated napkins, candles and hymnals gilded with the kids’ names and the date of their confirmation; booking appointments with a hairdresser on the day, and a couple of weeks before to try the hairdo of choice; choosing and sending out invitations; booking an appointment with a photographer on the day; and of course there is much excitement, if not the most, among the girls finding the perfect dress or pantsuit. I remember I had a dress tailored especially for me, which I helped design (for I was very interested in textile design back then). It still fits, though it has got considerably shorter. I only used it that one time, but when I’m feeling particularly nostalgic I put it on, even when there is no other occasion than lying in bed on a Tuesday evening watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on TV. Just wearing that pink-mauve diagonal-seam dress brings me back to the day.
Despite the grey sky and cold drizzle, the butterflies kept on fluttering, as my mother drove the ancient Daihatsu from the hairdresser’s, where my mid-back length hair had been curled and wound like never before and weaved with burgundy ribbons and white flowers, to my aunt’s house, who so graciously had agreed to get up at 9 o’clock on a holiday to smear my eyelids with violet and pink eye shadow to match my dress, and even out the red-and-white colours of my complexion. Because of course I did not have a strong desire to remember my 13-year-old self as a spotty, bespectacled average Jane, when looking at the photos (taken by a professional photographer, naturally) years upon years later. We all have fantasies. I didn’t assume that the photographer would powder my face so heavily that I looked like a French 18th century lady-in-waiting on all the photos (at least my face is all in one colour; I’ll give the photographer that).
I was one of 12 kids who were confirming their faith in God at the Cathedral of Reykjavík on Easter Monday 2001. We all wore traditional white robes, so the only visible parts of our fancy attires were the boys’ shiny black shoes and the girls’ platform shoes, white lace gloves and coiffures. We all held our very own burgundy, white or black pocket-size hymnals gilded with our names - I’ve used mine frequently since then, being an avid hymn-lover and having often sung in mass with the school choir. I think that the time in church when I feel the best is when I’m singing. Most of the hymns are without doubt goosebump-worthy; that is, whenever I sing some 200-year-old Icelandic hymn with the choir I can feel goosebumps crawling up my back, my arms and inside me. But that day, goosebumps weren’t at the top of my head. During most of the mass before the big moment, I sat on a chair next to five other girls, and all of us smiling or plain giggling with excitement. Traditionally, the confirmands are to recite verses they have chosen from the New Testament but luckily, this had been changed so the pastor recites it, as otherwise I would have had a hard time restraining the laughter. It was a chore enough ejecting the word ‘Yes’ out of my mouth, the corners of which were stretched as close to my ears as possible, when the pastor asked me if I ‘accepted Jesus as the leader of my life.’ The verse I chose was Matthew 7:7 - ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’ because that is really the only verse of the Bible that means something to me - not counting the commandments and the Golden Rule, which, by the way, was the verse most of the others chose because they couldn’t be bothered to look for something more original. However, it’s not for religious reasons that it’s special to me. Almost every time I lost something when I was little and asked my mother if she knew where it was, she quoted this verse; ‘seek, and ye shall find!‘
After the mass and the photoshoot, a score and a half of extended family - about a quarter of the average number of guests at most other confirmands’ parties - gathered at my house for cakes and coffee. And all of them came bearing presents - and money. I was given the equivalent of 2000 pounds only for confirming my faith in the Lord. I am not going to lie: I did very much appreciate the festivities and presents, though it was in fact also about the religion, for me. Since then, however, the only times when I’ve attended church between Christmases are when the choir sang at mass. Almost a whole year has passed since the last time I did that, and I miss it terribly; not for the religious experience of being in the House of God and listening to His (or Her) word, but for the religious experience of singing hymns in His/Her honour.