PORTLAND, Ore. – It’s early in West Portland, and although the mid-morning sun is still passing through the panes of her living room’s window, Dagný Brynjarsdóttir has turned to the shadows. It’s only for a moment – to remember what she once was – but in that moment her mind’s gone back two years, when she was only herself, to think about an old fear which, in day’s light, seems banal.
“I’m really scared of the dark,” she says, habitually placing that fear in the moment, even as she describes moving on. “When me and (former Portland Thorns teammate) Nadia (Nadim) would be roommates, and she would go to (her) national team when I was injured, I was scared to death of being by myself here, even though a lot of my teammates were alone.