Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - parting

My last day with Connie. I don't know how I can bear it. In the afternnon I booked a taxi to Iraklio where I where I will pick up the boat to Athens and then the Magic Bus. And then what? Maybe I’ll take it all the way to London and stay there awhile. Find work in a bookshop or something. I won’t go back home until I can return on my terms and that might not be for years. Having some sort of a goal feels good. I will miss Connie enormously.

For her part, Connie has declared she couldn’t possibly stay in Greece any longer without me. While we ate a little dinner and drank a lot of wine at a place along the shore, a boat owner came to our table to chat, accompanied with two rather unhealthy looking lads. He captains a 54 foot charter vessel and after much talk and flirting banter asked if one of us would join him and his crew to make up their full complement. It sounded suspect to me but Connie shot up her arms and said, “I can sail. I will go with you! When do you go, tomorrow? Because I will only go with you if you go tomorrow. I must leave tomorrow! Oh this is meant to be. Our goddess is watching and planning for both of us – you in the air and me in the sea. I am speechless with joy!”

We stayed up all night, packing and talking. No amount of concern on my part over the veracity of the boatman's offer would dissuade her. Connie’s boat left at first light and I walked down to the jetty with her to see her off. One old man, arms like rope, was silently whittling on deck with a surly look on his face and a cigarette dangling from his downturned lips. He barely looked up as we arrived, and pointedly turned his back when it was obvious we were about to intrude on his morning quiet. I wondered at how his life is about to change with Connie on board! We stood close together not really knowing what to say, and then the bleary-eyed captain appeared with an impatient hangover wave to Connie. As she started to go down the gangway, Connie suddenly turned and ran back into my arms, tears brimming, saying “Thank you for being born!” then just as quickly leapt away. The boat threw off its lines and moved off, the sun shining on her bright blue hull. I saw my long dark shadow in the water until the boat was no more than a tiny speck, then turned and woke my sleeping taxi driver.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - full moon

We are staying in an unfinished hotel located just outside Hania for $1 a night, and even have use of a kitchen, although it's not what anyone would call a kitchen by regular standards. It's in a corner of the unfinished top floor, littered with bricks and open to the elements on two sides. But there is a hot plate and a cement sink with a cold water hose, and with buying food daily we have no real need for a fridge.

"It's perfect" declared Connie when we saw it for the first time. "You can cook an egg, boil water for tea and clean the wine glasses - anything more is unnecessary luxury."

After one of our daily shopping expeditions into town Connie and I took a long walk along Hania’s seafront and I told her I thought I must part from her soon and go on to the next phase in my life. I had been worrying about telling her and had saved it inside until I couldn't wait any longer. Travelling with someone is not always fair. It has helped, magnificently, but I’m hardly an enjoyable companion now that I am trying to plan my future and make decisions about what to do next and how to earn the money to pay for it. Connie has been bankrolling me for the last two weeks and I hate it. She says I more than pay for it with cooking and companionship but I can't do this forever. Nor do I want to. I need to be productive, to produce something. The haggard, bearded, limp and straggly travelers who drift for years on end, living on Greece's beaches and towns, is repellant to me, the worst kind of parasite. To my relief Connie flung her arms around me, saying it was the most wonderful thing I could ever say to her and it was about time and that I will become some famous person and she will read about me and be so proud. She said “You’re always fussing with words and maps. You should be a hydrographer, or a cosmographer. (She constantly amazes me. How on earth does she know these words?) And I see you always scribbling down recipes. You must be a good cook. You should include chef in your list of careers. Call me when you do.”

I find to my surprise I do have ambition, although for what exactly is still to be revealed. I don’t want to leave room for second rate. As soon as I find out what I want to do, I will do that. And if I want to do more than one thing, I will do that too. For the first time in a long time I am excited about the future.

Mans' life is measured by the work, not days.

No aged sloth but active youth hath praise.

Andrew's death has sent me forth with more inner strength and courage then I ever knew I had. I couldn’t see it before. I didn't really care what happened to me, so long as I could escape the pain of living in familiar locations and being aware of the pain within. Traveling allowed me to focus on external things and cover the agony in my heart with distraction. I know now why I left home for this wandering time. The last thing I wanted was pity, purring words and soulful looks from friends and family and people I didn't even know, sympathy rather than empathy, that would make me well up and feel as if I had to perform some feat of life I was incapable of. Cry without stopping. Lose control. I couldn’t bear being the centre of attention that way.

Let me stride out and think and work my brain. Let me berate the universe while tramping over the earth, tripping and falling occasionally but proceeding. Let me cry a storm and fill myself with honest feelings I don’t hold in for other’s sakes. Let distraction be provided with new places, activities, timetables, understanding new languages, trying new foods. Let me walk and ride and sail and run and drive and fly. I need to move! I never did like spiders, but cobwebs I like even less. And now I’m ready, not just to move, but to move forward.

There was a full moon tonight, and as I went to the bathroom down the hall I caught sight of it through the window. Its light made me catch my breath and I stood there by the open window, breathing in the intoxicating fragrance of night, feeling that tingly pain beauty brings. Life can be good. What it took away from me it also gave me – the grief I feel now is matched by the love I felt before. The joy I have had far outweighs this pain, however impossible it sometimes feels. Time really might be a great healer. Shame it is such a lousy anaesthetist.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - revelation

We decided to stay another night or two in Agia Roumeli. It’s quiet, we have nowhere else we have to be and Connie’s ankle, which is thankfully unbroken and only badly sprained, could use the rest. The surf pounds in foamy waves on the black sand, no land between us and Africa. Overnight I seem to have changed. Just a bit, but definitely changed in some deep down way. The obvious catalyst was yesterday's adventure, but maybe it's just been time. I had felt detached, isolated, dreading this anniversary of all anniversaries and yet am oddly calm about it now that it is past. It feels longer than one year. Surely it’s twenty, or a life time ago that you left me! The summer stretches out in front and I wonder how I might fill it. How long will I live? How long before I see you? Will you wait for me? Every day brings me closer to life’s end. But every day takes me farther from you and our time together, the memories already beginning to shift so that I can’t remember if it was a Tuesday or a Thursday, if you wore blue or green. I don’t know what I want more, the sharper memories of months ago, or less time up ahead to have them.

Such a maligned and feared creature is Death. Shunned by those who don’t want it, avoiding others who do. I don’t see Death as the formidable power I did as a child, but more as sort of a civil servant. I imagine Death looking at its daily ‘to do’ list and saying to itself, “Let’s see, 22 today. I’d better get an early start, two of them are going to be lingering and quite difficult.” How ironic if cruel, cold powerful Death is in reality a frail wizened old spirit in a grey suit.

“You need to date more,” Connie says out of the blue, looking at me.

Date! I tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but she continues. “I know it’s not because you like women more. We would have had sex by now if you did. You definitely need more sex in your life.”

“Connie! I had no idea you were a lesbian.”

“I am not a lesbian. I like men but I also like women. Women are so much more sympathetic and make the sex good for both, but there’s nothing like a good man!”

She makes me laugh no matter what she says. “I have decided to remain single”, I said to her. "Nice old maid Auntie.”

“Ridiculous. You are just feeling that way because your boyfriend is gone.”

I was incredulous. How did she know?

“Oh poo. I see the photos, I hear the songs, I read your book." (she reads my journal!?) "I know all about it.”

“You know nothing about it,” I flashed back angrily. How dare she read my journal!

She grasped my hands in a vice grip and bore into my eyes with hers, saying, “I love you. You are the most important person to me right now and you are in such pain. Tell me all,” in a way that caused tears to sting my eyes. She looked at me with those piercing sympathetic eyes and I couldn’t stop myself. The wall finally broke and everything just spilled out. I told her everything. I told about our last night together and how you asked me to marry you and how we wanted to keep it a secret for awhile, known only to ourselves, something we could treasure before letting it out into the world. About how you went off Friday night with three cars full of your buddies, while I went to bed early so I could meet you for breakfast the next morning. That Friday had been a perfectly golden day, the air lush, breathing green and gold, filled with unseen pulse. It was a day for wondrous things to happen.

However, it was the next day, a day of heavy clouds that it happened. I remember the smell of that gray morning, dusty and hot. A persistent blue jay calling outside my window. Sean arrived at my door instead of you, shaking. He wore a dark blue shirt that was rumpled and wet.

“There’s been an accident on Taylor Street. Some guy ran a light - it was his fault - I think he was drunk. He hit....the side. I saw it in front of me. Andrew was – he tried to swerve - but....” There was a long pause and my heart crashed inside my ribs. “Andrew's in the hospital.”

My reactions were quick and bland, the schoolteacher taking control. I kept order, reassured him. “Everything will be all right. It’s probably just a concussion or a broken bone. He’ll be fine. We’ll go down there together. Everything is ok.” He was a sobbing jelly and I hugged Andrew's best friend from childhood, feeling numb but oh so strong.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll drive. It’s okay.”

Of course it wasn’t. Your family was there and some others I didn't recognize, some of the guys you were with last night, all standing in little groups or holding each other and crying. I looked around confused, swept into the keening circle.

“But where’s Andrew?” I asked. “Where is he now? I don’t understand. What room is he in?”

No one said anything. I persisted, feeling hysteria rising. “Where is he?” We were guided down a long corridor that smelled of bleach and into a small dark room. Still no one said anything and I turned to Sean and stamped my foot impatiently, “What is this, Sean? Where’s Andrew?”

He didn’t even look at me when he said quietly, “I… don’t think he made it.”

Whirring sounds then nothing. It was like I was in a vacuum. I could see but I couldn’t hear. I stared in front of me, Sean suddenly invisible. What did he mean? What happened? Andrew can’t be – He must be just hurt, injured – not –. I couldn’t even think it. Someone from the hospital came into the room and said in a quiet voice that a decision had to be made about what to do with the body. The body! Your body! My God, can it be they were really talking about you? That you weren’t sick in some hospital bed, or about to shuffle into that room on crutches. Searing pain punched me in the middle of my body and washed over me as realization hit. I broke away from the cloying and clutching group of strangers sobbing. I couldn’t stay there. I had to do something. What could I do? My body started to shake and I could hear the edge in my voice. “I’ve got to go.” I had to get out of there.

I can't even remember getting to the car, or driving out to the hills. Climbing higher and higher. Feeling claustrophobic, I left the confines of the car, somewhere, and started to walk. Along lanes, down the middle of roads, through meadows, under groves. Oblivious of everything but the rhythm of my feet walking, walking. Completely unaware of how hot it was or what was around. And yet I can still remember the smell of the earth under the trees, the sound of leaves moving in the hot air, a dog barking in the distance. A buzzing plane. A lawnmower somewhere, one of those big ones you drive. I had no idea where I was, I just had to walk. I walked for miles and hours, ending up back in town, back at my apartment somehow, long after the sun had set. How did I know where to go? Throughout the entire night I continued to pace, in a circle. I went through the living room into the dining area, through the little kitchen across the hall and into the bathroom, then through the other bathroom door into the bedroom and out in the living room again. Around and around and around. I didn’t answer my phone, I don’t even know if it rang. Just walking around and around and around. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.

My words came out to Connie in a rush. I didn’t realize how easily it would just flow out of me after having been kept inside for so long. Putting it into words made the emotions flood in all over again. My face was hot and streaming but I couldn’t stop until I’d finished. It felt like I was hearing someone else; it was my voice, but it didn’t seem like me talking. Unloading to her, I heard myself for the first time in a year. We both cried like babies.

Connie put her arms around me and rocked me so tenderly as I shook uncontrollably, huge wracking sobs loosened from some imprisonment, all control lost. After my heaving cries became just tears, she pushed me back, her hands on my shoulders, staring into my streaming eyes. “The ancient Greeks said dead loved ones drink the blood of their live lovers. That way they stay alive in the heart and mind. The more dear the loved one the greater amount of blood is drunk. Your Andrew is drinking well. He is awash!”

She held me again until I was empty, a shell of flesh, all emotion drained. And stangely calm. I thought about what she said. Do I believe in life after death? I don’t know. I want to, I need to – the alternative is just too awful right now. We sat silent, watching the sun set and the moon rise until we got too cold.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - trial by trail

The Samaria Gorge trail starts high in the hills, and our bus passed tiny villages clinging to the sides of cliffs on our way up to the trailhead. It pitched along at high speed and I flicked the curtain aside to see what the landscape was like. On one side a steep rocky mountain with boulders supported far too many others precariously. On the other side of the narrow road was an equally steep plunge down to rocks and rivers. I looked up to see a village impossibly high above us and then we would pass it and I’d see it again way below as we curved around in our climb. We’d swerve to avoid a boulder on the road, bounced through potholes the size of small cars and swung around hairpin turns past collections of little shrines, testament to the lack of guardrails. I was mesmerized by the landscape, and both petrified and thrilled to think how easily I might become a permanent part of it.

The inhospitable Gorge saved Crete in the Second World War. German soldiers couldn’t get through it without being picked out by Greek gunners hiding along its narrow length. It’s deep too, cliffs rising straight up, the gorge forming a thin narrow scar across the lower half of the island. By the time we'd reached the start point, we were the only ones left on the bus. We'd barely got off when the bus slammed its door and dashed off on its downward climb as we began our own downward climb, following a narrow, gravelly ledge. It seemed to go on forever, and our knees started to feel the fatigue of descending a steep uncertain trail, when it finally leveled out at the river. We carried a light load having left most of our things in Hania, a good thing with the many crossings we had to take through the river’s strong current, taking our shoes off and carrying them to keep them dry each time. Despite a hot, stiff breeze, the water was so cold my feet quickly became numb. Even though we'd been prepared through the warnings we'd received, we were surprised at the height of water. Guidebooks describing this trail mention the occasional need to wade through water, but some of this was thigh high and very swift, requiring slow and very deliberate steps to avoid losing balance against the current. The sun followed us the whole way although we barely saw it, the cliff sides rising steeply to reveal only a little patch of sky above. Its beauty was stunning and I caught myself stopping and just looking up at a line of blue sky far away.

During one river crossing we rounded a corner and a sharp gust of wind hit us square on, sending us sprawling onto the slippery rocks. Thankfully it was at a low part of the river and I didn’t get very wet, although my tailbone sure hurt. Connie fared worse, falling heavily and on her knee, twisting an ankle sharply. She yowled in pain. I looked around for assistance but of course there was no else near. We hadn't met one other person on the trail. I guess everyone else was better at following local advice as to conditions than we were. Connie tried to stand but sank back down trembling, not able to put weight on her left foot at all. Her face was white.

“Bastard! How am I supposed to walk with this? This bastard river and its bastard rocks.”

I took comfort in the fact that she was still not speechless. But how would she be able to complete the rest of the demanding route? I couldn’t carry her.

No more reveries. I tightly wrapped a tee-shirt around her knee and took her pack. Looking around I spied a stick of wood that would do for a cane and helped her up. Time was getting on and we had a long way to go, so I threw her arm around my shoulders and we slowly hobbled forward.

It was a spectacular place and there were times when I was grateful for rest stops so I could just take it in. All day we moved slowly forward, a seemingly endless shuffle over rocks, around bends, through water. For a brief time just past midday the wind stilled and the sun shone straight down on us, hot and severe, but it soon passed behind the cliff face above and the its shadow gradually climbed up the oppostie cliff. Connie kept up a drift of rhetorical conversation as we bumbled along, which didn't require me to respond in any way and so was of great comfort despite it being a rambling soliloquy on the uncertainness of her future and difficulties in finding someone appropriate with whom to mate. The trail seemed to go on and on. One good thing about a gorge, you can’t get lost. After a few hours the cliffs softened a bit and the light changed just as we came upon the most romantic abandoned village, stone walls overgrown with vines and old olive trees laden with fruit in a last bid to propagate the species. Mangy sheep wandered here and there, spoiled in the amount of lush grass they could choose from. The empty houses must have sheltered Greeks in the war. Now they looked out with hollow windows, walls slowly settling closer and closer to ground level from time and neglect. I thought maybe we could stay the night under cover, so that Connie’s leg could rest, but she demanded to move on. I am afraid to look at her ankle: it must be swollen and purple, but maybe she’s right to move it. The sooner it gets looked at by someone who knows about such thing as fractures and broken bones the better.

As the sun moved down behind the lowering hills I tried to convince Connie as well as myself there was still ample light to follow the now grassy trail. But we were soon running out of such comfort. What would happen if the light faded before we reached the end? There was no way we could follow this track in the dark. My shoulders hurt carrying two packs and most of Connie’s weight, so we our progress was slow, making me even more anxious about the time. Connie talked less and I worried more.

The gorge widened a bit as we rounded a corner, and suddenly before us there hung a huge moon, almost full, just rising dead ahead. I couldn’t believe the light it provided, I almost had to blink against its brightness.

Connie said rather palely “You see? The moon goddess is watching over us.”

I said a silent prayer to the moon goddess and all other goddesses that might be listening as we continued on. Eventually we emerged at a beach and small village. I set Connie down on a bench and went off to find a room. There was no one about. I knocked on several doors but there was no answer at any of them. Is this another abandonesd village? Standing there feeling a little perturbed, I discerned noises coming from a large house at the end, where a weak light shone out, and I sooon found everyone who must live in the place inside one crowded and lively café-bar. Or at least every man who lived in the place. About 3 dozen male eyes swivelled in my direction as I opened the door. Someone whistled. I swallowed and asked in my best Greek if anyone had a room for rent and, in a booming voice, the landlord said “I have a room”, winked broadly and pointed upstairs, which sent roars of laughter through his clientele. My cheeks started to get hot with embarrassment but I had no time for this. I interrupted his jocularity to tell him about my injured friend and asked if he had something on ground level, knowing full well that when assistance was really needed Greek men will be the first to leap up and provide it. Sure enough, a collection of drunk men poured outside to look for my friend as I led them back along the beachfront to the bench where she rested. Four of them picked her up and carried her back to the café bar. Connie gingerly rested her leg on another chair, batted her eyelashes, and attention was forthcoming from every man in the place. This she received rather regally and with requests for practical demonstrations of affection such as food and wine. Within minutes a large plate of dolmades and a jug of white wine were placed in front of us. Despite my exhaustion I smiled to myself. The Connies of this world will always get by in life despite any expressed doubt.

After eating, Connie giggled and laughed with all the attention, happy to be the star surounded by adoring satellites. I needed to release my pent up anxiety so snuck outside, leaned against a wall and looked up at our saviour moon goddess which now shone its light on an abandoned chapel high above the cliff. The cross on its roof split the moon’s sallow rays and an ethereal light shot out towards the sea. Despite being exhausted, I looked at it with wonder.

I’m looking at ruins a little differently these days. I don’t know when the change occurred, I suspect it was in small increments, but I am cheered by them. I think of all those people who lived and loved so many centuries ago. Building houses, creating cultures, hurting and healing each other. And now all that’s left of those thousands and thousands of lives is a dusty piece of column or a cracked clay pot. When I see it written out like this I think anyone else would read it and say “This cheers you up? You’re nuts.” But it does. The pain and insecurity of those people’s lives has moved on. Their work and toil brought them further to their destiny. Their love for each other has produced ancestors that might be alive today. Life moves forward, slowly, inevitably, but forward. No matter what happens in life it ends and pain is gone.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - dreaded anniversary

I’m feeling apprehensive. Tomorrow marks the day, exactly one year since you left me. How will I feel? I told Connie I needed an adventure. The Samaria Gorge will be perfect. A late spring meant the waters are still higher than usual. Apparently it’s strenuous, and a bit dangerous. Perfect.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - mon Zeus!

Connie and I have shared days filled with giggles, confessions, and plans. I feel 12 again, except I was never this way when I was 12. We even shared a pair of silver earrings, each taking one as a token, the image of a sun on one side and the moon on the other, promising that the one would go to the other only upon death. I found out her mother is Finnish and her father is Dutch and she went to school in Switzerland, but she has never spend more than a year in any one place since she left at 14. She calls herself a ‘European bastard’. We talk every available moment and then crash asleep exhausted. I am not able to keep up with my journal entries and I feel I am letting you down in some way. But it’s wonderful to have someone to talk to again. I mean really talk to.

Writing doesn’t mean I am not still thinking about you all the time. I’m just doing more and thinking less. Sometimes I feel things are moving too fast and I take myself off to a quiet corner and look at your photos. I miss not having my walkman, my music. The tears still come. The ache still presides. But I can dry my tears and come back to talk. It’s different somehow. I feel different.

With torches together we have explored the dripping, eery cave above the village of Psyhro where Zeus was reputedly born. “That sexist boor” declared Connie with disgust. “What did he know about women and life? He was an idiot!” We walk for miles. Eat in every taverna on the Plain. We have both declared the village of Agios Georgios the most ugly, dwarfed by its enormous unfinished cathedral. There are so many unfinished buildings in Greece. Connie told me why. Taxes are paid only when they are finished, so always the top floor is left incomplete. What you might call a loophole.

Connie is in a quandary about what next to do with her life and asks my advice. It feels good to be asked for my advice. I question her, “What would you love to do that you haven’t done already?”

“Nothing. I do what I want when I want with whoever I want. Why should I wait?”

“Well, ok, let’s start with your skills and talents. What are you good at?”

“I am an excellent liar. The best. Go on, ask me anything and I will lie for you.”

I laughed and told her she should be an international spy. She liked that. After a few days we left the Plain for Iraklio, which had little to recommend it, except a stall in the market that makes the best yogurt in Greece.

I feel like a large weight is slowly lifting off of me. Is it because of Connie? Is it because time seems to be passing quicker? Or because I have settled with the knowledge that I am going to have to live anyway, so may as well try to enjoy it a bit more? I can’t tell. Walking and talking, shedding all sorts of feelings and thoughts with Connie I feel Greece is the most beautiful place in the world, a place of sun and wind and crashing blue surf. Mangy cats, olive oil, sweet tomatoes, fat ladies in black, flirting men. Dry white wine that tastes of pine, fresh white bread, blue shutters on white houses, honey coloured churches, furs, gold, and sponges. Fish hung on lines, excess oranges dumped in lanes. Copper paint, gold icons, pebbled mosaics. I sigh with an odd sort of pleasure. A world that holds such beauty deserves time spent living in it.

It’s all enough for me, but not for Connie. Last night she said to me, “Bah. What we need is some Greek nightlife. Come on.” We found a bar with music spilling out into the street. We drank raki. There was dancing. Two Greek youths in the tightest pants imaginable slithered up to us.

“Ah German girls. Come. Dance. Very special.”

Connie’s eyes flashed. “We are not German girls. I am speechless with anger. We do not dance with stupid Greek men. Idiots!”

Not daunted at all they stood by and one of them stroked Connie’s arm. I thought she’d go ballistic, but she looked up at him with her piercing eyes. He tried again. “Do you know my island? Do you know Symi?”

Connie said, “Yes I know Symi.”

“You like Symi?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful.” He shrugged.

“Issa dump.”

Connie laughed, which was their invitation to sit. I sipped my drink and listened to the banter, then Connie surprised me by asking, “Do you know Matala? Do you have a motorbike to take us there?”

“First you dance with us”, the arm-stroking one said.

“I’m not into threesomes tonight.” (Oh, this girl’s good, I thought.) She turned to me. “Get up. You can dance, I know you can. Look at you. You have a dancer’s body. It’s time for you to join us.”

What could I do? No protestations were acceptable. I reluctantly got up and we all joined a large circle of people holding their hands high in the air and did a sort of repetitive shuffle back and forth, faster and faster, legs kicking and laughter ringing. Back in our seats with her shining eyes she said “There you see? That was fun. Now you can’t say you didn’t get anything out of this evening.”

I have to admit it felt good to dance again.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - eccentric angel

Fate sometimes delivers angels, all the more surprising when they don’t look particularly angelic. I was sitting alone on a bench under a tree this afternoon, savouring the quiet and reading my book when she arrived. She blew over, saw me and whirled down, talking a mile a minute, and I could just see the exclamation marks.

“Thank God there’s a woman here! I have been staying with two men, well boys really, only boys! Of course it’s cheaper to stay in a room all together and I thought I was with mature adults. I thought so! For three nights it was cool. Three nights for God’s sake! Why did it suddenly not become cool? They’re idiots! An extra beer inside and they become idiots! I’m speechless! So I sleep in the nude! That’s not so strange! I always sleep in the nude! I have always slept in the nude! It doesn’t mean anything except I like to sleep in the nude! I don’t even find them handsome. If I did I would have been having sex with them already! Why would I wait three days? But no! A bit more raki in them and they think suddenly I can’t resist them. That they are irresistible. My God!”

With this she suddenly grabbed my hands and said, “You understand! You understand everything! I can tell you are an understanding person. I knew it the minute I saw you! Fate brought me here! We need to talk more. There is much depth in you, and I have so much pain too. Why have I not seen you before? Ah I am speechless with joy. Come!” She took my arm and literally pulled me to the little taverna nearby, called out in perfect Greek to the waiter to bring us a bottle of wine and some olives, then faced me again, smiling for the first time.

“Who are you? Some goddess who came down from the mountains to walk amongst the mortals? You are very beautiful. And reading Ovid, so you must have a brain too! You must tell me everything about yourself. I need to know who you are! I feel like you are the second half to me.”

There was a nano-second pause which I took to mean it was my turn to speak, but before I got anything out she carried on, “Ah you have a Canadian flag on your bag. I love Canadians! Unless you are one of those Americans who think they will get better service if they put a Canadian flag on their bag. They are idiots! Everyone can tell they are Americans! I love Americans! Their spirit! I will never live there but I love their country! Why do they need to pretend to be something different? But I can tell you are not American. You have a sensitivity that I share. We are from opposite sides of the planet that meet in the ancient world. I am from the old world and you are from the new. But I can be whatever I like and have no ties to any country. And you do not either. I can tell you are one the world’s travelers! Not here for a useless two week holiday in the sun, looking to have sex with idiot boys, but someone who understands the world and tries to make sense of it. A woman of the inner circle.”

I laughed. I really couldn’t help myself. The wine came and she poured out two glasses, giving one to me and raising the other in a toast. “To the women of the inner circle! To finding a friend of the soul!”

We drank and she put her glass down with a flourish. She was striking in a modern, northern European way. Defined cheekbones, pale skin, short, short black hair with white blond tips, several tattoos on her arms and legs and as many piercings in her ears, and with a direct blue-eyed gaze that went right through me. Her accent was northern too, but not clearly of one country that I could discern.

“Who are you?” she asked, or rather demanded, and then it really was my turn to speak. After I told her my name and where I was from, she asked questions in a matter of fact way and listened with as much force as she spoke. It was oddly easy to tell her things. When I told her I’d been a teacher, she shot up both her arms and exclaimed, “I too am a teacher! I knew we were connected souls. I can say no more!”

Well, yes, she was a teacher. It turns out she gave sailing lessons one summer.

Throughout our ensuing conversation, there were many exclamations at how parallel our lives were, although I became unsure as to whether or not ‘parallel’ was a concept she totally understood. She has four brothers. (I have two sisters.) Her father is an architect and her mother a painter. (My father is a research scientist and my mother sings at funerals). She left school at 14 and has travelled throughout Europe since, able to speak five languages fluently. (I went to university, and my language skills are hit and miss, although I can find a toilet and get a sandwich in several by now). She had an abortion at fifteen (I had my first kiss at twenty). However, it did turn out that we had the same star sign and were the same height. Practically twins.

She was relentless. I didn’t even know her name at this point, but felt here was someone so outrageous, and yet with a certain something that invited trust. Someone I could actually talk to, once she let me. It was rather a relief to have someone to really talk to. Someone who didn’t know me, or who had any expectations.

We ended up “being speechless” for hours. Philosophy, music, jewelry, literature, numerology, mathematics, suicide, teacups, religion, art, history, food…everything. Thoughts I could only share with you found themselves on my lips to her. I found out more about her in a few short hours than I know about friends I’ve had for years. I still haven’t exactly told her about you, but I think she suspects you exist. She does know I have been through big changes in my life this year, but not what caused them. At 3am, after 13 hours of solid conversation, we decided it was time to go to bed, in the same room as it turns out, as she had left her old place and it was too late to find another. I didn’t feel at all threatened by her. This surpirsed me no end. Maybe I need to be around humanity again.

The only thing that stops her from talking is sleep it seems. We’d barely got into the room when, true to her former billing, she stripped down to nothing and crashed into bed, falling asleep instantly. I swept aside this evening’s collection of silverfish from my own bed, changed into my more demure nightshirt, and likewise slipped into a deep sleep.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - on the plain

I've been wandering this island for awhile now and feel the need to rest in one place for awhile. I took myself to the Lassithi Plain, a green plateau covered with windmills, so high and cold the trees still clung to their blossoms, long since gone elsewhere. The air vibrated with the baaaas and bzzzzs of so many new lambs and myriad of early bees. “Make more good Greek honey” I told one particularly fat bee as it stumbled across my path.

I move without purpose these days, wandering and meandering through the days, letting things come upon me rather than seeking them out. I take few buses, needing my money for lodgings and food, and sometimes forgo those if I end up in the countryside at nightfall. Then I find a level spot off the road to lie down, using my pack as a pillow and grateful that the weather has generally been mild enough to sleep in my clothes without shivering. During the day I have settled into a rhythm of mindless walking that takes me 25 or so miles a day, and I am often surprised to find me arrived without remembering anything about the time it took to get there. Being able to turn off thought and memory has been the most useful of skills. Every once in a while some random thought breaks through and my heart aches with hurt until I can quash it down and get back to blank existence. I can't determine if I feel safe because I don't care or if it's the other way around.

So it was when I climbed the last rise and entered the Plain. Wandering along the road the only intelligible thought I had was that the air is too cold for sleeping outdoors tonight, when I happened across a small house with a sign indicating a room was available. I walked in and found a sparsely furnished room, but with two beds so I can spread out. As if I really need room to spread out. I still haven’t replaced much of my stolen stuff, but with the warmer weather of Crete I haven't felt the need to.


The large and ugly cathedral is in the process of being decked out for Easter and I went in to take a peek. I bought three candles and lit them, one for St. Rita (loneliness), one for St. Jude (desperation) and debated my last one - should it be for St. Christopher (travelers) or St. Joseph (happy death)? I feel too guilty for Jo so light one for Chris. I sat and enjoyed the quiet, seeing myself looking at the scene as if from very far away, like watching a play from the balcony, detached as if not even in the same room.

During the last few days I have felt odd, like something is going to happen, but that it has to come from me and I have no idea what it is or what to do to initiate it. A bit like Odysseus might have felt after one of his shipwrecks, having come so far and yet knowing there is still much ahead. I feel shipwrecked myself actually, getting more and more depressed and sinking further and further inside myself. I have noticed a propensity for staring at pools of water in a certain way, and at knives. I will take hold of a knife in a cafe, then shudder and suddenly wake as if from a stupor, really seeing what I’ve been staring at. This scares me no end. Could it be that I really am capable of suicide? Could my private ‘suicidal single’ label come true? Is that what I want? Would that end lead to a beginning I am prepared to face? And why am I afraid of it? Is this not what I want? To be rid of the world and its weight? Or is it the physical pain I am afraid of?

I saw a line in a poem “Self-importance sits in the back seat and directs all our travels” and I worry that I will become a hermit. Someone who wanders through life but doesn't contribute anything at all to it. I must find something to do to fill in the time, to leave something behind that makes earth a better place. I want to create a great work of art, but I can’t even create a good mood.
Why, when others were winged, was I made snail…
to crawl on humblest garden path, to leave such slender trail?

Teaching children was good, but I can’t bear the thought of being a schoolteacher all my life. Everyone calls it a rewarding career. Satisfying perhaps. But rewarding? I could never go back to that town with such memories of you, and can’t get enthused about teaching anywhere else. That part of my life is done. It feels like the end of something precious. My first apartment away from home, my first proper job, my first real boyfriend, my first lover. Those four years marked the most wonderful, fulfilling, miserable and memorable epoch in my life thus far. Parts of it – the best parts, will never be duplicated – can never be duplicated. I am so grateful I got to live them, and to live some of them with you. But I could never go back there. I would crumple into a little desiccated ball of misery, feeling trapped and remembering only the bad instead of the good. Well, making an end is the only way to make a beginning. Crushing to think I have to start by being at the end.

A gang of children ran around the church playing games, then caught sight of me, shouted and ran to grab my hands and pull me up towards the decorated altar. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or frightened. They took me all around showing me everything, the polished candelabra, heavily embroidered cloths, framed icons, all the while chattering incessantly, before leading me finally to a brilliantly flower-bedecked coffin. This is a special part of the Easter décor - Christ’s coffin. Near it several old and black garbed women prostrated themselves and I tried in vain to shush the children and keep a respectable distance. The ladies looked up and, seeing me, leapt up, smiling big toothless grins and ushering me close to the coffin, a stranger, a foreigner welcomed to their tradition. They grabbed my camera and thrust it into my hands, suddenly posing with serious expressions, then bursting into animated smiles and chattter.
Back outside I blinked in the watery light and wandered around aimlessly. With no onward destination I think I will seek out human activity this afternoon. There must be an open taverna somewhere here. There’s always at least one taverna open no matter how small the village. Just even having that small a plan was very satsifying. Perhaps they will have cheap restina and I can drink enough to blot out the rest of the day.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - Creta

The boat stopped at Naxos, Paros and Thira, then I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to cries in the darkness “Creta, Creta”. I scrambled off and found myself in a city, but it was too late to find a place to stay so I curled up under a tree. Thank goodness it’s warmer here - I think I actually got a little sleep.

In the morning I awoke to see a clean but rather touristy Agios Nikolaos, so I escaped to the mountain village of Kritsa and the ruins at Lato. I felt a bit creaky but it was good to move my bones after having spent so long on a boat and then a night lying on the ground. It was a though a kind of paradise, walking along a pebbly lane, the sun luxuriously warm, meadows filled with wild flowers, the air alive with the sounds of birds and insects. I saw the flash of a hoopoe fly by. Bent old men tended fields and straight old ladies tended goats. Lato’s location high in the hills looked down to the sea and the white buildings of Agios Nikolaos, so much nicer from this distance. I breathed a deep, satisfied sigh that filled my lungs with the aroma of grass and warm soil and flowers and leaves. I felt as if I might see a youthful Apollo step lightly out of an olive grove.

On the way I passed an old lady sitting under a tree by the side of the road crocheting, beautiful lacy things spread out around her. Greek women seem to be either really young or really old. There’s no middle age. She sat in traditional black dress, rigid and vertical with a serious expression on her lined features, so much dignity. We chatted, and I thrilled to see her smile at a joke. My Greek is improving in leaps and bounds.

I wanted to buy something, but could only afford a hankie. My money is running out, I have to think of something soon. I decided to go along the north coast via Elounda across from the island of Spinalonga, previously a Venetian fortress and leper colony. Alas, just as I had arrived in Malia I realized I’d left one of my bags on the bus – the one with my passport! How could I have been so stupid! I stood looking down the road the bus had departed along, gawky and shocked, my hand on my mouth. A German tourist saw my panic and offered to chase the bus on his motorbike. It was like a scene in a movie. I jumped on as he revved the engine and we went tearing off in hot pursuit, me clinging onto his flapping, light coloured jacket. We swerved along the near deserted road, whipping past the odd goat and goatherd who barely looked up as we passed, spewing pebbles in a spray of clatter. Just as the movie watching public would have gotten bored with our action scene, we spied the bus up ahead and put on a spurt of speed to catch up to it, pass it and motion the driver with three arms flailing – one left steering the bike. The driver slowed the bus until it rumbled to a stop. I leaped off the bike, and ran to the back of the bus, all the while speaking whatever Greek I could to assure the driver and few bemused passengers that I was not some lunatic that was set to rob the bus. I was so happy to see my bag sitting where I’d left it and carried it triumphantly out. The driver shook my hand, waved me out and rumbled off to continue on his way. With heart rate lowered my biker saviour and I returned back along the road much more sedately. I tried to buy him lunch but he would have none of it, beamingly saying it was the best time he'd had in years.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - a city to leave

Athens is a terrible place and it’s no wonder I have felt disinclined to write for a few days now, on a boat out. The city lies like a cement blight on the earth, with the nearby sea struggling to be seen through thick pollution. A few green hills emerge from the muck, little oases in a grey desert. The only joy was getting a healthy stack of mail at the poste restante. I derive great strength from the most unlikely sources, and conversely I am often surprised at how some friends never write at all. Best of all though, I can respond or discard as I wish, not having to behave nicely like I have to in a conversation.

Sidney is full of the joys of motherhood, which is lovely to read, but very hard as well, and I can only read her words in small doses. Her life and happiness consume her. Sam is a little more sensitive, telling me very little about her social life. Or maybe it’s more because her social life is not all that main stream. She has shaved off all her hair and has a nose ring, which Mom and Dad don’t know about yet. Mom will freak. Good thing Sam doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of anything. Niki writes of her men and those she wishes to introduce to me “once I come home”. The most touching are from my previous students, badly spelled sentences telling me what they are studying this year, how they like their new teacher but not as much as me and how they read out my postcards in class then place them on a map for everyone to look at. My heart hurts when I read them. Those children are the only things from home I miss really. The people I’ve known the least amount of time but who have made such an impact, each one of them. I will remember all their names, first and last, all my livelong days.

Reading and writing letters were interspersed with visits to the Acropolis, the Agora and the Theatre of Dionysos, where I tried to imagine what it would have been like to see something by Euripides or Aristophanes so long ago. One of the museums had a model of what some ruins would have looked like originally, using only one original section of column. I am astounded as to how they can take one piece of stone and reconstruct an entire building out of it, but I guess it no more a feat than reading some voyager’s diary and creating a map.

One of the little museums was open yesterday so I wandered through and saw an exhibition of armour – all museums in Europe seem to have an inordinate amount of armour. And it always seems to be in the first hall one must go through. Armour always depresses me. All those young men, the pride of nations fighting for what they believed in. Where are they now? Bits of dust. Forgotten by all. Many of their causes dismissed outright by history’s stern assessment. And now all that's left are little pieces of metal, empty reminders of lives lived and lost.

Every day I received earnest and persistent offers for dinner or dancing or walking which I declined. Honestly, Greek men! Even the coffee defeated me, with its bitter sludge at the bottom. So to leave, but where? I laid out my map last night. North through Macedonia? The Peloponnese Peninsula? That certainly has a nice alliterative ring to it. And with it, Sparta, Tripolis, Mycenae, Olympia, famous, romantic names. But in the end the islands beckoned and I decided to take the first boat that left Piraeus this morning.

It actually did not leave until well in the afternoon and is so packed there are no seats available, even in the smokiest of rooms. Especially in the smokiest of rooms. I found a space on the deck, but know I won’t get any sleep. For one thing the lights stay on all night and for another I am beside some guy with incredibly smelly feet!

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - the dark side of figs

The train into Athens was obviously not going anywhere in a hurry, and was filled with bored young servicemen in uniform who watched my every movement, a little disconcerting. A hawker dressed in white sold souvlaki and bread to train passengers thrusting drachmas out the train carriage windows. I bought a bag of dried figs and decided to park myself between carriages where I got the benefit of occasional fresh air while escaping soldiers’ stares. I love the figs of Greece. These ones were particularly sweet.

Sharing my open space was a Belgian woman, two Italian youths and a Norwegian man of about 30. They were all in Greece for two or three weeks, tourists rather than travelers, inserting a quick break from their lives. Tourists escape their lives, travelers try to find theirs. I am a traveler.

One of the Italian fellows plinked away on my guitar, glad to have the practice, and the other one played his own. It was a delight to hear them while I ate my figs. No one can believe I am travelling around with a guitar that I can’t play. My lucky guitar. I owe it to learn a tune or two.

Once in Athens, I found a place to stay close to the station. The room was really chilly so I went downstairs to ask for a blanket after memorizing the Greek for “My room is cold. Could I have an extra blanket please?”, which I got out haltingly and probably very badly, but I received great smiles and profuse assurances that blankets would be sent up momentarily. Things looked good when two heavy blankets arrived, then a quarter of an hour later an electric heater made its way in, borne in the arms of a little boy of about six. I think my squeals of joy frightened him.

Despite the warmth of my room, I was fated to wake up anyway. This time it was from a wretched stomach ache. It started as a full feeling like heartburn, then I started to feel nauseated in little waves. I lay there and tried not to think about it, but the back of my throat got that hot, sour taste and I knew a bathroom was where I had to be. Not wanting to wake anyone else up, I stumbled along the hallway in the dark trying to remember where the bathroom was. In a growing panic I surely made more and more noise as I tried every door I came across. At one point I ended up in a spare bedroom – at least I hope it was vacant! Finally, and with no time to spare, I found the bathroom and teh toilet. I was there for what seemed hours until I felt well enough to head back to bed. There was absolutely no doubt it was the figs. No more for me for while, that’s for sure.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - oh oracle wherefore art thou?

Delphi has no answers. I guess I never really believed it would, but Delphi was the one place I thought might. My old classics professor would have been proud to know I had taken the historical myth of the oracle so much to heart! I sat in a little dip of land surrounded by ruins and flowering almond trees all day but nothing came to me. I felt just as empty as when I arrived. Deep down I don‘t think I’m even looking for an answer really, but it doesn’t stop me from trying to find some sign of guidance or direction every day. I’m just going through the motions of living, surviving until I find a new place for myself, wandering through time. Survival is the most despicable way to live. It’s not living at all. I eat when my watch tells me I should, I see the blue water, feel the cool wind, listen to the garble of tongues in foreign codes. If only I could keep open and curious, to keep learning, then I might gain something.

I catch myself reading meaning into all sorts of mundane things. Words I read, voices I hear, colours, sounds. Are you trying to reach me in some metaphysical way? Are you trying to tell me to go to you? Or am I being an idiot who is spending too much time on my own, overthinking everything? Should I just get over it, stop and deal with what lies ahead rather than go over and over and over what happened in the past? And what might have been.

What is this journey on which I have embarked? Someone told me it takes a full turn of the calendar to get over any kind of loss, like a divorce or something. It is already almost nine months old and I am as ignorant as I was on that hot, horrible day that started it all against my will. It’s like a growth inside my guts, like a bunch of roots, or a tumour. Nine months it’s been festering inside me. I long to know what it is all about, where I am headed, what my destiny is, and yet I am so afraid of what it might be. I am afraid I will be found lacking for the requirements of the journey, or that the journey will be a long one.

People who mean well write and tell me to come home, to find a job, get on with life, as if what I am doing is somehow outside of life. But the one person who could convince me to alter my path is silent. It’s like I’ve been erased from your life, that ‘we’ never existed, as if our lives never connected. Can I really go into the future without you?

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - approaching the oracle

My boat and bus rides were nauseating with lurches, fumes and sharp turns upsetting my stomach so that upon arrival, I looked for a bakery to get a loaf of plain white bread. Wandering into the first one I found, the baker shyly gave me the small loaf I asked for free – delightful surprise! He also showed me around his tiny place that seems all oven. Loaves of all sorts, some shaped into long, straight sticks, some round and some like doughnuts were placed in the waist-high opening. He used a long handled, flat paddle made of wood to move the loaves around and remove them from the oven, all with a speed and deftness that comes with years and years of repetition. He puts out 400 loaves a day and I could see why – his hands moved like quicksilver over the dough. He grinningly told me his hands are good for massages. I said I was grateful for the bread thank you very much and left before he offered proof of his other talent. Greek bread is delicious, but it gets stale so quickly it’s only good on the day it’s baked. I ate it in huge chunks while walking, feeling much better.

Now in Delphi, the place where I’m staying has hot showers. Oh Bliss! I had a gloriously long one tonight, but started missing you too much and ended up crying while the water cascaded over me. I get an odd degree of satisfaction crying in the shower. But I cried so much one my contact lenses fell out. Miraculously I found it on the floor and popped it into my mouth until I could get to a mirror to put it back in my eye. How unromantic!

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - sharing something with Margaret Trudeau

The train passed frost covered fields of grape vines and cabbages, and snow dotted hills, buildings becoming mere shacks as I got closer to Brindisi. I had anticipated the boat trip to be noisy, given the group of Australian fellows who seemed to be mixing beer and bawdy jokes with louder and louder results. But when the lights went out, so did everyone’s voices and I slept tolerably considering the uncomfortable chairs. The boat arrived in Corfu at 6am without incident. I half hoped I might realize Shakespeare’s vision of the island but it was Tempest-less.

I found a room for 300 Drachmas a night. Drachma is a great word. It sounds like something from some old movie set in Transylvania instead of a modernday currency. I say it to myself quietly sometimes, repeating it over and over - drachma, drachma, draaa-ch-maaa - drawing out the sounds. It's oddly soothing. While eating breakfast four different men come up to me asking if I wanted company. Four! I smiled to think of what Niki would say “This is more like it!” But not for me. After the fourth one I escaped into the outdoors. The sun casually drifted from light clouds to open blue sky. People in Sunday clothes strolled by as I passed to and then from the harbour overlooked by Venetian fortresses, houses clinging to crooked paths and narrow lanes. The houses don’t look like the ones I’ve seen on posters of Greece, white with blue domes. But the long Venetian occupation makes its architectural influence plausible here, and the pastel colours, faded shutters and rusty iron work look as familiar to me now as wooden dormers, cedar shingles and front porches do at home.

Feeling the need to get away from far too interested men as well as to act a little recklessly (I can't belive I am still alive - I'm obviously not good at putting myself in any sort danger with merely traveling alone), I rented a moped, planning to drive up the crazy roads into the hills. The surly man at the shop showed me how it works and how to drive it, then asked if he could come with me. I tried to let him off the hook by thinking he was worried about my safety, or even about that of his bike, but I've already seen enough of Greek men to suspect other intentions, so I declined firmly and drove shakily off. My first crazy ride throughout the busy market streets didn’t do anything for my own confidence as I narrowly missed posts and walls and small children who looked at me with wide eyes, so I got off and walked it until I got well away from people. After all, no one else need suffer my desire for personal destruction

I fared better on the open road. Despite it being February, spring seems to be attempting its annual comeback. Lemon, orange and grapefruit trees laden with fruit mingle with jasmine, pine, cypress and olive. There are blossoms on almond, crabapple and laburnum trees, and the ground is dotted with daffodils. I tried out new found words, “Kalemera” in the morning and “Kalespera” after noon. When I use them, locals assume I can speak and reply in rapid conversation but I just smile.

As I rode, the air was so cold I would shout out loud to relieve the pain in my ears and on my hands, the engine drowning out the sound. I'd take the sharp corners fast, moving up and down hills that came upon me with sudden impact. Whenever I stopped, my limbs were stiff from tensing up with the cold and I'd sit on the bike with my hands squeezed under my armpits to thaw them out while I took in the view. The eastern coast goes north of Kerkyra then cuts into the centre, rising, rising, to glorious vistas over hill and water. along the way I noticed mesh spread on the ground under olive trees, I guess to catch the olives as they fall. I had no idea that olives were harvested in the winter, and I wondered in passing what a raw olive tastes like.

Running out of turns and hills and still vaguely in control of the bike by now, I stopped at a grassy hollow near the village of Skripero, a tiny place with a view of island, ocean and of Albania opposite. A young boy of about ten years rushed up and thrust a card at me. “Lady, I have good food for you, 10% off, a special price for you.” He spoke so charmingly and with an odd accent (that sounded decidedly Australian), that I smiled and followed him. Besides, I was starving. Along the way he chattered a mile a minute in English. “You can have a look if you like. You don’t have to buy anything, come right along here. It’s good food, very special food, and a good price, a special price only for you. What is you name? Mine is Spiros. What is your name brown haired lady? You come from far away?”

When I answered “Canada”, he beamed and replied “Ah, I know Canada very well. Potatoes. Margaret Trudeau. You see?”

At a small taverna Spiros left me and scampered off, no doubt to try to find someone else to receive the "Special for you" treatment. I had dolmades and tzatziki, fried potatoes and bread and a glass of cold restina served in a chipped tumbler for only 110 Drachmas.

I was lucky Spiros had found me really. All the other tavernas and discos and café-bars are still shut down, closed up and abandoned for the winter, the sea claiming its beaches back with surging, sucking waves. It never changes and yet I’ve never seen the same sea twice. Who knows where these waters I am looking at now have been - through the Meditteranean and into the Atlantic and back? Around the Horn? Up over the Arctic? In its infinite movement all my fears and aspirations seem petty. There are no longer any unanswered questions, other than “What is?” Even then the sea seems to have an answer - “I am”. It always was and always will be and at this point in my life I find it comforting to think that to it I am a wink, a flash of being, an instant of fleshy movement beside its restless and immortal waters.

A shuffling bent old man came up to me, deftly scooped two sea urchins out of the sea and lay them in front of me. At a loss for words, I watched the poor things writhe for a few moments. Silently he threw the sea urchins back. He then produced from his pocket several hermit crabs housed in long, tubular shells, holding them out in one hand while he held an onion in his other, taking bites as if it was apple and, after I declined his offer of a bite, he dropped the crabs and left with a wave and a smile. After a moment I picked up the crabs one at a time and threw them back into the sea one by one, watching them sink to the bottom and slowly cross the ocean floor, leaving skittery lines in the sand. I look at the sand as if for the first time. Does sand move from shore to shore over time, visiting countries and continents, shifting in waves under the waves? And what is sand anyway? Granules of rock and glass. Things pulverized over the years by the elements and the sea, winds and storms, fire and brimstone. Brick houses. Stone pyramids. Old bones. Skin. Am I looking at the vestiges of civilizations' remains? Of what's left of people and what they created, fulfilling the gravesite pledge ‘dust to dust’? Sand to sand. Sea to shining sea.

Just as I was thinking about going on my way, the old man returned, pointed to himself with the word “Nikos” and proceeded to show me a clutch of rumpled photos. They were all of tourists who had visited and had been photographed with Nikos. He proudly showed me the addresses on the backs, then the pictures again, pointing himself out each time, which was unnecessary as his hunched little body and bulbous nose were unmistakable. With each new photo he would say “Very good,” probably the only English he knows. Some photos were years old, curled and faded, and I wondered if they were all he had to show of himself, this friendly old man who knows no other language but still comes over to ‘talk‘.

The bike man was much more friendly upon my return, or maybe he was just relieved to see his bike back undamaged. He asked if he could come out biking with me tomorrow, but I told him I already had plans. When I mentioned I would be leaving Corfu for other places, he told me I should stay because all the other parts of Greece are ugly and have bad weather. Either island pride or male hormones I suspect.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - all roads lead

Before I left the Florence station, there was a bit of commotion on a nearby train. I thought someone was in trouble, then ill, then I don’t know what. As soon as officials went aboard a crowd started gathering, gawking onlookers rushing from all directions out of curiosity. Suddenly I felt nauseated and felt the urge to get away from there. Looking at the floor, I walked quickly, swallowing hard in stony silence or I would have yelled or cried or both. I downed an espresso at the first café I came across to calm myself. There can’t be too many people who need espresso to calm themselves, but the hot, stong coffee moved down my throat and through my veins and capillaries, stilling my tensed nerves and muscles. Why is it that people stop and stare at accidents like ghouls? It would be different if they were running to help, but it’s just to look. I don’t know why they do it. It never bothered me before but now I can’t bear it.

This incident coloured my train trip and influenced my first opinion of Rome, which I saw as noisy and grubby. The traffic is wild and the horn honking drives me to distraction. No one moves an inch for anyone else. I walked to the Spanish Steps, dotted with young travelers, students and musicians. I had long wanted to visit the place Keats knew so well and lived next to. For some reason I’ve always had a certain empathy with Keats. I don’t know why. I would think Shelley’s tragic boating accident and his wife’s continuing devotion and creative talent would be endearing, or Byron’s idealistic heroism fighting the Greek cause. But it’s to Keats that I turn most frequently when looking through my old poetry books, now buried in Mom's and Dad’s basement and maybe (maybe?) never seen again by me. I wish I could be more like Keats:

O there is nothing like fine weather and health, and Books and a fine country, and a contented Mind and Diligent habit of reading and thinking, and an amulet against the ennui and, please heaven, a little claret-wine cool out of a cellar a mile deep – with a few or a good many ratafia cakes ……two or three sensible people to chat with; two or three spiteful folks to spar with; two or three odd fishes to laugh at and two or three numbskulls to argue with.

Why can’t I be that content?

I saw the ruins of the Forum and the elegant Pantheon. The public weren't allowed inside the Colosseum, but I did walk the whole way around the outside of it. As I walked past Hadrian’s massive tomb, I looked down at the Tiber. The river itself is rather dirty and decrepit: what deep memories it must have. My visit to the Vatican was disappointing; I couldn’t get in to see Diego Ribero’s World Chart at the library there. I was keen to see the first map that gave an indication of the true size of the Pacific Ocean courtesy of Magellan’s voyage. I always think of the Pacific as ‘my Ocean’. So many years watching its rhythms I guess, or at least from one part of it. Someday I must see other sides of that huge blue.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - florentine musings

I have spent days walking, walking. I first went to see the Genoese map of 1457, more modern than Fra Mauro’s map, at the Biblioteca Nazionale. Then I felt sufficiently ready to enter the Uffizi. The Uffizi gallery surely houses one of the greatest collections of Renaissance paintings in the world. I would need a month to see it all. This morning was devoted to the glorious icons, mostly pre-Renaissance and all glittering gold. Yesterday I ‘did’ the Botticelli’s. I know their popularity often demeans them in some scholars’ eyes, sort of like Monet’s lily pads, but maybe the reason they are popular is because they so instantly connect with the viewer. As a kid I used to think Walt Disney’s animated women were just too beautiful, and these make me feel the same way. If I could look like anyone in the world I would choose to look like one of Botticelli’s women. But then, you always said you liked my looks and so I guess I’d really prefer to stay as I am. I never used to think there’d ever be a time when I’d be satisfied to look like me!

I am inspired by Leonardo da Vinci here even more, if that’s possible. He was always a hero of mine. When people told me “You can’t do everything” or “You can’t go everywhere” or “Pick one thing and stick to it,” I’d mention Leonardo and ask “Why not? He did.” Imagine painting the most recognizable painting in the world, which I know is in Paris, but one can’t help imagining the Mona Lisa here when surrounded by her landscapes. Imagine painting her and then designing flying machines, hundreds of years ahead of their time. Science, art, engineering, he did everything it seems except write an opera. Seeing his work fires me up, makes that old desire to see the world and everything in it, the desire to accomplish as many things as I can flare up. My goodness, that’s the first time I’ve felt that way in a long time. Maybe the loss of my pack awakened something inside me. It would be nice to find something positive about the experience.

I have walked along the river Arno, across the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti palace, and on to the Belvedere fortress with its magnificent view of Florence’s red clay rooves, looking like a Renaissance painting itself. Lush little fields with olive trees, shuttered casas up the hills looking back at me, tall black cypresses. I have been to Brunelleschi's Duomo with its stunning green, white and pink marble on the outside and its patterned floor on the inside. One room was all in wood with such amazing inlay work every wall seemed three-dimensional. To my disappointment, the Accademia Museum had closed off ‘David’ for renovation. I tried to see as much as possible through the barred windows but will have to rely on the myriad postcards and copies that are everywhere. I read somewhere that when travelling one should always leave something unseen so that one has a reason to return. “David” will be my reason to return to Florence.

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - faceless!

Horrors! I dreamed about you but you had no face! I woke up in a sweat and immediately grabbed my photos of you. It was the most horrible feeling! That I would ever forget what you looked like has become a great fear. I have to look at pictures of you more and more often it seems and I don’t know why. Oh, please, I can’t live if I can’t picture you in my mind!

Chapter 5 - Southern Europe - a new door in '84

I went to find a place that made pizza. I love real Italian pizza in Italy - it's so different from the heavy, soggy stuff at home. Behind fogged up windows I was seated squashed into a corner, but I didn’t mind. I could watch other people that way. An older American couple sitting next to me were having problems working out the Italian menu so I leaned over and offered assistance. They are from San Francisco, a city I long to see. We chatted awhile and then the waiter took our respective orders and we settled into our meals. I was just finishing mine when a small bottle of red wine arrived to my surprise, as I hadn't ordered it. I looked up uncomprehending and the waiter indicated my couple who twinkled at me, wished me ‘Happy New Year’ and saluted with their own glasses. What a wonderful gesture!

I walked back in a happy state of mine, but when I opened the door to my room, trying to be as quiet as I could, I was surprised to see it wasn’t locked. ‘That’s odd’ I thought, and then I noticed my bag was gone. I stood there pondering but the bag remained gone, so I went downstairs to knock on the landlord’s door. He opened the door with a piece of chicken in his hands, not all that happy to have been disturbed at dinner. I asked him if someone had moved my bag and he looked mystified. He came upstairs with me to have a look for himself. I had almost convinced myself that I perhaps had gotten the wrong room, but no. If it hadn’t been for the loss of my bag and everything in it, the room would have looked absolutely normal.

The landlord held his head in two hands in surprise. Then he looked at me. “Is this a trick? You have hidden your bag so you can get out of paying you bill.”

“No!” I stammered, shocked and angry. “Look, someone took my bag. All my stuff. I only have these,” clutching my coat to indicate the clothes I wore. “I have the money. I will pay. But what about my things? What will I do?”

He looked at me more a bit more kindly seeing I was genuinely troubled and about to cry. Taking me downstairs he poured out a glass of grappa. I can’t stand the stuff but I drank it in one swallow. “I am sorry to say this but I do not know what you can do. Of course you can go to the police, but they will never find your bag. This happens all the time.” He shrugged his shoulders and I believed him. Suddenly, he leapt up with a beaming smile and clapped his hands together. He disappeared into another room and returned with my guitar in his hands. “Look!” He said proudly. ”You still have your guitar. You still have your music. You could play on the streets and earn the money to buy more clothes.” I took the guitar, not able to tell him I had been more suspicious that this would have been the item gone missing, nor that I couldn’t play the thing. I did cry then.

I imagine he thought my tears were of relief, for he gave me a big hug and bashfully ushered me outside. I stood there, tears on my cheek, then slowly went back upstairs. What could I do? He was right of course. The police would only shrug, the bag by now long gone. I sat on my bed looking at the guitar sitting innocently in front of me, and completely dissolved. Big heaving sobs shook through me, all the pent up feelings that I had been trying to keep in check now bursting through. I cried and cried, feeling almost hysterical. The loss of my clothes became the loss of you and of trust and of my life as I had known it. I cried until my body was spent, bent over in pain unable to gasp and barely able to breathe. It was when the sun started to rise that I realized I had cried all night long.

I had a shower, hoping the hot water would wash away everything bad. I tried to calm myself as I knew I had to get out of there, leave this place and this city, go outside into the world and move on. I had all my money, my passport and my train pass. I had my guitar. I wasn’t injured or totally helpless, not matter how I felt. I was alive. Dammit. I was still alive and able to feel.

My carriage was smoky, hot and stifling. I opened the window disregarding the frowns in opposite seats, for once not really caring about other people’s comfort at the exclusion of my own. The sun shone in a weak wintry way as I moved south towards Florence. I had to believe there was still beauty in the world and Florence was the first place I thought of that might prove that. I arrived at dusk. I used to love that word ‘dusk’. It’s got a magical ring to it, as if anything is possible that time twixt day and night.