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.