Persephone's Dilema...

Did you ever play the game where you hide your eyes and say, "I don't see you so you don't exist!"?  I began to play it when I was about 4 years old...and I never stopped.  This evening I plan to play that game with Athens.  But before I leave this fabulously cheap hostel for the airport and eventually London, I should tell you a secret: Athens isn't so bad.

I arrived from Thessaloníki about 2 hours later than planned.

3 Cups of Nescafe later...

I once met an evergreen student named Amber.  She'd been living with Bedouin families, collecting folk songs and traditional dances.  One night, we were all sitting on a dune top playing a geography game, smoking nargela, and I asked her to expound upon the romance of the Bedouin lifestyle.  She said that it was "great n'stuff, but eventually you begin to see that it's just the same shit as at home - with different people."

I think that she was right...but not in the way that she meant.

Shared wine...

It has been a while...I openly admit that I've been distracted into not abusing this particular medium.  Greetings from Thessaloniki!

(It's in Macedonian Greece, waaaaaay up at the top.)

How did I get here?

Finding my Soles

I once read a story about a woman who met Joseph Campbell.  She described to him a trip that she was planning in Greece.  She was going to have certain experiences, in certain places, at certain times.  When she had finished telling him about her plans he said something alone the lines of:

Madam, I truly hope that nothings goes according to your plan.

When I was 20 years old I ripped apart a calendar that my mother had forgotten to give as a gift.

Roses, Rocks, Roasts, and Resistance...

I'm in Athens....yeah...that's right...I'm in Athens.

Can you feel my smile?  I sure can!

Roses: 
I stepped off the bus near Parliament, and ended up in the midst of a lunchtime political discussion in Plaka.  The cafe owner gave me water, a sugar covered doughnut, and advice about where to go and with whom not to speak.  The men in the cafe - middle aged business men, smokers all - were yelling, laughing, gesturing, in Greek.  The owner apologized to me, "politics, ignite the passions!" (I loved it, I could have watched them all day!  Around 2p they put out their cigarettes and, still chatting, walked toward their scooters - all in a row at the cafe rail.

Passports and Pants: and Anecdote

2am is a dark time in London, especially in a youth hostel, tripping over shoes while trying to change your underwear in stealth.  So, pack on back, I made my way to Victoria station.  I slept my way through the train ride to Gatwick and sleepily checked my pack at the Easyjet counter.   I made my way to security, reached into my fleece pocket for the couple of pounds I'd yet to spend, and felt...my dirty panties!  I'd stuffed them in my pocket in an effort to avoid the noise of opening my pack at the hostel.  I wasn't quite sure what to do.  I decided to chance it, as my pack was not in sight and my purse was already on the x-ray belt.  Maybe they wouldn't have me empty my pockets? Oh dear...

Soooo, my electric pink panties were escorted to the other side of the metal detector in a little bowl usually reserved for coins...they were accompanied by a security guard, and seen by some elderly ladies (heading to Rome) and a very handome young man that I ended up seated next to on the plane...they arrived, safely pocketed, in Athens midday, 5 October.

That's all for now,

--
Lindy

On Vile Grumpiness, Gandhi, and the Resorative Power of Bisto...

I'm now writing from Athens!  (wasn't she just in London? you ask.  Why yes!)  Let me tell you all about it:

I woke up grumpy in London.  (I must apologize to my London peoples - you know that I neglected you by not calling, sorry.)   So, grumpy, after my lovely day at the British Library.  I made my way to a small pub.  It was off of some side streets in Camden.

Iceland is for Liars, London is for Nudity, and Lindy is for Sleeping...

Hello Mother, et. al.

I'm in London!  But first the Iceland:

All of my life people have been telling me that Iceland is a misnomer, that it is really quite mild and warm, etc. (in fact, I was told this not 2 hours before landing.)  Lies!  Iceland is a land of ice.  The plane had a landing that even made my stomach flip a bit.  I laughed, but it was mostly for the benefit of the woman seated to my right - she was gripping my hand quite tightly.  When I mentioned the rough landing to an Icelandic couple ahead of me they seemed to think it was normal for planes to land so roughly... hmmmmm

Out

Traveling...

--
Lindy

The intimacy of a foot,
steps taken, shared, over warm dry pavement, cool damp leaves, soggy slimy mud, powdery snow melting in the shoe.
The intimacy of a foot,
pant-leg, a sock matching a shirt, laces, a face an inch away because the step was not straight.
The intimacy of a foot,
the talent of pen-strokes, lines intersecting under a star, crossing their talents for luck.
The intimacy of a foot,
bare as an assumption, delicate as a question, self-conscious as new love.

The intimacy of two feet,
as they pretend that nothing lies between the truth of a step taken - the way that they match, the point where they cross, barely, delicately, self-consciously - and their future.
A foot,
waiting, accepting, dreaming, remembering a walk it took...