There is no inverted country

Today I wrote a song. Here's part of it:

I think it's pretty good.

I also wrote a slam poem:

If I'd have known before how good I am at song writing and slam poetry writing I never woulda wasted so much time on that whole "fiction writing" thing. SONGS AND POEMS ARE WHERE IT'S AT.

I don't think I've ever hated November as much as I did today, but that's my fault. I shoulda bought a winter coat.

 

We hiked down the epic staircase to the bay, where the boats dock. It was sunny, chilly, windy, the breeze whipping hair everywhere and cutting through clothes. The water in the bay was very clear, and miniscule jellyfish floated in the water. Stray dogs nosed around, waiting to see what we would do next.

 

We were headed to a small island nearby. It was decided that while we were on this other island, no one would speak. A group observation of No Talking Tuesday. I was too tired to say anything anyway, so it worked fine for me. 

 

We took a small ferry boat to the nearby island, called Thirassias. It's a short ride, fifteen minutes or so. Once our feet touched the ground on the other side, no one said anything. We paid for the ferry, got on a bus, went partway up the hill. The bus dropped us off and we hiked the rest of the way up to the top of the island. We walked along a deserted gravel road for a long time, empty hills stretching away, terraced fields with rock walls and dry hillside. Finally we reached our destination: the abandoned monastery. Lost in my thoughts and the silence and my semi-lucid state, I felt very open and receptive to the inspiration of the environment. I had some ideas. We explored the monastery. I stretched out on a flat roof area and tried to go back to sleep, but the wind was too cold. There a Greek couple there, too. The man kept shouting in Greek, as if he was telling offhis wife, but also gesturing around him, as if he was talking about the monastery, so I remain utterly confused as to what they were discussing. 

 

We made the trek down the hill, onto the bus, onto the ferry boat, stopping for a long time to play in this abandoned playground: swinging on the swings, riding the merry-go-round. On the way home, the water was choppy. A storm was blowing in, bringing rain later in the day. All last night the wind blew and blew, rattling the shutters and whistling in the cracks and tunnels. But today is sunny and beautiful, the prettiest day there's been in a while. Two girls are leaving today, and we're all sad about it. It's not going to be the same without them. 

 

 

This feeling makes me miss home, where winter is more positively defined. Maybe it was Halloween, maybe it was November -- I was homesick all weekend, longing for a winter that feels familiar. This one feels like nothing but abandonment, isolation, an ending of something but not a beginning. I want to sit in a warm house and watch the cold rain fall outside, eat dinner in a brightly lit window with the darkness out there, walk down the street bundled in coats and scarves, and sleep late through the chilly mornings, staying in bed to keep warm. I want to walk through the city streets still full of people, looking inside the windows, marveling at the brilliant displays, entering the revolving doors to a blast of dry warmth. 

 

In 8 days I'll be back in New York. In 10 days I'll be back in Charlotte. In 15 days I'll be back in New York again. 

 

One day not so long ago I said I would only be happy if I was always on the way to somewhere else. I am happy now, but I miss my lover and I miss my cats and I miss the feeling of home. 

Last night the six of us went to dinner at the house of a local fisherman named Petros. We set out around 9:30 -- dinner time in Greece -- and made our way through the dark streets of the village. (Always a harrowing experience. With stray dogs running wild, you never know what you might step in.) Soon, we turned off into a side path and began descending an epic staircase built into the cliff side. Being a fisherman, of course he lives at the water's edge, while our bookshop is in the heart of Oia at the top of the hill. 

 

We arrived at his house and there was an absolutely amazing spread of food on the table: five different seafood dishes (all fresh caught by Petros himself), roasted chicken with potatoes and eggplant, rice, vegetables, cheese, olives, garlic dip, bread... incredible. (We later found out that he also runs a restaurant during tourist season. The meal was definitely better than most restaurant meals I've had around here. In fact it was the best meal I can remember eating in quite a while.) We heaped our plates and mounted the stairs to the dining room upstairs. Of course, there was wine -- white and red to begin, then later a sweet red wine that's local to the island, and a strong liquor made from currants that's complex, sweet and spicy with a hint of black licorice. It burns going down and fills you with warmth. We opened the window, looking out on the bay ... fishing boats floated in the dark, moonlight shone on the water, the breeze cooled our faces.

 

Petros DJed, alternating between traditional Greek music and party hits from the eighties and nineties. We danced -- he demonstrated Greek dances and we broke it down American-style. We looked at his old photos, snapshots from the seventies and onwards. Fascinating. Like pictures of my parents when they were young and sexy and having a bang-up time wearing bizarre fashions. Except also in Greece. 

 

When we were downstairs getting second helpings, one of the girls said "This is the kind of thing you always hope will happen, except usually it never does." I knew exactly what she meant. 

While I was screwing around chatting online earlier in the evening, the other girls had prepared a delicious apple crumble to take to the meal, so we ate that too, proving once and for all the existence of the "dessert stomach."

 

Two of our crowd asked if they could go fishing with Petros sometime, and he offered to take them out that night. So they went. The rest of us worked on the dishes and watched from the open window -- the small boat bobbing in the bay, the three of them fumbling in the dark, illuminated by brief interludes of flashlight.

 

They returned with a net holding a number of small, sardine-like fish caught by their heads in the net. We sat on the living room floor and untangled the net and extricated each fish by hand, throwing them in a colander near by. It was wet and messy, but satisfying. It reminded me of my childhood. When we'd finished this time-consuming process, Petros fried up some of the fresh fish with olive oil and salt and lemon. 

 

Then we made the epic journey up the 200 stairs, which was painful, but probably good for us considering the feast we'd just consumed. 

 

 

This morning we woke up early. James had rented a car, perfect for an early morning adventure before the bookshop opened. The weather remained strange, the light diffuse and gray, the sky still strewn with clouds and fog. Moist, cool air. The streets were scattered with dirt and stones and the occaisonal boulder, all washed across the road from the flooding the night before; the whole world seemed wrecked and disheveled, almost post-apocalyptic in places.  Under the overcast skies, the landscape took on unfamiliar hues, browns and grays and steely blues all intense and lucid. We drove through twisting mountain roads listening to the Jackson 5, later Elton John. We drove down a twisting, rock-pitted, wet gravel road that should only have been attempted by a pick-up truck or a serious SUV. We were battered and dinged in our tiny european car. We made our way to the beach, stood on the wet black rocks and watched the waves come in and out. Surf on the stones makes a thick squelching, sucking sound as the waves go out, like nothing you've heard before. On the way back, we stopped at a bakery. Greek bakeries put all other bakeries to shame. They are magical, filled with so many delicious treats, so many tasty things in miniature, shelves and shelves of perfectly formed pastries of more varieties than you'd think possible. We bought savory pastries, stuffed with potato and spinach and leek, plus cookies, a loaf of fresh bread. 

 

All the time I felt this strange dreaminess, both lucid and trance-like. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was being awake earlier than I've been in days or weeks. Maybe it's the thoughts I've been having about writing, on the verge of another breakthrough. Everything felt meaningful. I could see the story making itself, just over the edge of the eroding cliff. 

 

idyllic is one thing and beautiful is another. but still:

 

 

i guess what i'm saying is -- let me never forget what lies beneath. 

 

I sleep in a bookstore -- every night I clear the books off my bed and every morning I put them back, arranging them in three neat rows, a varied display for every day. It's like a fantasy I've had since I was a child; it could be a child's daydream, in fact, living amongst the books. Seeing them first thing in the morning, last thing at night. Browsing the shelves in spare moments, picking up poetry here and Le Corbusier sketches there. 

 

In the morning I dust the books and I sweep the floor and I think little thoughts and hum little songs; I drink earl gray tea with honey and lemon, and eat fresh bread from the bakery. There are two kitties who live in the bookstore -- a big cat named Maxie and a kitten named Sylvie. In the mornings, they're frisky. They chase each other around the bookstore, tussling on the book displays until Maxie leaps onto a shelf that Sylvie can't reach. 

 

I sit on the terrace and eat falafel pitas for lunch, looking down at the ocean that stretches away, the islands rising with jagged edges. The white houses sprawling down the cliff side in the sunshine. Doing laundry by hand in the sunshine on the roof, clipping my undies up to dry. 

 

In the evenings the five of us make big family style dinners -- roasted vegetables and pasta and fries and tzatziki and fresh bread and fresh fruit, and greek wine and chocolate. We make each other laugh so hard. Sometimes we sing songs. We walk in the dark streets and see the swimming pools glowing aqua light. 

 

Two days ago I saw a sunset so beautiful it was almost unbearable. The ocean was slate gray, a lucid grayish-green. The beach was black pebbles and sand. The sun was brilliant orange, sinking into tangerine and pink. The light glittered on the water for just a few minutes as the sun held itself at the right angle, and then it slipped down, farther down. All I could think about was how brutally gorgeous everything in this life is and how short.