What's in a Picture?

If you've wearied from my effusive prose, my daily pontifications, and my outright weird observations...I won't apologize, but I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Here are a few from this morning's run--to and through the village of Finikounda, and then down the beach for a morning swim.

Finikounda--main street

The harbor

Our house is on the mountain in the distance

Folk art at a local taverna

You can ring my bell

The big beach. Each section has it's own name. I like Anemomilos, the middle beach

Home away from home

Some crazy man running on the beach

In the dunes

Gimme shelter

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

If I stay it will be trouble, if I go it will be double.

                                          --The Clash

Sunset from the Tsapi beach turnoff, 1 km above our home

Comparing apples and oranges—the trade-offs

It is hardly a choice between southern Greece and eastern Maine—both places are dear to my heart for the same and for different reasons. A few comparisons spring to mind. But this is clearly not Greece versus Maine.

Wild garlic beyond the castle bastion--the last defense

--Excruciatingly hot and dry (at least July through September)—…or, often (but not always) cold and wet.

--Scorpions, venomous snakes, unidentifiable creppy-crawly creatures—…or, mosquitoes and black flies, deer flies and moose flies, deer ticks

 --Delicious food at every cornier—…or someone’s idea of food (not mine), unless you make it yourself.

--320 days of sunshine—please, let’s not go there on this point.

--Great friends—and great friends

--Wonderfully varied, region-specific music and dance, always evolving but grounded in a long and rich heritage—…largely derivative Anglo-Irish offerings (with three big exceptions: American jazz, rock, and blues). And dance at your own peril.

--Pristine ocean for swimming, fishing, and sailing—…or, pristine ocean for looking at, or sailing in fog…for 6 weeks a year, 8 weeks...maybe?

--A wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables in all seasons--…or apples, blueberries, wild raspberries and blackberries and whatever you can grow.

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Far away but closer than you think

My old friend Dimitri, who I first met in 2007, is a rugged man who has a penchant for waxing poetic, like a lot of people around here. He is hardly a “softy”: his family fought the Ottoman Turks and the Nazis with knives and swords, throwing themselves against the occupiers with wreckless abandon. It is fine petigree. Given the opportunity, I am certain he would do the same today.

I bumped into Dimitri in the village last night.

Methoni castle--the walkway to the Bourzi for execution...or wedding

“I haven’t seen you!” he said with a combination of faux anger and regret. “What, have you lost your mind? We should spend some time together at the cafeneion before you head back to America? Shouldn’t we?”

We agreed to meet up tonight, have a coffee together on the waterfront, and talk about our families. One’s children are a special point of departure in all conversations, maybe the world over.

Then he added, ominously: “I saw something today that made me so upset.” I made one of those classic Greek body language expressions that says, “what’s up?”

He started to speak and then began crying. A big, tough man with little tears on his cheeks. His otherwise resonant and booming voice cracked slightly.

“That father and daughter washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande, locked in an embrace, drowned.” I let out a long breath and shook my head.

“I know, I saw the picture, too.”

Then he added a few words of an undeniable truth.

“Your president is not just crazy. He is not just a fascist. He is an evil human being. A devil.”

I could hardly disagree about his opinion of this century’s first moral monstrosity.

Our own evil and viscious Turk. Friends with head-chopping, paleolithic child molesters (Saudi Arabia). Enemies with oldest friends. Go figure.

Where's the truth here? What exactly is he hiding? Who is he serving, if he's not serving the American people?

Nicknames

The word for “nickname” in Greek is παρατστούκλη (parstoukli), which has a funny ring to it. Everyone has been given one or more nicknames here, both locals and foreigners. Tall people are called “Tiny”; clean-shaven people are called “the bearded one.” This sort of thing.

My own parastoukli has various iterations. Sometimes I am o Amerikanos (the American—in fact, the only one in my village, so it works well), or Tzon (no letter J in Greek, so it gets diphthonged), or by my actual Greek name: Yianni (Υιάννης).

There is a man who has “resided”—the right word, because he is always there, every day—on the middle beach, a seventy-something Austrian in the buff who a few of us have named the Madagascar Man for the depth of his all-over tan. A friendly gentleman, he is beyond brown, beyond bronze, but not quite black. He sets up his own camp at noon and doesn’t leave until 5 o’clock or even later—which in the heat of summer is a demonstration of excessive resilience. Every other sensible soul stumbles off the beach by 3 p.m (perhaps returning after 7 o’clock for the post-siesta splash). He is long-lived, stalwart, and quickly becoming a legend for his darkness.

And he has a nickname.

More work, less play

This morning my English friend P. stopped over to help me repair the roof. We mixed up some strong cement, climbed up on the roof, being careful not to break the overlapping ceramic tiles, and filled in a few gaps here and there that had welcomed some of the winter rains.

Then we shortened my neighbor’s illegal, unmetered water line that runs through my little olive/citrus grove and which the tractor keeps snagging and breaking. It is buried deeper and should survive the next tilling.

Finally, after siesta time, I got out the roller and painted two of the lower walls of the house. It looks terrific.

The "new" castle (c. 1500) in Pylos

New castle, the ramparts

In the walls of the "heretic" nunnery in Koroni--the paleometroloyitis (the scorned Old Calendarist Orthodox)

Say It Ain't So

Third coat of teak stain

A bloomin' sanctuary

Now I can count the remaining days on one hand. Good things always come to end, and more good things always begin—for me it will be seeing my wife and family, Maine friends, the music scene, the garden.

Looking back at our mountain village--Akritohori--from my morning run

I resist taking on new projects, opting instead to reserve the lion’s share of my time for the beach, running, visiting with friends in the village. But resist as I might, there is still some touch-up painting, mortar and stucco repairs, light plumbing, and organizing and cleaning. I fancy the idea of returning—whenever that happens—to a house that is as close to perfect as possible. If only I could bring that ethic back with me!

On the run, part 2--Finikounda in the distance

Only Manny hasn’t yet seen our little spitaki (he was last in Greece in 2012; the old building was purchased in 2013), and the prospect of sharing this adventure with my son holds a special sense of excitement and newness. I look forward to introducing him to so many of my new-found friends who come from so many different countries—and, of course, very special local village friends.

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I try to sleep a bit on the beach between fits and starts of reading, writing, and walking through the dunes. Best of all, hands down, are those dashes across the hot sand and into the luminescent sea.

This is a special place on the Mediterranean littoral, the southwesternmost point of Greece, on the very tip of the Messenian peninsula, where the Ionian Sea meets the larger Mediterranean. This confluence of waters produces a notably famous pallette of ocean colors that defy any mortal description. The passion to share all of this, with friend and with family alike, is enormous. I wonder who will be the first to take my offer of the key? It’s so easy to get here, so hard to tear yourself away.

Lord of the manor--but missing the queen, the princesses and the noble prince

The deepest place in the entire Mediterranean, an ocean that spans from the gates of Gibraltar to the Turkish-Syrian coast, is quite literally on the horizon from my beach chair—at over 22,000 feet deep, it may well be one of the deepest ocean floors anywhere in the world. The depths create varying bands of colors, ranges in ocean temperature, and a wide spectrum of sea creatures.

It is enlightening to meet the small fishing fleet in the early morning and observe the varied catch. Beside the usual species (red mullet, sardines, occasionally swordfish and tuna) there is also a host of strange creatures that appear from the ocean depths—the fishermen themselves arguing about the names of infrequently seen fishes.

The routine

I park the car at the far end of the “big beach,” known as Mavrovouni (“black mountain”), and walk carefully through the sand dunes, careful to avoid loggerhead turtle nests and the curious flora that grows in only a 15-meter band, producing a dizzying array of blossoms.

I bring with me the essentials: plastic beach mat, towel, folding chair, umbrella, shock cords (to keep the umbrella from pin-wheeling down the beach in a gust), a 32-ounce water container, fruit, nuts, camera, my writing pad and the current book—and the all-critical sunscreen, hat, and sunglasses. Forgetting any of these (especially water, hat, and sunglasses) constitutes a show-stopper for the beach. It is that hot. Painfully hot—but with no humidity. If you can imagine a fantastic saltwater beach in the Arizona desert, this is it.

Happily encamped

After setting up camp—which includes finding flat rocks and dry bamboo—I take my first swim. I head out a few hundred meters, perpendicular to the beach, then turn either right or let, and continue to swim for a quarter mile or so. The combination of saltwater and warm temperatures provide sufficient bouyancy for even the most tenuous of swimmers. There are no currents, there is no undertow. Most often the surf is light, inviting, gentle. The perfect place to learn (or re-learn) to swim.

When I return to “Camp Yianni” I begin by meditating for twenty minutes—a daily practice for many, many years—watching my breath and letting those inevitable distractions (most of my own making) wash away. In the Mahayana style, I try not to push them away too strenuously. Instead I note the usual stuff as it enters my consciousness (thoughts of work, of financial insecurity, of the dire state of our hopeless political and social malaise) and then I let it go. These little intrusions on my twenty minutes feel like pieces of cork bobbing around aimlessly in a vast ocean of quiet. I gently push them to one side.

View from the beach chair, toes wet

After twenty minutes or so, I start the usual cycle: I write, read, nap, swim, nibble on snacks, drink water. Then I repeat. Again and again. Until it’s just two hot. That might be one hour or three hours.

I like to walk the beach. It is an act of faith, leaving your bag under you umbrella—with passport, wallet, the whole shebang. There is something like an unspoken solidarity among the folks on the middle beach, with everyone keeping a casual eye on everyone else’s stuff and alert to potential mischief. There is very little of it.

And I am confident in my ability to outrun most thieves half my age.

Translation: "This place is being watched"

Can't We Just Get Along?

Smiling agasint all odds--Pylos Harbor and Navarino Bay

I’m getting a bit sloppy with my effusive modern Greek, confusing gender and case, among other novice-speaker blunders. But I'm clearly not a novice speaker. Since learning my first Greek words at my grandmother's table--food name are highly motivational vocabulary--and then studying more formally at age 21 in college and after, my Greek has progressed to an advanced level. But the flaws are constantly on display. At the moment this is mostly a consequence of prolonged heat and late nights, and frustrations in dealing with layers of bureaucracy. Neverthless,  I’m almost always understood—maybe in the same way that a toddler is understood. I can argue with police, order a meal, give a toast, and pontificate on most subjects.

The zero percent

The tavernas in the village that once lacked NA beer (0 percent alcohol) are now stocking it, just for me, or so it seems. At “Aris,” the Albanian gyro shop, where I was invited to join a German/English couple for a beer last night, the kindly waiter brought me a Fix Ανευ (= “without”) and I didn't even have to ask. He laughed and said something like “we saw you coming down the street.” The oddball American who doesn’t drink on holiday. Or ever.

ΔΕΗ part II

I was convinced that the key to success at the electric company—in getting an application for a hook-up of the house to the power grid, which might be cheaper that photovoltaic—would be the engineer’s newly drafted documents…and  red shirt. The pure psychological power of a red shirt should never be underestimated!

Mass murder in the ΔΕΗ office

With my revised and exceeding offical-looking documents in tow, I set off for Kalamata’s central electric office even earlier than yesterday, at 6:30 a.m., in order to beat the heat and be ensconced back on the beach by 11 a.m. Like all good plans, reality often gets in the way.

I entered the office of the woman with the bulletproof hairdo, standing tall and confident with the prospect of a successful mission in my grip. And wearing a red shirt. I've got this one, I thought.

“Good-day, Ma’am. I spent yesterday afternoon with my engineer and notary. We have prepared the necessary documents to satisfy the company’s requirement.”

I placed them both, the original, stamped sets and a duplicate copy, squarely on her desk, with a self-satisfied look written across my sunburned face.

“They will not do.” Four words that deflated any sense of progress.

The argument began, with an increasing tonal pitch. Yelling at officials is an undeclared national sport. When in Greece do as the Greeks. But then I counted to ten. I breathed. I imagined that I was Mr. Zen, prepared for any calamity.

“Would you kindly look at the documents with your boss? I’m sure after closer inspection you will agree that they are precisely what you have demanded.”

“They are not valid.” She was answering in short, crisp sentences—no belaboring of the rejection. “Your engineer and your notary do not know the law.”

I offered a sprinkling of reason: “But this was the law when I purchased, legalized, and then renovated the house. All in accordance with the law in 2013.”

“They won’t do.” Another effort at parodying Ernest Hemingway. Simple. Direct. Minimal verbiage.

I stared out the window for a moment. I reached for my imaginary knife, hidden in my high black leather Cretan boots, and quickly struck at the jugular. Viciously. With the precision of a merciless shepherd. All the while I was smiling at her, making lovely eye contact, nodding with a phoney affection and an expression of the deepest gratitude—experience tells me it is the way forward in such situations in Greece. Simultaneously, I was slicing her throat, eviscerating her, watching her suffer.

It was hot. I had driven 120 kilometers, twice in 24 hours. By all rights I should be naked on the beach reading about Dharma—not in some misfit bureaucrat’s ground-floor office.

On the inside, I was still slicing and dicing, true to the nobility of my Cretan heritage. My grandfather was from one of the regions that even the Ottoman and the Nazis were terrified to approach. Some of that spirit has lived inside of me since childhood. I remember my grandfather Andoni's story.

He left for America circa 1910, as a young man, but then returned to Greece (with his twin brother and 100 or so other crazy Cretans) to fight the Ottoman Turks in the First Balkan War. That was 1912. They fought on the frontier plains of Ioannina, outnumbered and outgunned. The would eventually recapture Greece after a brutal 300-year occupation that once extended to the gates of Vienna.

The Cretan regiment carried long curved swords (scimitars) and single-shot muskets. Athough they were victorious against the Turks, Andoni's twin brother was decapitated in front of his eyes.

The evil and visciuos Turks. Now they work at the ΔΕΗ central office in Kalamata. And I'm coming to get them. It's a family revenge thing, a personal vendetta.

In a sudden and totally unexpected moment of mental clarity, I recalled a handful of guiding principles: be kind, patient, tolerant, loving, and forgiving.

I put away the imaginary knife, back into my too-tall boots.

I thanked her for her time and asked for her name and telephone number. “Thank you for your time, good lady. And I do hope you have a nice day.”

“You’re welcome, sir. I hope we can assist you in the future.”

I told her that I would be back. It was a comment about persistence, not a threat. In the end, I experienced a titillating and quiet satisfaction in the prospect of not spending a lifetime in a Greek prison for committing a mass murder in a public building.

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I took the long way back to Finikounda, stopping in Pylos, and running up the alleyway to the engineer’s office. He wasn’t there yet. It was only 10 a.m. I jumped back into the toaster-oven rental car and drove to Methoni, to my notary/lawyer’s office.

My notary friend called the good lady at the ΔΕΗ office and discussed the matter with her. Apparently the law governing electrical hook-up (which our little, once-illegal house is absolutely entitled to) has changed five times since 2013. These are the sorts of things that the bureaucracy—total employment for public-sector workers—thrives on. A vast blood-sucking creature, it requires changes, adjustments, new laws, new processes in order to keep everyone gainfully employed. These laws and regulations are a never-ending source of nourishment for the beast of the body politic.

In the end, my friend created a document electing him as my proxy, and he promised to consummate the deal in my absence, which is forthcoming. When all else fails, pass it on to the lawyers--if the Cretans aren't available.

The problem is now, thankfully, out of my hands and in those of an expert navigator, who is intimate with the hairpin turns of a system that defies logic.

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It is Wednesday, time for my fellowship meeting in Pylos---and thank Buddha for that! I chose the topic--defiance and its antidote: gratitude--and everyone told stories of the system and how right-thinking allowed them to survive it.

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Still, I managed to encamp on the beach by noon. And for this I was grateful.

Looking right

And looking left--not too crowded!

A handful of naked Brits had taken my favorite spot. They looked like boiled Maine lobsters.

But a plunge in the ocean was positively cathartic, removing the frustrations of an entire morning in seconds. My neighbors even seemed welcomed after that first plunge.

The wind blows steadily from the south, originating in the great deserts of North Africa, tempered by the vast expanse of the Mediterranean, arriving at our shores all the wiser.

Homicidal Rage Averted--or at least postponed

Swim to Egypt? Not so far...

I set off for Kalamata—56 kilometers distant—at 7 a.m. to beat the heat and be the first one in line at the power company office. It is a lovely ride over the mountains, on serpentine roads with hairpin turns (and few guard rails), traveling past the gypsy camps outside of the city, with long views of the 7500+ foot Taygetos mountains (still snow covered) across the Messenia Gulf.

In the past month, I have been so fortunate (I thought, rather brazenly, actually clever) in dealing with the layers of Greek bureacracy. Today I met my match in dealing with the lady the bulletproof hairdo and the truly awful attitude.

The object of my visit was to apply for a hook-up to the power grid. Like everything else in Greece, this involves jumping through fiery hoops, bribing, cajoling, and sweet-talking. The grid is in lieu of photo-voltaic, which is subject to theft in my absence and also, perhaps, is more expensive in the long run, because batteries don’t last as long in the extreme heat and would need to be sheltered outside, for safety's sake (the house is too small).

I brought every imaginable document—except the one that she required for the application, the αδεια οικονομη=building permit. Because I bought an old wreck of a building, which was an illegal structure, then paid the back fines to make it legal, the standard building permit doesn’t apply. Instead, all of the legal issues are referenced in the 22-page contract from 2013, which I brought with me.

But no, this was not good enough. This homely bureaucrat pushed all of my buttons and I kept smiling. Then she grabbed the document file out of hands and began rifling through it. Tucked into the last page was a menu from the local gyro shop.

She threw (literally) the book at me and said, “Now on top of everything else you’re making me hungry!”

“Ma’am, I just drove 56 miles to complete this permit, and you’re telling me you’re hungry. At 8 o’clock? I’m ready to pay the electric company several thousand dollars for four electric poles? And you’re worrying about eating?”

She glared at me. She offered an unkind comment about foreigners and told me I was making her life difficult.

Difficult, I thought? I fantasized a head lock followed by a face plant into her overflowing ashtray. I took a deep breath and thanked her for her time and let her know that I would be back. Tomorrow.

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On the way through Methoni I stopped at my lawyer/notary’s office and explained what had transpired. He called the mihanikos (engineer who signs off on all construction/renovations) and put the call on speaker phone.

“The woman is an idiot,” the lawyer said. “She is a donkey,” the engineer replied.

In short order they prepared a new document, with the court’s imprimateur (which I know I’ve misspelled), stating that my house was indeed “legal” and that electrical hook-up is applicable.

“Bring the documents tomorrow. If she gives you a hard time again, call me. If she doesn’t like it, she can eat the documents along with her morning gyro.”

So tomorrow I will set off yet again, in my final days, to contend with the never-changing, insufferable Greek bureaucracy.

Victory is ours!

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Old and New

Morning swim

The end times are at hand, or at least the countdown has begun It has been a busy three weeks in the village: working on the house, arranging for future projects, visiting with friends. And, of course, swimming and running everyday. Eating great food. Not drinking alcohol. I feel excceding fit and ready to challenge myself.

The challenge will come next Sunday when I run (for the second time) a 5-kilometer road race in Kalamata, sponsored by the police and with the lofty purpose of reigning in the scourge of narcotics addiction. It’s not just in Downeast Maine.

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Greece is a land of continuity—historical, cultural, linguistic. The folkways—foods, dance, arts and crafts, to name a few—are on a kind of continuum that begins in early antiquity and continues to the present day. For more than 3000 years, an amalgation of attitudes and superstitions, prejudices and biases, a sense of fatalism and inevitability—these are all primary characteristics of the Greek spirit.

The δειπνον

My poet-friend Niko, the unofficial cultural mayor of this medium-sized village, invited me and a few other friends for a δειπνον (“dinner” if you must) in his αυλη (garden). Readers and students of the classics might be familiar with the term--the Deipnosophists, antiquity's thoughtful party animals, were a special breed of deep thinkers, whose philosophical musings were transformative in ancient history. The transformation was largely assisted by massive quantities of food and wine that gave mere mortals special powers of thought and sociability. More lemonadas for me, more wine for them.

There were many delicious offerings, beginning with a kind of wild (pickled) bulb; Niko’s incomparable olives; tsasiki (garlic/cucumber/yogurt) spread; fresh fruit; and fresh village bread. This was followed by Maria’s incredible, homemade dolmadakia (savory rice wrapped in cooked grape leaves), and a very fine dish of baked bakalaria (salted cod cooked with vegetables and a creamy sauce). The seven of us ate and drank, with lively toasts every three minutes, until 1:30 a.m.. Glasses and carafes were broken in the process—all in the interest of steady conversation.

Αγιος Ριγανης—St. John of the Oregano

There is a little chapel deep in the valley that can hold no more than a dozen people. It is the chapel of St. John of the Oregano, whose feast day was celebrated today. All villages have their panagiria (saint day celebrations), some have several.

Carving up the beast for the feast

The hungry faithful

The iconostasis of St. John Rigani (of the Oregano)

By 8:00 a.m. there were fifty or sixty people milling in the courtyard, while the priest and the old ladies and the very young were sweating up a storm in the dark, stuffy chapel as the Orthodox liturgy was performed.

But the main event arrived in the back of a pickup truck, courtesy of Kosta the butcher (and the demos—municipality: a large roasted pig. When the priest said the final Amen, the cleaver divided up this crispy creature, the wine and beer appeared, large hunks of Holy Bread, salads, and toys for the kids.

The entire event was over by 10 a.m., all of the participants departing with pocketfuls of sanctified bread.

I felt Wholely Me.

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Nothing Stays the Same

Start of my morning run

The village idiot speaks three languages and remembers everyone’s names, year in and year out.

The village drunk has been sober for four years, after forty years of continuous inebriation—and he’s looking damned good, walking tall, and smiling.

Mom was right: nothing stays the same, everything changes.

Me and my painter mate, Leonida

Hard sanding, lovely teak finish

It is one of the finest, white-sand beaches in the eastern Mediterranean, free of our era’s bric-a-brac (but for a few umbrellas and a small cantina), devoid of the modern world’s air-conditioned nightmare. In short—pristine. Until some Russian oligarch defiles it with a hotel. That is the fear.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have stumbled into this place in 2007. Percolating with gratitude and happy joi de voi—bronze, fit, faithful to the steady architecture of an emerging set of values. Sober. Blessed. Laughing most of the time.

How to prune a young olive tree

And how to hack most of a sickly lemon tree

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This evening, after siesa hour, I drove to the town of Methoni (ancient Modon), about 10 kilometers west on the coast.

Methoni is a small town of about 800 souls with a towering medieval castle built by the Venetians, circa 1300, as a gateway to the Holy Lands.

Approach to Methoni, 10 km to the west. DWF (driving while filming)

A few centuries later it was overthrown by the Ottoman Turks, who promptly beheaded its 20,000 residents when it fell after a siege that had lasted for many years, against all odds. The fortunate women and children were sold into chattal slavery or into the Turkish harems of Constantinople. The male defenders—well, their fate was sealed when the walls were breached.

A moat is good security--if you have the slave labor to build it

My Cretan grandparents, who were born as subjects of the sultan (Crete was occupied by the Turks for 200+ years, until 1906), taught my own father the much-used moniker: “the evil and viscious Turks.” It was a line I grew up hearing more than a few times.

I am officially registered (γραμμενος= “written down”), along with my younger daughter Evyenia, as a “citizen” of Methoni, with voting rights as a Greek (dual) citizen that I will likely never exercise. Though we live a few kilometers to the east, we are bonefide Methonians, non-resident residents of a town that serves as the regional center, second only to Homer’s “sandy Pylos” to the north. This makes us modern-day defenders of the fortress.

We ain’t afraid of no Turks. But just in case, we keep our swords sharpened, our shields at the ready, and our breast-plates polished.

Methoni today contends with a minor horde of northern European residents, unarmed sunworshippers living in their gated compounds beyond the bastion walls.

The old Venetian castle in Methoni, with the bourzi at the end. Ideal for weddings and beheadings

Only one way in--otherwise, bring your trabouche or 5 euros

Our Navarino oranges

 

Typical stone house, Methoni

We

We have nearly ripe pears, pomegranates, figs, and avocados...

Fisher's pier, Methoni

Tonight I attended an ongoing gallery exhibition in Methoni that is showing the work of several English friends. I was promptly informed that the artists wanted their guests to find “their inner child”—and I was urged to wear old clothes that I didn’t mind getting covered with acrylic paint. I turned down the plastic smock offered by my English friend R. that would have proved  insufficient as the paint flew—rather literally--where once, a few centuries earlier, the arrows flew from these very walls.

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We are not naming names

On rare occasion I read the news from back home, against my better judgment. Clearly the “center cannot hold” to quote William Butler Yeats on the eve of World War I. As the center vanishes, the polarities increase in distance.

When ordinary people—or even well-known political figures, though I am not naming names—can only build themselves up by degrading and demeaning those who happen to disagree with him/them (aka “the enemies of the people”) his/their pettiness and massive insecurities, if not his/their outright incompetence, which is proven on a daily basis, are on display for the world to see.

It is a disheartening sign of the times that we have sunk so low. The lowest uncommon denominator. Rage, anger, discontent. The rallying cries of Us versus Them.

A sad, sad commentary on our age. No, the center cannot hold.

A real fixer-upper, like the state of our politics

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The Holy Spirit

On to more ethereal thoughts. I continue to read Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ. I was struck by this extended quotation:

A good theologian is one who says almost nothing about God, even though the word “theology” [yes, a Greek word] means “discourse about God.” It is risky to talk about God. The notion of God might be an obstacle for us to touch God as love, wisdom, and mindfulness. The Buddha was very clear about this. He said, “You tell me that you are in love with a beautiful woman, but when I ask you, What is the color of her eyes? What is her name? What is the name of her town? you cannot tell me. I don’t believe you are in love with something real.” Your notion of God may be vague like that, not having to do with reality. The Buddha was not against God. He was only against notions of a God that are mere mental constructions that do not correspond to reality, notions that prevent us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality. That is why I believe it is safer to approach God through the Holy Spirit that through the door of theology. We can identify the Holy Spirit whenever it makes its presence felt. Whenever we see someone who is loving, compassionate, mindful, caring, and understanding, we know that the Holy Spirit is there [my emphasis].

Take a breath if you must.

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At the art show, I met the teacher—a kindred spirit.

Yoga instructor at the art exhibit

We meditated together and she showed me some basic yoga poses, a discipline I aspire to follow with the guidance of a sensible instructor.

Getting one's fingers wet--art for the inner child

My dear friend and her work

After we left the exhibition, I joined my English friend R. and A., and their Greek neighbor, for dinner on the water’s edge at the Methoni campground. As the sun dipped into a slurry of gentle pastels, the bourzi (the cylindrical edifice on outermost point of the castle) was illuminated by beams of light. The bourzi, a place of massive executions by beheading during the Turkokratia, now serves as much wanted place for weddings. Another truly transformative event.

My morning run

The heat continues to build each day—30 degrees Centigrade at sunrise, over 40 C (100+ F.) by noon. By siesta hour, find shade or die.

The key to running in Greece in the summer involves getting up very early (for me) and out the door by 6 a.m. The problem is that summer evenings in the village are delicious—cooler, with light breezes of the ocean, groups of people walking mindfully through the village, stopping for coffees here, sweets there, and a solid meal by 10 or 11 p.m. All of this means that going to bed much before 1 or 2 a.m. is unlikely. Running on four hours of sleep has been the norm these past three weeks—only made possible by the afternoon siesta.

Destination for my morning run

Church of St. Nicholas

No translation needed

Heading back to the beach, running

Short-cut through the olive grove

Lonely out there

Nearest beach to the house (Loutsa)

My poet-friend Niko refers to Greek siesta as “Mediterranean yoga,” a phrase that makes me chuckle as I write these words.

This morning I ran down the mountain to Grizokambos (= “dark/grey pastures”) from our village of Akritohori, which also goes by the old Turkish name, Grizi. So Grizokambos is, quite literally, the pasture land (and a small village) for the mountain village of Akritohori/Grizi.

The siting of these villages was nothing but intentional, owing to a long and violent history of pirate raids along the coast. One of the old Venetian towers (circa 1300s), sitting abandoned near my house, was one of several signal posts along the coast.

A goatie or three

When the garrison there spied the incoming pirate ships—which could be Greek, Egyptians, but most often “the vicious and evil” Turks)—far out to sea, the fires would be light, the message would be sent along the coast, and the residents of the coastal villages would take their flocks and provisions and head to higher ground. My village, Akritohori, was one of those higher grounds.

More on language

Unlike American English—spoken indifferently, often lacking in passion, reason, and, to a degree, cultural context—the richness of spoken Greek extends back thousands of years to antiquity and pre-history. It is a language rife with the pleasantries of human communication.

So while running, I passed an elderly woman dressed in heavy black wool who was hoeing her garden, and I said the commonest of phrases: “To your good healthy, ma’am.”

She smiled a broad and toothless smile and replied: “May you find joy, sir.”

I felt the spirit of my sister emanating from her countenance. It is all about finding joy and living in the present moment.

Fencing without a sword

The fence man will stop over tomorrow morning to assess our property and discuss the prospects of installing a metal perimeter fence (1.5 meters high) with a sliding metal gate. This is an expense that I have resisted—both because of the cost and the “ugly factor.” But now the oleanders (πικροδάφνη, pikrodafni=bitter Daphne) and the cypress (κυπαρισία), which Lucia and I planted in 2014 are so high that they would all but obscure the fence from view (at least looking out from the porch).

The real reason for the fence, according to the old men in the cafeneion: It will keep out wild boar and the gypsies, a sort of conflation of wild animals and free-spirited humans.

A man's home is his csstle--the Venetians knew a thing about home-building (Methoni)

Later in my run I passed old Yioryio, the father of my friend Yiota and Taki, from whom I purchased this property. He is known as mousa (“the bearded one”) though he hasn’t sported a beard for more than twenty years. It’s like calling a grown man Tiny just because forty years earlier, as a child, he might have been diminuitive.

Yioryio squated on his haunches, in the Arab/Turkish style, and was milking his freshened goats. This spring his goats produced a whopping eighteen kids, adobable prancing white creatures.

The have already eaten six of them.