“…but I don’t love to arrive.”

February 24, 2008

There’s a line from my favorite poet, Mahmoud Darwish, that describes my mood right now: “Addresses for the soul, away from this place…I love to travel to any wind, but I don’t love to arrive.”

All the anticipation, excitement, flurry of activity, day dreaming about what things will be like once you arrive, plus the physical effort expended to get to your destination puts you on an adrenaline high that heightens every sense. Then you arrive and you still can’t relax—a new set of realities is greeting you at every turn, your own reflection in the mirror looks strange...everything is foreign.

Our one bedroom apartment is literally one room rectangle about 12’ x 10’ with a smaller hallway for a kitchen in back and a tiny bathroom. It could be worse. I remember my friend James’ apartment in Paris had the toilet in a utility closet—so small that your knees brushed the door when you sat down—and you had to step up onto the kitchen counter to take a shower. But, at least there was water and even hot water, unlike the apartment in Jordan, which was huge, yet missing these key elements much of the time. Given the small space, right now our luggage looks like it threw up in the room.

But, despite our clutter, some nice details greeted us: fresh vine-ripened oranges on the shelf and in the refrigerator, newly painted walls, two new beds, and my personal favorite, which words cannot do justice:Was this little shrine left over from previous tenants? Or, was this Mr. Vardakas’ personal interior decorating touch? Best not to dwell too long on this subject…

While our little hut on the rooftop is small, we do have the entire rooftop to ourselves and we wake up every morning with a view of the sea. We’ve decided that we will claim the rooftop as outdoor living space and make it cozy.








Later in the day we got our first look at the island with Mr. Vardakas as our tour guide. We met an Orthodox priest, who is the lone caretaker of the Mersinidiou Monastery, apparently because everyone else has died.
We asked Mr. Vardakas what will happen to the Monastery when the last priest died, he shrugged his shoulders, picked some geraniums and handed a stem to each of us. Next we strolled about Lagada a nearby town to the North, very idyllic, with its main street floating just above the sea. Not bad for a short Sunday drive.