ode to bravery

I booked a one-way ticket for this trip. People are impressed by this. They raise their eyebrows and they tell me I'm brave. I'm wild and free. I have that hearty spirit of adventure that outwits reason. I'm participating in an incredible feat of courage and madness. Hear me roar.

I run with this. I am perfectly happy to feign feigning modesty and tell everyone, aw, shucks, nice of you to notice how incredibly brave and outrageous I am.

Unfortunately, I am neither of these things, really. 
Dear everyone, I was not being brave. I was being a bit of a flimsy wuss.

I am happy to leap over waterfalls. I enjoy scuba-diving and navigating uncharted bush. Being lost in foreign cities at night is a rush. But when confronted with the idea of committing to a return date, I hollered and found a dark corner to shiver in for a few hours. If you want to say I'm brave, don't look to my noodle-splattered plane ticket with no return. That was an act of fear and of defiance. To book a ticket for a set day, at a solidified time in the future? Don't try to tell me that isn't scary. 


But of course, people honestly don't think it is. It's a different kind of fear that people have now, and I think it's something like the fear of possibility.

There's a cliff that I'm always looking over, and down there below me is the long and painful fall to the realm of fully-fledged commitment issues, all spread out and rambling. There are people down there who commit to nothing, except doing whatever they feel at that very moment. They like it, though. They're just chillin'. And way back behind me in the tree line there are neat rows of those organised diary-keeping types, booked firmly into appointments ten months in advance. 

I'm not the only one wandering around. Here on the edge, teetering, it's rather comfortable. Sometimes I throw my arm out and the wind nearly catches me. That's for kicks. I find myself wandering further back, too. Doing mad things like committing each semester to complete my coursework or booking plane tickets more than a month in advance. But I always return to the edge and I look over. And I gain approval from neither party, because I'm not doing either lifestyle quite right. Advocates from each side try to help me. They both believe so firmly that they've got it figured, this life thing. Who am I to say, having never done either option properly, but I kind of think the people down the bottom have a better grip on what matters.

I read an article in one of those free newspapers they give out on the tube that leave ink on my hands. It was about how people in London all have diaries that are filled with business meetings and dentist dates and weekend trips and prescribed relaxation days at the spa, for months and months -- sometimes years -- into the future. I read it and think, you, my dear, darling people, run the risk of being miserably tied down. Spontaneity is thrilling; it's memorable; and, importantly, it's rarely disappointing, as the expectations have little time to build. I see, reading this article, how people see my ticket as an act of courage. But I still disagree. It is very courageous of you to book all that in and assume that nothing will go wrong, no illness befall you, no whim tickle your fancy. I am in awe of your commitment. I am in awe that you manage to have fun, when your fun is given a span of hours in which to sit each week. To me, you are much braver than my one-way trip was. Your diary is an ode to your bravery. But let it not hold you back from standing on the edge.

greece : corfu -> santorini -> athens

I create for myself a grand Grecian cliché and it's glorious and sun-drenched as I imagined. 

I’m scaling a rock that juts out of the cliff and into the open ocean. I've swum around the side to get a foothold, so I can only see the horizon. The surface of the rock is dimpled and the edges cut my hands and bare feet like a defence. I focus everything I have not to slip back into the waves. The top is higher than I thought it'd be.

The beach curves away with its string of striped umbrellas. I can see the hostel. The day is clear blue but the wind makes me unstable. I watch the boys jump off one after another, backflip into the sea. Ella screams when she jumps.

I nearly slip lowering myself onto the edge. The cliff juts out below me. I aim for a place on the surface between the rocks and push off as hard as I can. My shout is involuntary, like it’s gravity shoving the air out the top of me.

Greece is a picture. In some parts it feels like it’s in limbo between the first world Europe I’ve come to know and something grittier. I like Greece -- the rawness and simplicity of the island life -- as soon as we’ve arrived. The country has complex issues at the moment but it bears them with a steadfast good humour and a willingness to go barefoot, and I respect that. When there's not a lot of money being thrown around, everyone stops to watch the waves.

Our hostel on Corfu is relaxed like only somewhere by the beach can be. We’re given breakfast at midday when we check in. Checking in basically involves telling someone what we want for breakfast. For the first time in months we aren't asked to pay in full on arrival. In fact, I don't think about money for the three days we're there. A roughed-up blue binder holds pencil notes of our drinks tabs. Breakfast and dinner are cooked for us, and lunch is forgotten in the hot elastic space of the afternoon. A few people are scattered over the deck in the sun so we eat omelette with peppers, looking down at the beach.

I spent the previous night awake on the ferry deck and I spend all day asleep on the beach, with others from the hostel scattered around me like fleshy coral on the sand. In the afternoon we smear salty clay all over ourselves because we found it in the other cove and because why wouldn't we? We watch the sun set over the water. The sunsets here are the special kind that constitute a nightly event. No one misses watching the sun set. 

At night I drink home made wine that’s poured from 20 litre plastic jugs like petrol. The nights are still warm in September so we sit in the huge open common room and play drinking games at the long dinner table. It’s the kind of place where everyone is friends and the nights get away from me. I sleep in until eleven and still get breakfast.

***

***

We go to Athens knowing there’s a few really good ancient things there, and not knowing much more than that. The acropolis is perfect, though in the tradition of my scaffolding curse it was undergoing repairs. The world monuments I have seen with a mask of scaffolding outnumber those I’ve seen without. I’ve come to expect it, really, and Ella has come to terms with adopting my curse for the duration of our trip.

The city puts on a good show. We’re there during the festival and entry to the monuments and museums is free. I eat litres of excellent yoghurt. Our airbnb apartment is down the road from Panourmou, lined with buzzing local bars and pubs that have good happy hour cocktails. We share a few brews with a friend from Corfu and I tell my skin to remember the steamy evening air. I know these are the last warm nights I’ll have for a while.

The economic strife in Greece shows here like an afternoon shadow. It’s easy to forget about, but easy to spot if you’re looking. There are a lot of stray dogs. Walking down the street we’re handed a glossy page advertising the ‘crisis menu’ of a nearby store, where the prices are slashed by a third.

 

***

 

The economic problems are more visible on the islands. The hills of Santorini are scattered with the skeletons of houses half constructed, more haunting than ruins. The curved archways let the wind through what should by now be someone’s bedroom, someone’s kitchen. It’s hard not to wonder where those people are, and whether the skeletons will be taken by new owners in the future or left to crumble back to the land.

If you’ve seen a picture of the Greek islands, you’ve seen a picture of Santorini. Villages cover the tops of cliffs like fresh snow. The port is busy with the ferry-load of people and we’re swirled into a tourist office to find a place to stay.

In the morning we wait in the white box of a bus stop then pack into the isles of a steamy local bus to get to the main town of Fira. The day is not at all like the blue I’d assumed it just had to be (it’s always sunny in Greece, right?). We’re buffeted along the cliff face under dark clouds. There’s a pre-storm tension in the air.

Oia is the northernmost village of Santorini, and considered the most beautiful. I’d have to agree with whoever said that; the white and blue cement all scattered with brilliant bougainvillea vines is what you’ve seen on your postcards. The town seems to carry it's own sunshine, too; while we’re being mashed on the bus, the clouds disappear and the violent air comes to a standstill. We're stopped on the narrow path as a donkey is loaded with black rubbish bags. The animals big, tired eyes make me cringe, but I like the fact they're the same as the big, tired donkey eyes that have been carting things up and down these paths for generations.

san gimignano - our tuscan interlude

As a remedy for the cold, I bring you a lengthy and wildly disjointed series of flashbacks to Tuscany in the summer. Featuring this goat.

prelude : great expanses
(Of land and of nothing.)

The country sweeps away from our farm in waves. The long rows of vineyards make the surface of the land look like it’s been combed over a scalp. The road we’re on has houses dotted along, a few with signs that say Agritourismo. We have a cottage on a family farm that produces olive oil and tiny fuzzy peaches, which grandma gives away in bowlfuls. Putting one in my mouth is like how I imagine it’d be to lick one of those skinny hairless cats. We eat a whole bowl in an hour.

We spend the morning relaxing. On a trip like ours, relaxation must be a prescribed and implemented activity. Being in a new city every five days compels me to be doing something at all times, for fear of wasting an hour that need not be wasted. We make doing nothing a something. San Gimignano was prescribed as a relaxation. We got a tip-off from a girl in our Venice hostel and we were sold on the idea. After Rome, after Florence, Venice, it was to be our sigh of Tuscan peace.

Time warps when I’m doing nothing. I put on the washing and then I look at the hills, read, listen to a car and then a tractor pass out of sight on the road. I make lunch with rosemary from the garden. I’m dizzy. The day warms around me slowly and my head fills with sunny country air until I can’t stand the pressure of nothing. I go for a walk while the afternoon cools.

episode one : slug attack
(Slug retreat.)

It happened in the kitchen. I guess attack is a strong word. More like, appearance. Presence of a slug. And what a slug it was. Officially my biggest slug.

I’m pretty good with creepies, generally. Not a fan, but we tolerate each other. I tolerate mostly because the thought of killing one is worse than the thought of co-existing. Even if you’re not a closet Buddhist, doesn’t the thought of bug guts turn you off the shoe-as-weapon method? Giving the big hairy spidey on the wall a name and turning off the light to pretend he’s sleeping is fine. Just fine.

I don't want to turn off the light on this guy. I don't fancy his guts between my toes on a midnight stroll. Game face. His trail shines in a 30cm arch behind him on the terracotta tiles. His magnificently long eye stalks probe the air ahead.  I search for the longest object in the cottage that can be subjected to slug juice. I sized him up, trying to figure out if a broom would mean gruesome death for an 8cm slug. Certainly. 

He changes his trajectory. Slowly. Damn, slugs are slow. He’s heading for the door. Eventually, he evacuates himself from the cottage.

Yes, it was a bit anticlimactic for me, too.

Other than Slugworthy, and a strange country-life smell that hangs behind the sink, the cottage is just the epitome of the tuscan getaway dream. There's a little collection of novels on a shelf and an outdoor table where we eat every meal in the sun.

episode two : the hitch-hike
(Wagging.)

I’ve had a bad habit all my life of trying to be good. I’ve mostly gotten over it now.

In my last week of high school I realised I’d never played truant. Not in the going-to-school-then-leaving sense (the hey-mum-and-dad-I’m-staying-home-please-write-me-a-sick-note I’m familiar with). This is one of those things I decided even the lamest student had to have done. I did it, but I did a lousy job of it (does lunch time even count?).

We’re in the country, the Tuscan countryside, on the road winding uphill to a preserved medieval town. When a car pulls over and waves us down, I know hitch hiking is another one of those things.

The roads are lined with vineyards. It’s sunny and there’s a soft country vibe.

The old guys in the car introduce themselves as Matteo and Luca. I'm not a church-goer but having Matthew and Luke in the front seat feels like a confirmation that I haven't done something rash. They speak Italian together and mostly ignore us. 

episode three : medieval
(UNESCO)

In Florence, tourist offices offer day trips to San Gimignano, the Tuscan town with the most well-preserved medieval architecture in Italy. We rather enjoy counting ourselves out of that coach-rindin' number for a little while; finding our way here on an infrequently-run local bus with only a smattering of people (we’re used to masses now) makes me feel like I'm basically Bear Grylls. Little thrills.

Inside the old town walls there's no traffic. There's not much noise to speak of, except a few musicians and some chatter. Wild hog salami hangs in shop windows and most have signs offering local cheese and wine tasting or else they're filled with soap. The restaurants hum. We cue for global award winning gelato. Though I usually vote against the lines business, I will never regret my decision to wait ten minutes for that ice cream. I watch the movement around the town well, which is decorated with people sporting paper cups and little plastic gelato spoons.  

episode four : not lost
(Lie.)

I feel like it’s left, I say.

We’re standing at a fork in the road. Ella refers to her hand-drawn map.

The map says right, she says.

It’s overcast but won’t rain – good walking weather. The road is lined with wildflowers and it winds over hills that we convince ourselves are familiar. We pant up slopes and veer onto the grassy shoulder when we hear something coming along the road.

When it’s over an hour since we left town, I’m finding it harder to call the road familiar. We stand in the shade on a driveway and decide to ask someone. A car passes and we don’t stop it. 

Another car is coming up the opposite driveway, crunching slowly on the dirt. I cross the road and hail him down.

Ciao, I say.

Sera, he says.

Sant’ Andrea? I say.

San Gimignano?

Sant’ Andrea, Ella says.

He shakes his head. We both say it again. Then he says, Ahhh. He points down the road, in the direction we’ve come.

Grazie, we say, and he nods us off.

We ask a hairy farmer a few hundred metres down, for a second opinion. He speaks in Italian, but we can follow his hand back the same way, and pick out Sant’ Andrea, San Benedicto. A young woman walks through the vineyard towards us. The farmer and the woman fight in Italian for long enough that I consider leaving just to see if they notice. Then she tells us in good English that Sant’ Andrea is in the direction of San Benedicto, that way.

Grazie. 

It’s a long walk home in the gathering dusk.

episode five : the reconnoitre
(hunt for bus stop)

I want to find the bus stop for tomorrow. We came in to the town on a bus, and luxuriously from San Gimignano to the farm in a taxi. We had an address with no number.

It’s okay, the taxi driver said. Sant’ Andreas has three houses. If it’s not the first, it’s the second, or the third. He counted the numbers on his fingers in the rear view mirror for us.

I remember passing bus stops on our detour yesterday, and I want to avoid the cab fare back to town. Walking the road in the sun is a good feeling. I start to sweat. A young farmer honks his tractor horn and grins at me. I wave back though I wouldn’t in the city. There isn’t much traffic on the road besides a few tourist cars and old tractors and mopeds that sound like 80s kitchen appliances. Some tractors have trailers loaded with ripe grapes that bounce like they’re jelly. I find the stop and read the timetable in a phonetic kind of way that passes for understanding. A man pulls his car over while I'm reading and tells me the next bus to Poggibonsi should come by soon. His kindness, the fact he could be bothered to pull over (and the fact that I didn't immediately assume he was a creeper) was the perfect way to cap off our little foray into the peace of a place that feels like it's been dropped here out of the past.