As we get further away from it on the ferry, Athens looks like crushed chalk lying scattered at the foot of the hills. Like bleached bones on a beach.
There are so many different kinds of sand. One beach has sand like sprinkles for ice-cream, crushed peanut sprinkles. Another kind is so fine it sticks to everything.
A man throws away some moldy lemons. A woman waters her garden. Outside of a hotel a man tends the flower garden. Sunflowers and others I don't know the names of. This idea of tending. I see it everywhere here. It's good to observe. Tending something specific - your area, hotel, garden, all that concerns you. I look out over the water and suddenly miss everyone I know. I look up at the mountains and feel new.
Donkeys and mountain goats. I had never heard a donkey braying before. I didn't know what braying sounded like. It makes you stop what you're doing and sort of freeze and listen. Goats - I try to videotape one climbing a mountain. It seems to know that so it stops all the time and waits and looks at me defiantly.
Fruit trees. Lemons, limes, oranges, apricots. There are a lot of trees and plants to love here. Flowering trees, and odd, wonky Dr. Seuss trees and bushes. Luscious colours, strong and full against white. No pastels except in the aftermath of sunset.
And the white buildings like sugar cubes perched on the islands. The islands with their soothing forms passing slowly from the ferry. They are the shape they are. They want to sit how they're sitting. They watch us go by in the morning but in the afternoon they close their eyes and sleep. Then they don't know you're studying them, their lines, their highs and lows and hidden coves and cliffs with holes. Secretly learning to know them, programming the image of them gliding by for when I later close my eyes.
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