Vacation

Once again I'm on vacation from my vacation  AKA  An update about nothing. 

AN exhibition of modern sculptures on the roof I'd the Duomo in Milan Italy gives wonderful contrast in style and makes for fun photos.

Geoff came to visit for a week and we checked out some of the tourist highlights of mainland Greece. All went well but, I hate to admit, when he left and I was back on my own again, instead of feeling desperately lonely, as I'd expected, what I really felt was a sense of relief as if a weight had been lifted.

I am, like too many women of my mother's generation, a 'pleaser' and I can't be happy myself unless I've done everything in my power to ensure that everyone else around me is happy first. Consequently I find myself catering too much to others' wishes, doing what I feel is more than my fair share of the compromising, and then resenting it.

As soon as Geoff was gone I was able to - in a very selfish self-centered manner - go back to doing exactly what I wanted to do all the time without having to consider or communicate or compromise with anyone else.

It was lovely.

I checked into a hostel in old town Athens within walking distance of everything and proceeded to start my days off with sleeping in before wandering to one of the main squares to sit and listen to whatever street musicians were playing while simultaneously reading a book. (I first read The Goldfinch, which I loved, it took me three days to finish, and I've moved on to an anthology of American short stories whose intro starts out, 'Language is a drug...'). It's still warm Indian summer weather here, shirt and t-shirt weather, and reading outdoors is glorious.

I've befriended the people in my dorm and in the evenings we sit and chat together for hours over a few beer or a bottle of wine discussing world politics and current events then cook communal meals and play cards until the wee hours.

'Where are you going next?', I'm asked by both friends from home and those around me, but I am without answer. I'm not even planning. I'm just being happy, completely stress-free, whiling away the hours somewhat aimlessly but in a state of total contentment. Someone tells me of Como, a book about a man who won a month as writer-in-residence and merely enjoyed the place but didn't write a word while he was there... and I feel like him, though, obviously, he stored up details in a notebook or his mind as he wrote a bestseller later about the whole experience, which I am not doing. And as I wander the streets the next day, very briefly inspired, I try to observe and list, to myself at least, what I like so much about my surroundings; the narrow cobblestone streets lined with large orange trees meandering aimlessly and punctuated with small squares where ruins, Byzantine churches, coffee shops, green grocers, and newspaper kiosks all happily coexist... I've brought my camera with me too this morning thinking I might try to take a postcard worthy photo. But I'm too filled with complacency and lassitude, like a cat napping on a sunny windowsill, to make a real effort at any of it.

And, several days later, I still have no plans... I might go back to Lesvos, though I feel I've had that experience, or head to Croatia, though I fear it would be getting cold there by now, or join a tour to see some of Morocco, though that seems somewhat contrived, or even catch a super cheap cruise back across the ocean, though that feels a bit lazy... but it's all good. I've only got winning options in front of me.

I plan to be home in a month, for Christmas, and doubt I'll spend all of my remaining time here, in this same hostel, but, you never know... My days are filled with little experiences, rather than big ones, taking the tram along the coast and walking the boardwalk and then the beach until I come across a bar with with wonderful couches nestled among the palm trees and settling in to read for a couple hours, being jolted awake when one of my roommates has a violent nightmare and going to sit out in the courtyard garden to drink tea together with her and the night watchman because she's too scared to go back to sleep, considering sorting through my accumulated photos... it may sound a bit empty but doesn't feel that way at all rather it is as cosy and comfortable as a favourite faded sweater. Right now I think I'll have a nap, then go out to get the weekend paper so I have a good crossword to peck away at, pick up salad fixings and a bottle of red, set a time to chat with each of my kids, and, maybe, tomorrow, I'll find the time to consider what to do next...

Finally, finally, I am just living.  

A few days later, when up at 3 am for a pee break and sitting in the garden courtyard checking to see if any of my kids happen to be lurking online  - 3 am here is 8 pm there so a great time to chat with them for a moment or two - I find in my inbox an email from a friend telling me of one of her relatives who had a near miss wrt the bombings in Paris, and, as I am responding this news, a bomb goes off in Athens just a few blocks away from where I am. No one was killed in the Athens bombing, the police had received a tip it was there and had evacuated the immediately adjacent buildings, but it still spooked me. I don't think I'd ever heard a bomb detonate in person before but I, and the night watchman, both agreed immediately that that was what it was. So, despite having just found such a lovely equilibrium, I decide that it's time to go home. I book a 15 day cruise back across the Atlantic (4 stops, 6 days at sea, 4 stops) (Advertised price $399 !! Actual price including single supplement and taxes still less than twice that, in other words an awesome deal), a few days at a hostel in Guadeloupe on the other side of the ocean, and a flight from Guadeloupe back to Ottawa. I'll be back in Canada before Christmas and get to see each of my kids at some point over the holiday for sure. I didn't even step foot on a sailboat this fall though my stated goal had been to crew for months in the Mediterranean but I have no regrets. When I'm 90 I'll be able to reminisce about all my adventures. Likely I'll be so poor that I'll be living in one of my kids' garages but fortunately I'm OK with that too.

I spend a couple of days in Milan on my way to the port and, except that it's only 2 degrees out (what is that?), totally enjoy seeing one more city and meeting, fleetingly as always, a few more people.

Walking round the cathedral in the main square I marvel at the range of materials used artistically; marble statues and oil paintings, of course, but also tapestries, intricate wood and metal work, ceramic mosaics, stained glass windows, solid bronze, gold lief, precious stones... the floor has designs made by different coloured rock and on the roof, from where you can see the city skyline, there is an outdoor exhibition of ultra modern sculptures that catch my eye. In the ossuary old bones and skulls have been used to create 'art' that has a carpe diem message reminding us to live today as we won't live forever. I wish I were the sort of Art teacher who brought all of these materials into their classroom; rocks and glass and metal and bones. I still feel so deep into holiday mode it seems highly unlikely - though I know it's true - that I'll be back in the classroom in a matter of weeks.

And on the train from Milan south to Savona in the early morning skimming silently first past heavily frosted flat fields and then, closer to the coast, through tunnel after tunnel, I am totally utterly content.