Methana
The Ideal Temperament
When Vas announced she was “going shopping,” I registered the phrase as one of those small departures from character. Naturally, she came back armed instead of accessorized: steel hooks jangling in a paper bag and two pole spears slung over her shoulder like she’d just enlisted in Poseidon’s navy. I know her well enough to expect this by now - and it still delights me.
They say Greece is “a dream fed by sunshine,” and I’m starting to believe it. The sky is perfectly blue and unclouded, and though I’m usually carrying around a small collection of complaints, here they seem too petty - and out of place - to mention.
The defining questions of our time:
How can I feel better?
How do I become more?
Now bring them together...
If I didn’t feel scared, tired, inadequate or whatever it is I keep telling myself - if I felt a little more confident, motivated and free - what would I do? What would be the most interesting - even if slightly intimidating - thing to try next?
At last, a place where two halves of me can shake hands: the part that wants to sit still and notice everything, and the part that wants to move, explore, and test itself against the world. Every day feels fresh, and the menu of choices suits me perfectly: the quiet, spacious, meditative emptiness of Zen, or the taste of salt, bursting lungs, and sharpened focus of the hunt.
A Scene to Remember: Logan (8) and Layla (6) running around in their underwear while the “adults” cook the day’s catch: 1 rabbit fish, 1 moray eel, 2 lizard fish. Vas and I joke about what our life as parents might look like... somewhere in the filleting and squeezes of lemon and endless rounds of “I’ll jump off the couch, and you’ll catch me” - I think we rehearsed it.
“God” - on whether or not such a power exists, I propose to say as little as possible. But I read “Riding the Leopard,” and it made me feel something strange and beautiful and big and connected...
The more I stay in conversation with myself - the more I stop to ask if I truly want to be doing what I’m doing - the more honest that wanting becomes, and the less I end the day feeling like I’ve wasted it. And maybe the waste isn’t in what I do at all, but in the reasons I give myself for doing it.
love it hermano!!! greece is magical indeed.