Today is Monday and all the museums are closed. My travelogue records that I just spent the day wandering around Athens alone. That is not as sad as it sounds. I was soaking up the sights and sounds of the city, marvelling at glimpses of the Acropolis as I turned various street corners. It seemed to be everywhere. I have mentioned Edinburgh twice in these posts. I was fortunate enough to live there for two years and remember that Castle Rock had that same dominating and omnipresent quality. [This juxtaposition of memories only exists now, not in 1973. My Edinburgh life was part of an unknown future at that time.]
The wandering was interspersed with frequent stops in tavernas, the sound of bouzoukia mingling like synesthesia with the smell of wonderful Greek food. As my body rested, so my mind wandered, already revisiting some of the key moments of my trip thus far. The crossing from Greece into Turkey at Ipsala already had an unreal quality to it, as though it had happened to someone else – which, in a way, it did. And the impact of gazing across the city from the Acropolis was fresh in my mind.
Sometimes we have experiences that we know instinctively will stay with us, leaving footprints in our hearts and minds, of both sorrow and joy. Other experiences unexpectedly create such footprints, but they may lay undiscovered for years, until they are reactivated by a later experience that is redolent of the original experience. This can be catastrophic in the case of traumatic memories, but blissful when they are happy memories.
The post today consists mostly of present day thoughts – my knowledge and thinking towards the end of my teenager days was not quite up to such insights…
Athens seems like a nice city to hang around in for a few days
Today I also bought a new book for my travelling library – The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller, recounting his travels in Greece with Lawrence Durrell. I still harboured hopes of being a great writer. I noted that it would be good to write about my travels but…
…maybe I should wait until my name is fairly well established in literary circles
Ah, there is such a thin line between dreams, optimism and delusion!
If you wish to discuss this with me further in a nice corner taverna, you can find me in Athens again tomorrow.
Psychologist on the Move 