From South Buffalo, looking west (2010)

My city, to the west

In smoke in ash in haze

Paper box specialist, Samson

Crumpling beside

my going bike gears.

Wild mustard greens and trees working up.

We buckle

We ease down,

the earth below us, does not.

 

The Boarding House restaurant

all boarded up—but maybe not

A lot that is not dead in this town

appears to be.

I was asked to write about my journey.

There was nothing to do everyday, but pedal. My quads got bigger and bigger. There was nothing left to think about, I exhausted every subject. I sang about everything--to myself, to the weeds and trees that lined the canal, to the mosquitoes and flies, which couldn't stay on my skin in the wind. I ate food I never eat. I ate sugary pastries for breakfast and diner omelettes with hash browns for dinner. I had coffee with my dinner and still slept like a baby. Nothing happened, everything happened, which is the way of the road, which is why writing about travel is so difficult to do well, to do honestly. It is why good travel writers are also good liars--because to tell the truth about journeys in retrospect, it is important to embellish and eliminate--and also the reason why many people find it impossible to write at all. I've been asked to write about my trip. I don't know what to tell you. I know what, and not how. I know neither what nor how, but I know why, which is always enough.

The smell of manure suddenly (outside Lockport), and I am nostalgic. Fields of rolled hay, orchards. It is not me--there is a breeze in the shade that whispers, "Don't stop, don't stop." It has never mattered where I am going, or how long it takes. It matters that I'm going, following a path. Watch--the bees know their business. Do they ask how many flowers in how many minutes? I don't think so. It is not that time is not important, just not quite as important as everyone thinks.

I find mystery in small towns, knowing there is no mystery there. I know that for the teenagers sitting on the canal, life is bland, marked only by crushes, stolen cigarettes, and the hope of growing up faster. Jazz clubs and restaurants sit along the canal in a line. Laughter, music, clinking of glasses. I want to be sweatless, in a sundress, sparkling on the water, clinking glasses. I am riding towards nothing, I am riding towards my next meal, I'm riding out unanswered questions, I'm riding to friends.

Peaches, oh summer, don't end. Blueberries, summer, don't end. Raw sweet corn from a roadside stand. Morning, don't end. As with walking, everything is closer when cycling. My mortality is closer to me. I pass roadkill--this solicits a prayer. The first few times, I put the body in the weeds to disintegrate, lay it to rest. On the roads, in the hills and valleys of the Finger Lakes, I cannot stop every time, or I'll be roadkill.

The weather turns warm, wet, dark, hazy--like pussy. New York state is beautiful, struggling, smells like dead fish and ragweed. Smells like milk thistle burning, like clean, cold water, and lakeweed, like sweat and sunscreen and chemical greens, everything rotting in re-burgeoning wetlands, everything going under and everything coming up. New York state is belligerent, inappropriate, impatient, Italian, stuck and drunk, overheated, understimulated, anxious and bored, and finally, very kind to travelers.

I ride parallel to I90, which looks silly from my curvy, sensuous country road. I see billboards from the back, and their shape is foreign in expansive corn. Hills! Exhilarating doesn't come close to covering it. I stop at an intersection to check my map, and a policeman stops his car to warn me of rain. It rains. Something is baking on the horizon, and after the storm, wind carries it to me. Delicious hunger, delicious hills. I am riding towards friends. When I get very tired, I think, What am I doing? I should be at home writing children's books! I will do that too, later.

Until electricity came, the canal was lit by 31 hour kerosene lamps. Most canal jobs have been lost, but there are still some maintenance jobs. Canal-watchers walk up to 7 miles a day, up and down, looking for leaks. What is going on now? What is the industry of New York? A very mild amount of tourism. But mostly, prisons and landfills. In and out of prisons, nothing comes or goes, except sounds. Birds, voices, trucks: hum and whir, rattle. I am doing a thing of ultimate privilege and freedom. To set out on a bicycle everyday, with nothing to do but move forward. I ride by fences as tall as the trees that surround me, with barbed wire on top instead of leaves. When I camp alone, a grove of towering pines protects me from rowdy voices nearby, children's voices, adult's voices, and from the wind.

Everyday I am on the road, I come closer and closer to my own mortality. I develop a relationship with everything. I get slammed by thunderstorms, heat, and mosquitoes. I eat a lot ice cream. I make new friends--not life friends, but friends of the moment. Cyclists everywhere see my panniers, and ask me how far I am going, and if I need anything (water, granola, a place to spend the night). One night, after a roller-coaster of a day, I end up wearing my rainjacket as pajama bottoms because everything else is wet. Whenever I get myself into situations, I like to think about Mark Twain. At the thought of him, my discomfort becomes amusing, and that is how I know I'm okay. I sleep, I dream, I ride, I dream. And then I arrive.

When I see the skyline of Albany, I tear up a little. I don't know why--I've never loved Albany, it's just something about the finality of my arrival. I have reached my goal and I'm a little sad. I'm also exhausted and incredible. I'm relieved, but without my lovely, simple purpose, I feel empty and lonely. Riding a bike all day makes it easy to be in the moment. I eat a bunch of salty, crunchy things at my dear, old friend's house, and then go home to my parents' house and eat more + wine. Then I sleep, I dream, I ride.

1 Minute Old

Eveningless

Summer night

The day just runs into

The wind

And do you care

Where you were

When it rained

No

Because in summer,

Everything is an element—

Not just the weather,

But your skin,

Your lover’s skin,

Your lover.

You can’t get caught in the rain,

You can only be in it.

 

Run, run it

Clap hands

Big sounds

What are you

going to do now?

Dauphin Island

The rigs hum at night, mechanical giraffes
Ghost crabs scatter at the sound of our feet,
their eyes on tender stalks
Wary.
I would give 50 years of my life to be there again
The way it used to be
Imperfect and sediment-heavy
Already there was phenol in the water and
Mercury in the blood of the pelicans.
The marshes keep their secrets
They smell of old love affairs
Sulfur.
A blue heron waits
His back curved what an old man disappointed with life
And the live oaks stand witness
They scare us at night as we pass them on bicycles
Their moss hangs down whispering  You don’t know what I have seen.
I want you still god help me
Or if not you then a more vivid memory
I want to taste your salt air again your warm water
Forgive us, mother, for the mistakes that we are bound to make and the
million ways in which we have wounded you
I will find forgiveness when I die
Walking out past the children with the clam guns
(a crabber looks on)
Into the breaking waves
The oyster beds kiss my tender feet/

by Eleni Petrou, May 2010. Bob the house.

The Rules of Picnics

Lydia and I have been planning a picnic. Lydia is one of my littler friends in life and recently she learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. She said that riding fast is the closest she has ever come to flying. This is true for me also. She also had some very wise things to say about fear--about her fear of falling. It's not the end of the world if I fall off my bike, but I think it is. But if I don't take risks I'll never get to go faster or ride in the road. I have to remind myself of this almost every time I go rock climbing. If I don't risk falling, I will never get to the top. 

Last Friday we rode our bikes, looping around and around her block. It was getting close to bedtime, but we decided that next-time we would have to go somewhere. And that it would probably be a good idea to pack a picnic. Lydia said, "We should talk about a few things." I didn't know picnics had rules, but once she outlined them for me, it made a lot of sense.

The rules of picnics:

1) You cannot drive to a picnic. It is only real if you ride your bike or walk.

2) You cannot have a picnic on a table, or with chairs.

3) There must be surprises.

4) You have to bring something to share.

5) You have to bring a surprise.

6) No training wheels.

Which waterfront are you talking about?

On Sunday, Sara Gordon and I went on a hike, walking along the river from Mass Ave to LaSalle Park, and on to the Marina, where we spent some time with the fish. Then we wandered through some weird condo communities--although that is probably not the right word for what they are--singing Woody Guthrie, and into downtown where we walked through a fence, cut under the overpass, and headed north and west, to home.

There's been a lot of fuss about the waterfront lately. Some people want this thing, some people want the other thing. Bass Pro wants in and that's its own kettle of fish. The word revitalization gets thrown around a lot (gets thrown around on Grant St. too). I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement. There are a few gravely spots that could be greener, and I'd never say no to a few more trees--but revitalization? Revitalization? Come on! There were easily five hundred people at the waterfront around 6 pm on Sunday. Easily 500, but probably more. Laughing, shouting, playing, running, walking, playing tag, grilling. Doing people-at-the-waterfront activities. It's a river. We live on a drained swamp. Of course people are going to go there.

We do need to protect what is already ours from Bass Pro and from any further condo-ization. We need to hold what is rightfully ours away from any of the greedies upstairs. But we do not need to revitalize. We already are. And this argument reaches right into the core of urban planning itself. Do we need to protect what is ours from that corrupt mascot, money? Yes. Beyond that, nothing needs to be done. People will put what they need where they need it, and they invest where they are. Academics, posturers, politicians: take a walk (not a drive) around the west side. There are countless churches, temples, and other sanctuaries...in houses. The west side says, "Everything can go in a house!" Nobody is going to build their church or garden across town. They are going to get together and put it where they live. I have walked on rainy nights, and heard, from the yellow glow of houses, voices rising up in languages I don't know, and tambourines, and guitars, and instruments I don't know--voices that laugh and sing and sway the night, and people like me stop in the street to listen. They're thanking god--in whatever version of that story--and I'm thanking them. A little help is good, but usually there is too much meddling.

It's an odd process--the one by which a simple thing is made complicated. The river is the calmest, loveliest place of the city. It is my medicine. I go to the river to remember what I am doing, and to forget (I make sure to go there at least once a week). But the waterfront is already segregated. Along the path Sara and I took, it was like this: quiet, private (hidden boat docks), then public (kids jumping into the water), then private again (gated 'communities' without gates), mostly quiet--a murmur of AC units and ceiling fans. Then noisy: there was a condo party going on. At the Marina it is public and private. How? Shanghai Reds versus picnic tables.

When I was trekking through Belfast this past March, I kept finding myself walking along a mesh fence. At points it was as tall as a short building. It is an old fence that remains, but it is  anything but symbolic for the people who still live, and cry, and somehow manage to sing and play behind it. There were playgrounds behind it, on the other side of where I was walking, and the shouts of the children were not ordinary shouts; they were cries of war. As they should be: what does it do to anyone's mind--child or adult--to live behind a fence? For any human or animal to be put in a cage creates daily pain, and that stuff gets inside bodies. The message is: You cannot go where I am; stay. The trauma of that lives in our muscles, in our cells. Take Belfast, take Palestine, take domestic abuse. There is claustrophobia first, then terrorism--terrorism directed outward or inward. In Belfast, I was amazed at how difficult it was to find an entrance/exit to the fence. I walked along it for at least a half an hour, but maybe longer, before I found a place to slip through--and that was all it was--not a gate, just a place to slip through.

I thought of this as we passed through Buffalo's hidden monastery of wealth. There was no fence or physical barrier keeping us from entering or exiting, yet we were walking straight into a secret. A tar path led us straight from LaSalle Park into an enclave of suburbia in downtown Buffalo. But there were signs that read Private. A cop car drove by us, slowly. That's a loaded image in Buffalo. A cop car. Who sees one, and doesn't get a tick inside? Who even lives here, we asked each other? Are these summer-in-the-city condos? Who are these strange people, and what is inside their bodies? (The answer is a sort of ultimate kind of fear). And then, although their wall, their fence, their keep the outside-outside partition was semi-fluid and self-imposed, I felt so sorry for them. How horrible for anyone to be so stuck. And how sad it must be to live on the edge of a beautiful river, and be afraid to share it.

These were my Sunday reflections in a nutshell. I'll say this: if you always pass through your city in a car, you don't see it. Not all the way. It's not all your fault. It's actually impossible because you are going so fast, and you are inside walls, and you have other important things to concentrate on (like not hitting that jerk)! A bike ride is good, and sometimes a walk is even better, but either way, go visit your city. Take a vacation day and gift yourself a cultural education.

While "Rude boy" blared above, from an air conditioned apartment in the sky, this is what Sara and I sang, as we walked away:

"As I was walkin'--I saw a sign there
And that sign said, 'No tresspassin'
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
Now that side was made for you and me!"

The Capitalist and Me (2010)

For Anais Nin and Mary Sarsfield

I slept with a capitalist,

but only physically.

And it was good.

It was the best I ever had.

I let a capitalist in,

but only physically,

and afterward

I went out into the street

with not an ounce of

shame or

hate--
I went out his door with--

!
Yes

Tell you what
my name is

Scherezade

Call me

Esther if you must

change my name.

Don't you know
What it means

?Anyway

What I took 
What I gave What I took from him
is bigger 

BIGGER than you=

We are discussing

What Ilya conquered in bed

What Geryon conquered in death
What Mother Teresa created in her life time

Period
Baby

Full moon
Yes
We cannot fail to mention
Molly Bloom,
of course
there is more to it than
Yes--
Molly didn't stop loving
when you spilled over the edge
of the page.

Hey brother

Cut me some slack and
call me Jezebel
if you want.

But oh I feel good.

Oh I'm the best I ever

had

Yes.

What we are given

We live in a culture in which, above all else, confrontation and unpleasantness are to be avoided, things are to be smooth as Knob Creek, but this comes at a price. Twice in the past two weeks, I've been called a "bitch" (among other, nastier words) by strangers, and it was because things were not as smooth as Knob Creek, and I said so. I simply don't accept the mantra of all encompassing pleasantness. We don't always have to take what we're given. If we're not hungry, for example, we don't have to take food.  And we definitely do not have to take other people's shit. 

When Bush was sitting in the oval throne room, we were, generally, collectively, paralyzed with fear--the much discussed, media-imposed fear. There's a lot to unpack about that. Firstly, what 'media imposed' means. Who, or what, thing or organism is the media? How does it exist and who sustains it--corporations and the government, or me and the people I know? Is it a monster or an anthill? And is 'it' really responsible for our fear? How does such an broad, undefinable entity impose anything on us at all?  How is it that during Bush's presidency we became conscious of the media's role in our inability to live fully, and were still affected by it? And how is it that we seem to have forgotten the role it plays now?

My questions barely scratch the surface of what went on. Those eight years were rife with trauma: two wars begun illegally (are not all wars outside the law?), an economic draft, minds and bodies irreparably damaged, funds taken from children, who, as we all know, were all left behind, in order to stock the arsenal. And, so that those children, uneducated, might later stock the arsenal too. There are all the gaping wounds behind the Patriot Act: house arrests, wire-taps, and the wrongfully accused. There was Hurricane Katrina, the drama of which turned out to be more about racism and lack of humanity than it was about the hurricane. There was the invention of the "partial birth abortion." Behind all of these appellations, of course, are cavernous worlds of stories. And tied up in those stories is a lot of pain, which we all carried around (and still do), and I think, guilt as well.  In 2004, Bush was re-elected, and many Americans cried. In 2004, Victor Yanukovych was elected, and many Ukranians took to the streets.

And now Obama is in office. We are a happier, more lighthearted country, but let me ask you why. Is it because our education system is being repaired? Is it because we are no longer at war? Is it because we have more civil liberties or because  women in need have greater access to the healthcare they need?  Or, is it because instead of using words like "terrorists," and phrases like "with us or against us," Obama uses words like "hope," "unity," and  "perserverence"? He gives us ego boosts, and tells us regularly how strong and good we are. He emanates pleasantness, and so, he has our compliance. We like him, and that is why he is trouble.

Are we really better off now? Has Obama really undone the damage of the Bush administration? It may not be possible to undo, but has he stopped the madness? Are we not still at war? If you've had enough of my questions, here are some facts: the 2010 federal budget includes 663.7 billion for the Department of Defense (a 4% increase since Bush's last budget), and another 42.7 billion dollars for the Department of Homeland Security (also an increase since Bush), while the lowly little Department of Education receives a lowly little 46.7 billion dollars.  The Department of Energy, by the way, receives 26.3 billion, a small dive from 2009's projected 33.9.  (The figures here do not include $$ from the Recovery Act--and by the way, why does the Department of Defense need recovery money--for bombs?) 

The numbers tell us something that might hurt a little: Obama's numbers are more conservative than Bush's. Ouch, ouch, and ouch.  We may be sleeping better now, but at whose expense? The answer is ours. The answer is that Obama is not the answer. I repeat, Obama is not the answer. You are.

In the shadows of our presidents, we oscillate between fear and exuberance, self-loathing and nationalism. Try, paisans, to have pride, but not nationalism. To be energetic and critical all at once. Most of all, be joyful. Do not believe in what you are told, but in what you discover, in what you find in your day, in your heart, in the dirt, between your brow, and then--this is a hard one--cut loose and trust yourself. It is so important to cut loose of fear, but it is also important to have independence from ego-boosts and good-vibe crutches. We are not hungry, but we are reaching for the cookie jar. We do not need him, but we wait, on the edge of our seats, to hear Obama's next words--they are boosts of hope, but they are empty calories. 

I'm lucky to have friends who do a lot of good. Some of them are community organizers. And the question has been going around: was Obama really a community organizer, and did he change when he went into politics, or was his people's man identity a media construction? Well, I asked FactCheck.org, and here was their timely response: 

Q. Was Obama really a community organizer?

A. Yes, that was his job title when he was hired out of college.

I felt nothing when I read this. It confirms nothing. He was a community organizer and he changed, or he was playing hookey with a resume builder. The fact is, it doesn't matter. Why waste time brooding over lost love?

Problems don't go away because you look at them. Don't take what you take because it is what you are given. Take what you need, what you deserve. Trust yourself. Self-affirm. Act. And if you don't know where to start, start with a garden.

The same city as me (2008)

Knowing you live in the same city as me is like knowing the pantry's stocked, or that the river's there, if I want it, even if I can't see it, even if I'm just sitting at my desk.

Your name pinches me.

And god is an atom.

Nightwind (2010)

for Eleni

My window is open to you

nightwind

Oh

if you should enter to find me

zipped up 

and preparing

for the full sleep granted only to travelers--

Alone, between worlds, I am one even in my own city.

My lullabye is my own love

vast for you

warmer than even you 

night wind.

lover.

How do I move oceans, 

how do I leave continents 

for my other half, 

while my sister is without me?

But it is

this:

My love is my only lullabye

and with this much of it

how can I be lonely?

how can I be cold?

A Sweater Is (2005)

A bicycle that you love and love and love and love until it is stolen or lost or if you are lucky, used until it wears down to dead-beat brakes and shone tires. When the paint is peeled and the spokes are rusted—that is when it has been loved too thin to keep you warm, and you will throw it in a chest of other old bicycles in the attic, to forget, but not trash, on account of sentimentality.

Jane Greatall

I went to see Jane Goodall on Wednesday night. She was speaking in the gym at Canisius College and the queue went right down Main Street, then wrapped around West Delavan. The line was moving...well, barely at all. Despite this, everyone was calm and patient and without complaint. It reminded me of when the Dalai Lama came to UB and for the 3 days he was in town, although there were actually more people on campus, it felt like less because nobody was pushing one another to get through doors. And forget fame--that is what the presence of a very special kind of person does. I saw old people and young people; everyone felt like-minded and simpatico. Even Erik Starchild was there. The two Canisius women in front of me had gym bags and were eating donuts. What I really wanted at the moment was a juicy hamburger. It was nearly 8 pm, I'd worked hard all day and hadn't had dinner, but I didn't mind. I reflected on this as I sat down. I was one of the last 20 people admitted and yet because of the way they seated us, I had an incredible seat, very near to Jane's profile. I was reminded of a bit of Barthelme, who wrote: 

...and that it is good to leave a few crumbs on the table for the rest of your brethren, not to sweep it all into the little beaded purse of your soul but to allow others, too, part of the gratification, and if you share in this way you will find the clouds smiling on you, and the postman bringing you letters, and the bicycles available when you want to rent them, and many other signs, however... (Barthelme, City Life, Farrar, Strous, 1970).

I dropped out of my rat-race job in order to spend all of my time meaningfully, and of my own design. Wednesday was my first night of freedom and I felt, sitting on those bleachers, waiting for Jane--we were encouraged by an introductory slideshow to think of her as "Jane"--that I'd been brought letters--she hadn't said a word yet. When she did begin, she told us how humbled she was that we had all come to see her, ("I know some of you saw me peering at you as we drove up, and you recognized me"). To thank us for coming, she said hello  in chimpanzee. We laughed, we clapped, our hearts were warm. I should age half as well! I thought.

By way of introduction, she said, "Nobody can do anything alone," and thanked her mother. It was her mother, she said, who was the reason for everything, for her success. Jane's story is incredible. From the age of tiny, she wanted to go to Africa to study animals. But to go to Africa at all, which is now an attainable dream for a hard working lady scholar, was laughable. There were no study abroad programs then, and she was the wrong sex. Plus, her family was dirt poor. There were very few scholarships given, and they were only given to those who excelled at languages. Although she knew everything there was to know about the animal kingdom, Jane did not excel at languages. Her mother advised her to learn to become a secretary, and get a job in Africa. Jane did, and then proceeded to pay a visit to her future mentor, the paleontologist, Louis Leakey. She wowed him with her animal knowledge, and soon after, began to work for him. And just as the six months of funding he had was about to run out, Jane came upon a chimp in the forest, who was dipping a stick into a mound of insects and putting it to his mouth. Then he began stripping the bark off the stick: toolmaking. Louis Leakey got more money. Thus Jane became a research scientist before she had had an ounce of secondary education. It wasn't until much later that she got her PhD.

For my friends who couldn't make it, I want to share Jane's message, which I found so inspiring I turned down a Salman Rushdie ticket later in the week (I didn't think I would be able to process everything). The following is a sample, and less eloquent synopsis, of what Jane said, as I remember it:

We're not separated from the animal kingdom, we're part of it. Between their constant evolution, and our own continual revolution into our animal nature, the line between 'us' and 'them' gets blurrier all the time. Chimps are our relations enough to us to give us blood transfusions, but we don't need to look that far to see that we are part of the animal kingdom. Anyone with a dog knows that animals have personalities, intellect, and feelings. So what is it that makes us different from the others? The main difference between us and chimps is this explosive intellect: language. It is our ability to talk about things that are not present: we can talk about the past, and plan for the future. Above all, we can discuss the issues and questions in our lives. And so, how is it, with the unbelievable and magnificent tool of language, how is it that we are destroying our home?

How? We've lost wisdom. The wisdom of religious ancients and elders, who asked, when it was time to make decisions, "How will this effect the community in the future?" and not "How will this effect me now?" or even "How will this effect my job? my country? in three months?"

(Verbatim): Do you think there's a disconnect between this clever brain and the human heart? Everybody cares about their children and grandchildren, but they act as if they don't. There's a disconnect. But we cannot live through a single day without making a difference. The question is not if you do, but what impact you're going to make. What do you eat and how do you eat it? What do you wear? How do you get from A to B? When you arrive, how do you talk to people? These are the choices that add up. 

Jane then talked about what brought her to leave research and teaching (which she loved) and become an activist surrounding environmental and social problems in Tanzania. You can read about her work here and here.

Of her hope and faith that we humans will manage to come around, and fix these massive environmental and social problems, she said, "Maybe I'm naive and simplistic, but it works for me." She also discussed how closely linked these two issues are: "Poverty," she said, "is one of the great destructors of the environment". Jane gave three talking points on hope, and I realized that my dad has been saying exactly these things for years, and I've always disagreed with him. 

Reasons to hope:

1. The human brain. We are innovative; we have a way of problem solving. We are not always good at it, but we manage, particularly when our backs are at the wall. 

2. The unbelievable resilience of nature. This has been a big one for my dad. The lesson hit home today when I was gardening at Eaton St, and was astounded to discover how nice and juicy Megan's soil is, with plenty of earthworms. Last year it was very crummy, but it's bounded back from only one year of planting. Sunflowers and mustard greens are actually capable of removing heavy toxins from the soil. Nature wants to help us help. 

3. Youth taking charge. Sounds cliche, but it's not when you hear a 76 woman who lived through the second world war utter the phrase "a critical mass of youth." She started a youth empowerment program called Roots and Shoots, which is worth reading about. 

But I don't want to talk about Jane Goodall in the vacuum of an evening of inspiring speech. It's not enough to be inspired; or, rather, inspiration comes as much from one's own hard work as it does from outside sources. I think my dad and JG are potentially right, but I also know that you don't make problems go away by looking at them. I know too many people--good people, smart people--who know what is happening to our world, but continue to complain and sit on their hands. And sitting on one's hands is not a passive act; it is a destructive one.

Living sustainably has been made very difficult for us to do. I buy in too--one would have to be a superhero not to--but I can also account for every hour of my day. When Jane asked us What do you eat and how do you eat it? What do you wear? How do you get from A to B? I knew that for the most part, I liked the answers I was able to give. I work hard to give them. I'm not a saint and I like my urban life. I don't think we have to give up urban life; we just have to change what it looks like. What it looks like. What it looks like.

The planet is going to go on with or without us, but if we are going to go on with it, because we love life, we need to make sacrifices. The green capitalist marketing campaign would have us all believe it's a simple matter of switching to the brand with the green label.  I promise you, it will not be that easy. We're going to have to get used to chopping wood for the winter, and we're all going to have to learn to grow a little food. We're going to have rely on our muscles, and on each other to get around.  Did you know that you can make toothpaste, shampoo, and laundry detergent (among other things you usually buy) at home, thus avoiding unnecessary packaging and a lot of nasty chemicals? All of these things take time, and are, by conventional perceptions, inconvenient as well, which means you will have less time for T.V., Nintendo Wii, and your soul sucking job. But if you can feed yourself, and warm yourself, you will find yourself naturally gravitating towards books, and there won't be a place in your life for a soul sucking job. And if you start doing any of these things for yourself, you will be astonished to find just how much you are capable of. All of us already have power. It's a question of whether we're brave enough to take it. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's a chimp (named Jojo), a mouse, or a lot, but you have to ask yourself, what crumbs have I left on the table for the rest of my brethren?

Seagull and Sparrow

My best friend, Eleni, and I got through the cold winters of our undergraduate studies by fantasizing about the things we would be doing if all of our time wasn't consumed by studying and writing papers. One of the things we talked about was making a zine called Seagull and Sparrow. Seagull and Sparrow because birds are travelers who have a different natural vantage point than humans (a good place to make observations from), and because both seagulls and sparrows are underrated and overlooked. 

Seagulls in cities (and even on beaches) are the rats of the sky. They fly over parking lots and eat junk food. Once I saw one chasing another, and it appeared to be a life or death question for the seagull with the donut in its beak. Plus, any animal that's not afraid of humans has to be fierce and/or intelligent (I don't have room to expound here, but you have the internet--look into the history of the relationships of whales and humans and bears and humans). 

Sparrows are underrated because they're little and plainlooking and fat, but they stick out the winter. It's no easy feat, as we all know. Almost any human with the means flies south in the winter. And sparrows are the ones whose voices you always hear. If you ask someone what a sparrow song sounds like, they will say they don't know. But sparrows are always singing in the background. They are everywhere: fat and tough, simple and brown, and so Eleni and I feel like they are in our corner. One seagull. One sparrow. Fierce. Intelligent. Will eat anything for survival. Little, but with compacted strength. Always singing. Not afraid of humans. That's us! 

Buffalo Flavor

I forgot how ugly Buffalo is. Or, I didn't notice before, because it was my home. Towards the end of my time in Europe, I was looking forward to what I thought of as Buffalo's 'neutral look.' Not good or bad, just blank and grey. I was looking forward to this because being in Europe can be a little exhausting on the eyes. It is too attractive. Being an American in Europe for an extended period of time is like staring at someone with a perfectly symmetrical face: the beauty is overwhelming, and then boring. I needed something off center to focus my lens. A crooked nose, or a strip mall, a hairy mole, or a street in trash and dirty snow. 

Buffalo greeted me with rain and wind, and that weird smell that it is: wet diesel and fried food and smoke. The flat road seems to get flatter. You are hoping it's going to be one of those nights when the scent of Cheerios is blowing all over the city (Buffalo is home to a very aromatic General Mills factory), but it's not. There's just that heavy air that pulls you in. I started to feel a little nauseous. I was quiet, but feeling cranky inside, when I remembered about the food thing. How the eggs don't really taste like eggs. And I know some people who would disagree with me. About the food thing.

Buffalonians get notoriously defensive on behalf of their city, and with good reason: people are always telling them just how much "it sucks." I'm not here to say Buffalo is what it's not, and there are a lot of aspects of the culture I just can't get into. But there are some beautiful things happening in this city too. 

And on the other side of that link are people who will not be in the paper, and projects that will not be advertised. We have so many unsung heroes. It's not that other cities don't have a lot of grassroots energy, but the bleakness of the landscape in Buffalo makes our projects pop. I swear, you've never met people like these people.

Dear America

I. Eric Margan in the sugar shack, Cambridge, NY.
II. Country scene.
III. Irish the horse.

Is the U.S.A. cool or what? We have Esperanza Spalding, and hip hop, and true stories of people who come to their death by chocolate chip cookies (it's as terrible than a death by cigarettes or booze), and words like "snarky" and phrases like "peace out." I'm rediscovering things I didn't know I missed: This American Life, my love/hate relationship with New Yorker fiction, the gray, bare look of March in upstate New York-- the ugliest, calmest time of year here. And, I'm diving into the things I missed quite consciously: bluegrass, peanut butter, hot sauce, and wearing dresses.

And to my friends of the great and varied countries of the EU:
Rest assured, I got a hero's welcome. I stepped off the jumbo jet and everybody in the airport immediately sat down to a hamburger eating contest and the winner, an eleven year old boy wider than he was tall, took off all his clothes and wrapped himself in an American flag (which, despite it's size, didn't quite cover his protruding stomach). We all shook hands and congratulated each other that evolution doesn't exist. And then we drove very fast in our SUV's...in circles...around the mall.

Just kidding. From JFK, I took the A train to the Amtrak train to Hudson, NY where I was greeted by my parents. In my very extensive experience on Amtraks, I have come to the conclusion that only two kinds of people travel by Amtrak: incredibly pleasant ones and horribly cantankerous ones. I lucked out and sat next to one of the former. My new friend, Steve, is a NYU Biology Professor and we spoke for two hours about traveling and riding bikes and genetics and stone masonry and the beauty of the brains of small children. And then I spent a slow week with my parents, eating vegetables and playing word games and learning how to make maple syrup out of sap. All I can say is that there are no hippies like New England hippies. Oh. And that no one does lawn decorations like Americans ("Hello!? Was that a seven foot blow-up leprechaun? Really?")

I happened on an old friend of my parent's, running, and he said, "You've been home for a week?! Are you sick of it yet!?" And I said, "No! I feel fantastic! I think I go away so that everything is new again!" (People from small towns in upstate New York state speak with exclamation points at the end of every sentence when it is cold out or when we are busy or when we are excited--we were both experiencing all three when we met--just imagine!) And so it is. I don't feel like my trip has ended. I'm meeting America through the eyes of a pseudo-foreigner. I was away long enough to forget some important things about my country. I feel like someone from somewhere else who has read a lot about America, and so it appears as a dream I had once, hidden somewhere in the recess of memory, that I can only remember the feeling of. Appropriately, this is exactly how I felt when I arrived in Ireland for the first time.

Somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of Americans hold passports. And I don't know how many of these passports are used only for going to Canada (no offense, Canada--I love you) or for partying in Mexico (no offense, Tijuana--I pray for you at night). In our defense, Americans have to fight a few hefty battles to get out of the country. First there is the cost. Photos and fees and postage all told, it can cost upwards of $300 just to get a passport. That's money that a lot of Americans just don't have. And it can be time consuming.  (Here's a sort of interesting little commentary on the subject: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunking-passport-myth/). But as great as the financial burden is the geographical and psychological isolation. From the place where I live, I can easily go to Canada, which is, yes, another country, even if a lot of people don't see it as one. Still, the culture that lies just across the border does not vary greatly from my own. To get anywhere else in the world, I have to fly for at least 7 hours. But it's not just the time. In two directions there is an ocean of land, and in the other direction is an ocean (the other direction, obviously, is Canada). There's a conceptual distance that's much bigger and lasts much longer than the flight. It's not nothing to overcome. I don't want to make excuses for the insular view of the world that some of my countrymen have. I just want the world to develop a little sense of empathy for North American isolation, which can be pretty lonely.

Americans, if you can afford to travel, don't go to resorts! And world: visit. I met a few Europeans who had no interest in traveling to the U.S. because they felt they already knew what it is through movies and music, (and the world mostly gets our artistic poop). Alternately, people only want to see New York, Las Vegas, and LA. I don't want to give the impression that New York is not wonderful, and if I was a different sort of person, I would live there in a heartbeat. But there is another America. The America that hides, like men worth dating, under rocks and leaves. It's the draft that sneaks around plastick-ed windows in Buffalo and the gardens that grow in places where there are smokestacks not far off. It's the 60 year old guy you meet on the street in San Francisco who is homeless, broke, and hungry, but doesn't know it because he is still reliving this amazing acid trip he took when he was 17. There's El Capitan, and the redwoods, which I still don't believe, which I still dream about. There is the vast, bizarre, beautiful and warped world of Utah. If you're American or not, go eat red-hot peanuts and wander around the strange playground of the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama. I dare you to go and not feel something. New Orleans--dear lord, there is New Orleans--everyone's vacation should start, or end, there. I imagine that Alaska makes the A list too, although I've never been there.

Mark Twain wisely said,"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness," but he didn't mean just any kind of travel. He meant the kind in which you are awake, and he meant the kind in which you take yourself outside your comfort zones.  There is no reason to stop traveling just because I am home. In fact, it is more important to think like a traveler at home, where it is easy to get lazy and intellectually soft.  A traveler must be easygoing and adaptable, but quick to react. From the west side of Buffalo, where I live, to the east, where I work, I pass through a few worlds. 

Sometimes America really does feel united (when we elected our 44th, or on the days when I walk clear across Buffalo and meet more different kinds of people than countries I've been to in my life). Other times it feels like each person is a different country. I think both perceptions of our country, (which, because it has made itself everywhere, also belongs to everyone), and of my city, are true. 

And the quote above--like most of the things Mark Twain said--is not just a quote, but can be applied as a life philosophy. Excuse me if I get a little over-excited. I really love Mark Twain. I need to go re-read Pudd'nhead Wilson. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. That is what I need to do!

Taking stock

I left New York on October 10th, 2009 with the following:

two pairs of jeans,
two sweaters,
four tank tops,
two t shirts,
two long sleeve shirts,
one rain jacket that makes me feel like a superhero,

one city jacket,

one bathing suit,
one pair of waterproof hiking boots,
one pair of street sneakers,
7 pairs of underwear and 2 bras,
one bag of toiletries,
one tent,
one sleeping bag,
one pocket knife,
one compass,

one flashlight,
one yoga/camping mat,
one blank notebook,
two books, and,
two dictionaries (French and Italian).

I returned to New York on March 2, 2010 with the following:
one pair of jeans,
one sweater,
two t shirts,
one tank top,
two long sleeve shirts,
one rain jacket that makes me feel like a superhero,
one bathing suit,
one pair of not-so-waterproof hiking boots,
one pair of Italian leather boots,
one pair of rock climbing shoes,
9 pairs of underwear and four bras, (I may have crushed on Italian lingerie even more than I crushed on Italians),

one pair of Italian stockings,

one (Greek) cotton sundress, 
one bag of toiletries,
one tent,
one sleeping bag,
one pocket knife,
one compass,
one camping/yoga mat,
four notebooks, full, and,
four books.

The weight of my pack was between 12 and 15 kilos during the trip, depending on how much food and how many books I was carrying. I traveled through four countries (Ireland, France, Italy, and Greece), and five if you count Sicily (which I do), and six if you count Northern Ireland (it's technically the UK, but in my heart, Ireland is one green beautiful island, united by Guinness and literary genius).

A History in Books

In the interest of carrying less, and moving more quickly, it was common for me to leave clothes or a towel, or disinfectent spray, or what have you, behind. Clothes were easy to leave, and if I met someone who needed my flashlight more than me, that was easy to leave too. The books I read, however, were difficult to part with (with the exception of McEwan's very whitey book, Saturday, which I found unengaging and insular). I was so attached to my notes in one book (Elizabeth Bowen) that I mailed it home. Another book I carried for 4 months without reading. I found Primo Levi in Torino, which was where he was from, and I read If Not Now, When? nearly three times in a row.  It changed my relationship to the world, while Italy was busy changing me, or perhaps more accurately, reminding me of who I am. My books traveled with me for thousands of kilometers. My journey can be told in a lot of different ways: chronologically, by languages, through the pictures I took, or the people I met, or by differences in food culture. I can also narrate the whole of the journey through the books I read, and how they influenced me along the way. 

Example :

You say "The Last September," and I recall a flood of human heads in the streets of Dublin, a moment of tearful  idolatry at Paul Leon's breakfast table in the James Joyce center, St. Stephen's Green with swans and a bower of falling leaves.  Becoming lost inside a snowy Monet at the Hugh Lane Gallery. The time I spent in the National Library: the most beautiful, round reading room I've ever been in (in such a place I will meet my true love). Greens, blues, greens, blues: I felt strangely like liquid in Dublin. Fireworks at night in Phoenix Park. Fireworks all day like gunshots. Spitting in the Liffey for good luck. The smell of the Guinness factory, which can be best described in facial expressions. Walking and walking and walking and being really truly honest to goodness lost, and the conversations that this (the loss of myself) brought to me, brought me to. In Dublin I was lucky because when I was lost, I always seemed to be in the right place.

 

Here's the list, just for fun. If you ever see me on the street and want to hear a story about Europe, just mention one of the following titles, and you'll have a hard time shutting me up. They are more or less in the order I read them in, although some were re-read and one (Ciaran Carson) I don't think I'll ever finish. I can't guarantee I am not forgetting something.

The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen
Saturday, Ian McEwan
For All We Know, Ciaran Carson
If Not Now, When?, Primo Levi
No one belongs here more than you, Miranda July
Power Politics, Arundhati Roy
The Curious Incident of the dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Places In Between, Rory Stewart
White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Life of Pi, Yann Matel
The Double, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Full Circle

I returned to Belfast to say goodbye a second time (I like 2nd-time around goodbyes because they are always more lighthearted than 1st-time goodbyes, and all the ones that come after). I came full circle, geographically speaking. And, I ended my trip with the rush it began with: rock climbing--it's like a discovery every time, like theatre, every time it is new.

On my very last day in Europe, I took the bus to Newcastle, a little seaside town an hour south of Belfast, overlooking Dundrum Bay. The weather was so good, I felt like a VIP. In Italy and Greece the mountain air was clean and fresh, but every country has its own smell, and nowhere in the world is the air so sweet as it is here. At bookends of my vacation, I took day-trips to the sea in Northern Ireland, and I noticed it last time too. As soon you get out of Belfast, and walk uphill, there is sugar in the air. Actually, I have this idea that the sweet air and and wet, hilly earth (moors) in Ireland makes people calm and sweet in disposition, the same way that the dry earth and strong sun in Greece makes people bold and friendly. 

I walked up Slieve Donard, which is the highest mountain in Northern Ireland. Near the top there was snow, and the waterproof on my boots had worn off some time ago. But I was very close to the top, so I had to continue. The even, moon-like look of the snow was deceiving. My feet kept sinking through the snow and ice into caverns of bog. It was terrible, my feet and pants were soaked, and before long I was shivering all over, but the day exquisite and I had to continue. I kept making excuses to continue when the really sensible thing to do would've been to go down the mountain and have a cup of tea in the town. 

I stopped to eat my sandwich. Then I remembered something I learned about equilibrium when I was climbing in Piemonte. It's not about muscle, it's about balance. You don't begin with movement. You shift all your weight, carefully and evenly, to one hip before moving to the next hold (or patch of snow). I applied the tactic, and while I looked very funny, it was very successful. I stopped falling into the bog. It felt very good, smooth and slow. I had to give it up at the very top, where it got too steep, and I gave it up on the way down, but it was a nice little exercise in patience while it lasted. 

There was an old ice house, partway up with a plaque. It read:
"Until refrigeration was generally available, people lived on seasonal fare, knowing that the abundance of one season had to make up for the deficiences of the next."

Walkers on hills nod to each other like bikers on the road. Ah, our eyes say, as we pass, I see you are one of us.

Ireland Part Deux

In Dublin, the whole world happens in a taxi. It is the thrashing point for the world: politics, city gossip, X Factor gossip, philosophies of love and sex and suicide bombers, stories about city birds and country punks and people who get drunk and lose their shoes at rock'n'roll concerts. In Dublin, if you are going with the right crowd (and I was), you spend your evening thus: you walk somewhere, you drink Guinness for dinner, you pay for your drink in a currency called jokes (someone else might pay in cash, but you are a guest, and you pay in jokes), and, in fact, that is the currency of the evening, and maybe the currency of the country, and then you dance a little, and drink another Guinness, and laugh a little more (someone told you a really good one), and then you spend a little time in a taxi, which is another world, where the money is peripheral and the important thing is how hard you can make your cabby laugh, and then you spend a little time in a taxi, which is another world, where the place you get to is peripheral and the important thing is how hard your cabby makes you laugh, and then you wake up, and you dream you hear birds and a car starting, and you are on the cusp of morning. You fall asleep.

For months I'd been worn out by conversations in which so much energy was spent just understanding the words. Now I was in Ireland, I could understand all the words (and the order!), but I was exhausted by the infinite number of things I could say. And I was also tired because while I could express anything I wanted, this didn't necessarily mean I would be understood. I could understand everything that was being said, and this didn't always make me happy. Being able to speak the same language as someone else doesn't mean you can communicate with them; I had been romanticizing English speakers. I found myself missing Gosha, and Ilir, with whom I couldn't speak, but for that reason, couldn't miscommunicate with. Ilir and I could say so little to each other: only that we wanted to take a walk, or a nap, or to eat, or that we were going to do the dishes tomorrow, or that we were tired, or that we felt good, and hoped the other person felt good too. We could only express simple things, and mostly, we expressed to each other our mutual good will. I think knowing Ilir made my heart bigger and my cheeks wider, just from smiling so much. And I didn't always smile because I wanted to, I smiled because there was nothing to say. "Tikanis, Maura?" (Big grin). "I'm freaking great, Ilir!" (Big grin). "Ti? Non capito."  "Puli kala, Ilir! Puli [big grin] Kala!"

Ilir is the kind of person who makes everybody at ease. He comes from a country full of bad luck (go Wikipedia the history of Albania). He's 23 and he looks 30. He walks for three hours and passes through a checkpoint just to go to work. But he smiles a lot. He pats everybody on the back. He laughs in spite of the fact that no one in Greece pronounces his name properly. (They insist on making it Greek, calling him Illias). We bonded over this because no one could say my name either, although I did get a few pretty great nicknames out of the deal (my favorite being Meow-ra). Ilir might not be perfect but he's got a big heart and that's all I'll ever know about him. Meanwhile, in Ireland, I could overhear rancid anti-Semitic jokes, and find myself in claustrophobic arguments about what women are and aren't capable of. In Ireland, as in Greece and Italy, culture is dominated by a sense of hospitality--in which countries is this not true?--but the emphasis is on alcohol instead of food, and this changes the course of everything.

There are people you meet when you travel that you will think of for the rest of your life. There's an exchange: in shared moments, you leave a little bit of yourself inside someone else, and vice versa. There are people who, if you lived in the same place, you would be friends with, and meet often, and some who you would even love and get the opportunity to fight with--but you will never know. I spent two days in Dublin, with some of these people, and one old and very good American friend. Then I took the bus north, to Belfast, where my journey began in early October.

Getting there III

Airplanes are like magic. In The Soloist, Jamie Foxx's character, Nathaniel Ayers Jr., looks up at the sky where an airplane is flying and says "I don't know how that works." I feel that way. But from the inside. You are somewhere (Brindisi) and moments later you are somewhere else (Milano) and then you tear up a little because you are leaving Italy for the second time and and nobody is hassling you and maybe you are a little bit tired and then you blink and you are back in Ireland.

You being me, of course. The ease of leaving Milan was sad and sweet. How could the airport of such a big city be so calm? Everywhere I went, it was queueless. At customs they grinned at me, as I had been told they would, and waved a hand. (Don't you want to ask me something? What if I am a dangerous criminal? Are you still doing your job if you don't humiliate someone?) I wandered through Duty Free to test alcoholic perfumes, which make me nauseous and high at the same time. Airport gates have proven time and time again to be the best places to sit and stare (you have to get there so early, and then you have to wait), and to take part in the sister activity of sitting and staring: people watching. I tried to eavesdrop on the people sitting to my right, but I didn't speak their language. Wait. I did. They were speaking English. Only it was country English from Northern Ireland. I think. It was strong, whatever it was. They were talking about mustard. I tuned out. The couple on my left was speaking French-inflected Italian. (Based on the parts I could understand, it sounded like they were speaking about the digestive tract of their younger daughter). A national identity. Does any country have one? The beautiful women began to arrive. Why are there always so many well-groomed women in airports? Wealth. I imagine them flying around the world just to show off their skin. I was suddenly very hungry but unable to spend seven euro on pretend-food and I began to hate the people who were munching things. Ha! Who do they think they are. Sandwiches! I was saving my last pennies for a pint in Dublin. On page 316 of Life of Pi, Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger, walks away from Pi without looking back after they spent I don't remember how many days stranded in a lifeboat together. And Pi tells us (Yann Martel writes), "What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell." I feel like I'm not botching this, and neither is Italy. I'm looking at Italy, Italy's looking back at me. I'm leaving part of myself here. I'm splitting in two. I'm watching her--she's on the tarmac--that ghost of myself--she'll be the me that walks south and doesn't look back. She is the wild me, who doesn't return to responsibility, but she is also the mother, the one who knows what is good.

It was raining. I wanted to get on the plane, but I didn't want to depart. A contradiction and an impossibility. My feet glued to the ground. Does this have to do with my blood? Why did I feel so at home here, even in the most homeless of circumstances?

I find it hilarious when flight attendants mime safety instructions. First of all, they are not mimes, and they are bad at it.  If you look for it the next time you fly, you will see the suppressed twitch around their lips: they just want to speak. The second hilarious thing has to do with the safety instructions themselves. They say that if the oxygen masks should drop, everybody should take care of themselves first, before their children. As if airlines can control maternal instincts! Or paternal. Nonsense. If the shit hits the fan, what mama would put her own mask on first? You must have to really love order to be a flight attendant. Can you imagine someone going to school for that and having a messy kitchen? Do flight attendants even have kitchens? Or do they just flit around the world like matter in pumps, blowing in and out of hotel rooms? We took off in a light storm. Streaks of rain, illuminated by the lights on the wing, looked like double yellow lines on a road we were traveling next to. Turbulence like little hiccups. I truly love turbulence. I am thinking of home. I am eager to be there; I am not ready to go. Sometimes you have to pay for a little autonomy. I paid for it. I am "more than one remove away" (Carson, For All We Know, 5).

Getting there, being there II

Greeks are comfortable in their relationship to tourism and English. They don't seem have any hang-ups about the presence of English in their lives, as some French and Italian people do (I don't blame the world for having baggage about English, but it's also relaxing to not have to negotiate it). My Papigo brothers were an anomaly--the majority of Greeks speak English with ease. And yet, there are enough non-English speakers to have a few of those guessing game-charade 'conversations' that every good traveler relishes: the adventure of communication against all odds is one of many reasons a traveler travels. 

Greek people know how to wake up late, and take it easy. And they want you to relax too. I went to get my hair cut at a modest salon, and was offered coffee during the haircut. I almost refused, because I thought, how will this work? My hands are under the smock, my face is covered in hair. But you just relax, then everything works.

And yet, when it's time to move, who knows how better than the Greeks? The day I left Greece, transportation workers were on strike in Athens. The situation was this: I had to catch a bus to catch a boat to catch a plane. Why? I don't know. Playtime was over. I was broke. I had to return to Buffalo to finish a project I started a year ago. I woke up in Athens at 8 am, left Dimitris' house at 10, and it took me nearly four hours just to get to the bus station in Athens (should've taken just over 1). I've never seen so many people so well organized in my life. Exception: The March for Women's Lives, Washington DC, April 2004, which, while an impressive and important display of feminist voices, did not outline a set of demands. It was a loud, defensive action, and it was beautiful--a reminder to ourselves as much as our enemies that not all of us are asleep--but it was ultimately non-threatening to the powers that be.

I waited for a commuter bus into Athens. The buses were full of people who would normally be taking the metro, which was not running due to the strikes. Inconvenience is effective. People were cursing, and either cramming onto the few buses that were running or giving up and going home. In an hour and half, two buses passed. I didn't get onto to either of them because I was not willing to shove an elbow in another person's face. I called Dimitris, who graciously picked me up and drove me into the city. 

The traffic was ugly because there were more cars on the road than usual--another reminder of how unpleasant life could be without the metro. Dimitris dropped me at the road block in the center of town, near a bus stop I knew, but my sense of direction was thrown by the masses (thousands) of workers and supporters. I got lost. If I didn't get the bus to Patras within the half hour, I would miss my boat, meaning I would miss my plane. I asked a police officer directions and he told me he had no idea where the bus station was and turned his back on me. Er...thanks. Within a minute, four Athenians, (who, based on dress and manner, appeared to be from four completely different walks of life), surrounded me and joined forces to get me to the bus station. It was very sweet, and also the second evidence of the day that Greeks know how to organize best of anyone. Four Athenians deciding on directions is the antithesis of four Italians deciding on directions, which is to say, Italians don't decide on, but disagree about. Conversations in Italy usually aren't about the question or the answer, but about making music and noise. If it weren't for Greek organizers I would not have nearly missed my bus, nor would I have made it. And everything you do is an experience.

I arrived in Patras at 4:30, ran from the bus station to the port, in the rain, to buy my ticket, ran to the other end of the port to pay my port fees, and then ran back to the other end of the port to board the boat. The boat left one hour behind schedule. I amused myself by taking pictures of the sea and writing Greece a little note. Goodbye Greece, your yellow flowers and fat, un-pruned olive trees, your haphazard parking and sunny balconies and ceramic everythings. It went on and on, and was sentimental and useless. I won't bore you.

The boat was soft and warm and squishy, like the inside of a giant traveling womb. I put my pack down in a dark corner of the deck room, sat next to it, and took a deep, grateful breath. For the time being, I had arrived. Three men and a woman entered the room. The first man looked about fifty, was short and fat and smug, and was on his cell phone (speaking Italian). He wore well-pressed gray pants, a black shirt, and a gold cross around his neck. The woman, who looked as if she'd be on his arm if it weren't for the height disparity and the fact that the aisle barely accommodated his girth, followed him. She was as tall as he was wide and thin as a rail on a diet. She wore red leather stiletto boots, and a matching bag of fake red snakeskin. Otherwise she was in skin-tight black. Her face was stuck in a pouty frown--only her lips were too thin to really pout. The result was the look of someone for whom just existing is very uncomfortable. Her hair was long and (not naturally) straight. I thought she would have been very beautiful if it weren't for her apparent misery. She might have been about 40. 

She glanced at me briefly as if she felt sorry for me and my lack of red snakeskin stiletto boots. I felt sorry for her too, so we were even. The man sat next to me, directly across the aisle, and she sat next to him, out of view. Their henchmen/wolves were two 20-somethings who wore track suits, gold chains, and clean white sneakers. Their heads were buzzed. They looked vapid, attractive, and dangerous. One sat diagonal from me, in front of the "daddy" character, and the other sat in the seat directly in front of me. It's important to note that we were in a large room full of empty, identical chairs. So why had they surrounded me? Because they were the mafia. I mean, look at them. There really isn't another explanation. I don't know what they had planned, but I didn't stay to find out. I collected my stuff, oh-so-casually. Only the henchmen/minions stared at me as I cleared my throat silently and went off.

Being there, Getting there

I left the island of Paros by ferry on February 21, 2010. That morning, my hosts, Mona and Yannis, insisted that I taste the bread from their favorite bakery before leaving, so we drove to the sweet little town of Marpissa. At 9 in the morning in the winter on the island of Paros, it was too early for bread. We waited for ten minutes before Mona remembered that the same bakery had a shop in Parakia. On the drive, we passed Lefkes, an inland city that was the original capital of Paros. The first inhabitants made it the capital because they wanted to be far from the shore because of pirates. Now Parakia, the port town, is the capital because of tourists. I bought my bread, we said goodbye, and then I wandered Parikia in the sun and walked barefoot along the sea.

The ferry didn't rock, but went gliding along like it was on ice skates, or a tram line, suspended. Because there is always an island--just there, out the window--I had this sense that I hadn't left land. 5 hours passed like 5 minutes. I re-entered the buzz of Athens, I felt familiar, I made my way by bus to Holargos, where Eleni's family lives. I had the wrong phone number written down, and no one was home, so I settled on the stair to wait and read. Cooking smells drifted out windows at me.

Behind the voices of neighbors--kitchen voices, people speak differently in kitchens--I thought I could hear the sound of water boiling. The black cat meowed and rubbed her head against my notebook, and I forgot, for a moment, where I was. It smelled, not specifically like Indian food, but like my aunt and uncle's apartment, which, partly had the smell of Indian food, and also something else entirely. My aunt's apartment collected cooking smells the way that espresso machines collect years of coffee flavors. They layered over one another, cumin and tumeric, black mustard seeds, potatos in oil. The cat tried to catch, and then eat, my pen. Then she sat still, watching and studying the pen. As I got colder, the smells increased, and I got warmer. The smell of the food was the food of my fire, the cold air was my yogurt. The cat rubbed her head on my notebook. I felt close.

I wandered Athens the next day, climbing up rocks in the park next to the Acropolis and buying trinkets in Monastiraki. I listened to street musicians play with all the skill of the pros and with love that only street musicians can muster. I sat across the street from a Pakistani duet (violin, accordion) for at least an hour, and before I left, paid them for the concert. I always wonder why we put a lower value on street musicians than we do on those in concert halls. I watched a mime doing his make-up in a public bathroom, yelling at himself in the mirror. It was warm; I ate ice cream in the sun, and thought, there are a lot of things Greeks do very well, but ice cream is not one of them. It was chalky. I got a haircut. I ate dinner with Eva and Dimitris in a little Greek restaurant and we talked about the trips we'd taken (Egypt, South Africa), and the ones we want to take (Alaska, Cuba, the American southwest). You have to travel like you'll never be in that place again. And you never will. Never in the same way. I slept on my stomach--and dreamed strong dreams--like the bed was all of Europe and I was hugging it goodbye.

The next day I began my (ultimately successful) attempt to leave Greece, amidst transportation strikes that deserve history books, and will probably get their due.

Food critic

You haven't tasted bread like this because bread like this doesn't exist. Just the smell of it is making me high. It smells so strong that I can't taste my espresso. I'm reporting from the island of Paros, and while it may not be the most impressive of the Greek islands (I don't know, it's the only one I've seen), it's lovely enough not to be real. I'm floating a little bit.

The bread is very soft, but barely doughy. In fact, if it's consistency is so perfect that it seems if it were baked a second longer it would be dry, and a second less, undercooked. It defines all of the other breads I will eat and bake in the future; it is my new standard. There is a flavor which I know but cannot place at first. Then I understand. The mystery flavor is made of two parts: the scent of lingering sesame seeds from the bread baked previously (or from the floor of the oven), and the taste of the oven itself, which definitely has a stone (not clay) hearth. Now I understand why this is Mona's favorite bread, the best bread of the island, (and I think it must be one of the best breads in Greece as well). It is because it is baked on the stones from the island itself. When it comes to food, you can't get any more deep-o than that. The bread is unbelievable, inconceivable, but the concept is perfect. Can I intern here?

I'll have to make a friend on the boat I'm about to take because this is too good to eat alone. It's very lightly sour. The texture is not just soft, but springy, with small holes. The inside pulls away from itself in clean pieces like mozzerella cheese. It's not flakey but it dreams of being flakey, as if it admires its cousin, the brioche, but knows it is not a brioche. I bought two different kinds--a white and a wheat loaf. Miraculously, the wheat loaf has the same light texture as the white, just barely rougher, with seeds. They are both full of god.

The bakery is called Ragoussis, it is in the city of Parikia, and it is the self-proclaimed "bakery of the country bread-of the sandwich-of the croissant-of the sweet."

The inside

I'm tired. My feet are sore. And, moments ago, I was so covered in sweat and kitchen grease that the shower I took transported me to another planet. I've been working at "Astra!" restaurant for one of the busiest weekends in Greece (Carnivale). What is special about working when traveling is that you get to feel the inside of a country. On this holiday, I don't just get the party, but the party in the kitchen, with the immigrants, washing dishes and laughing because tourists are terrible, the world over. 

There's a Greek pretty-boy named Paris working here who hits on anything that moves--he is what is known as a common European sleaze--but the kitchen crew is fun. Gosha is a bright, funny Polish woman, and she and I share a bond by default: we are the only women we see all day. We communicate with our eyes about certain--for lack of a better word--truths that women hold dear in their hearts about men. (Europeans love the gender war). Ilir is an Albanian kid whose feathers never ruffle, and who excels at un-ruffling everybody else's. He is simultaneously 4 and 47 but is really 23. Gosha gets stressed very easily, and Ilir is impossibly calm at all times. I fall somewhere in the middle, and no one ever understands what I am saying. This makes me feel strangely adolescent, except that I'm mostly amused by my situation, instead of being infuriated.

There is something that infuriates me here, consistently, but it is not language or loneliness. It's what I see as being an attitude problem about the situation we are all in. All of us.  I'm talking about this approach: because it isn't happening to me, it isn't happening.

As I said, I'm lucky to work as I travel because I get to see the inside of the places I go. But there is a dark side to the inside here, and it has to do with three things: water, garbage, and class.

Water. There's this myth that the concentration of environmental evil lies in cities. Environmental evil (or good) doesn't have to do with where you live--it has to do with the choices you make. Spyros is one of two brothers who own the restaurant and hotel I work at. His English-speaking Athenian friend visited us for the second time and Spyros opened a bottle of wine. The three of us sat down to watch a National Geographic documentary about the growing water shortages--hmm...that doesn't sound right, does it?--in South America.

I was lucky on two accounts, and unlucky on one. The documentary was in Spanish (with Greek subtitles) so I could understand most of it and I was in the presence of a fluent speaker of both English and Greek. I would be able to participate in a conversation about a documentary, and potentially get to know my employer a little bit! I was unlucky because Spyros doesn't talk very much. What he did finally say was that he was concerned for his business. If the world was running out of potable water, and therefore, if the world was going to war, how would he still run a restaurant? Who would come? How would he survive? These are perfectly legitimate questions. But in context, they were also sort of fucked up questions. Because there was an immense amount of water waste that went on in that place. I adored Gosha, but when we were cleaning the inn's rooms, she would run a tap for a mop bucket, and forget about it, leaving it running on full. Ilir was often told to power wash the stones free of harmless little dead leaves. I guess so that everything looked pristeen for the richies who visited us. When there was nothing to do, we re-cleaned rooms that were already clean. I don't even want to go into our bathroom cleaning methods, which were horrendous. I didn't understand how Spyros could worry about his livelihood, based on the water problem, and not understand that he was part of it, part of the organism and part of the system, and he could affect it.

To understand Spyros mentality (which, to be honest, I can't, or refuse to, on principle, understand) it's important to know that one of the cleanest rivers in Europe runs through Papigo. I would routinely drink straight from it on my walks and I've never tasted water like that. It made me feel tingly and bright. The Voidomatis has straight up fountain of youth stuff going on. Papigo, and Greece in general, is a healthy place to live. But maybe when you never see or feel places where the meat and vegetables are not fresh, and the water has chlorine in it, or worse things, or there is no water at all, you don't know how fucking rich you are.

Garbage. Hotels and restaurants generate an immense amount of waste. Restaurants, because they are busy, have the "now" mentality. As in, how can I eliminate as many things as I can as quickly as possible right now? And the answer is the trash can. Something a chef might wrap in plastic if he was home, he chucks away at his restaurant. Just because whatever it is is in his way. I would've loved an answer on why they didn't compost. We filled up a 50 gallon trash bag almost everyday, and the most of it was filled with organic matter. The worst part is that they had a garden.

Class. I displaced Ilir. When I arrived at Astra, Ilir was in Albania. Gosha and I cleaned out a little room off the hallway that functioned as a cleaning closet and an office. The room had a foam cot shoved in the corner and everywhere else there was papers, soccer balls, extra pillows, slippers, etc., etc., etc. We moved all the crap, got rid of the cot and its mangey blankets, cleaned the room thoroughly, and built some IKEA furniture (a bed, a desk, a small bureau) that Spyros had bought. Spyros even gave me a fluffy duvet and some rugs for the floor. It turned out to be a lovely little room in which, for two weeks, I devoured books like a fiend (my only source of English).

Four days after I moved in, Ilir arrived. I have no idea where he spent the first few nights, but on his 3rd or 4th night in Papigo, he came into the hall/office outside my bedroom, unrolled some bedding on the floor, closed a curtain, and went to sleep. The next day I asked him if the room had been his and he said, "Ma-u-ra. No problema. Ilir sleep. No problema." I double-checked my suspicions with Gosha. Indeed, the little room with the cot had been Ilir's. But it had only been made pleasant for me, the American. I insisted that Ilir take it back, or share it with me, but everyone (including Ilir) insisted that he sleep in the hall. I felt very uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as Ilir. It was freezing in the hall.

One day Ilir and I were sent to clean the rafters of the hotel rooms. Apparently an Athenian tourist had come to rent one of the suites, pointed to the dust on the rafters, and left. We got a ladder and climbed onto the rafters and went around on our elbows and knees, rubbing down the beams and hitting the corners with wet rags. We did six rooms. They were large. It was fun at first, because it was so ridiculous, but by the end we were both rubbing our knees and sneezing. Working for rich people is by far one of the strangest feelings in the world. I didn't feel like I was selling out, but buying in. Vomit. All over your Dolce and Banana whatever. Ilir's cheerful disposition was my saving grace, and it also depressed me.

Can you see how class and garbage are related? And how water--water is the thing that should be so simple. 

From sophisticated wine...

...comes sophisticated dreams. Hello everybody from Papigo, Greece. The air is nice in the mountains, very fresh and dry and clean. The wine is also dry and clean. And now I will dive in.

The sky is always robins' egg blue (verging on lavender at night), and when the sun goes down, the snow--just above my head--turns pink. I can walk in any direction and it is guaranteed to be a beautiful day for a walk. The views are socks-knockers every time. As for the town of Papigo, it is 100 percent made of stone. Very quaint. Almost too quaint. As with fairytales, or gooey couples in public, I want to barf a little, even as I appreciate them. It's sort of labrythine in design, but it's way too small to get lost in. Or, it depends on the definition of lost. The time it takes to find your way back (to where?) is small. And I like to discover Papigo in the dark. There are about 12 street lights--dots in the center--and afterward the cobbles fall into darkness. At each tip of the village the cobble road turns to a dirt road, but before it does there is a little circle of cobbles separating the village from the rest of the world. This creates a Brigadoon-like quality. Again, barf. If it is possible to feel inside a place, it is how I feel here.

I'm working at an inn and restuarant, and the social situation is all at once strange and exhausting and hilarious. The inn is owned by two brothers who don't speak a lick of English. As we know, I don't speak a lick of Greek (we can both say 'thank you', 'good morning', 'good night', and 'I don't understand' in each others' respective languages, and each day we gain a few more words). Kostas is shy and awkward around me, but Spyros is always winking and making me espresso and putting strong alcoholic beverages in front of me, some of which I really don't want. There is also a Polish woman named Gosha living and working here. She's been here for five years. She learned Greek when she came, but she speaks very little English. Her story is a little crazy. She came to work in Greece through an agency. When she arrived in Athens, they sent her to an address, a whorehouse. So she went back to the agency to complain, and they ditched her, so she found work cleaning, and then eventually made her way here. I know this because tonight there was an Athenian visiting the restaurant--an old friend of Spyros--and he told me. Spyros is funny, he has a bad sense of style/use of hair gel like an Italian man, but he is always watching the Discovery Channel and National Geographic, so I know he is more intelligent than he looks.

Gosha is dieting. Most especially, she's not eating bread, so we're not exactly kindred spirits. When I first came we were having a really hard time communicating. In the beginning, she was very abrasive with me, and I took it personally. There are always other ways to communicate besides language, and I didn't understand why she wouldn't enter these games with me. But then I realized that even though Spyros and Kostas are always around, it is really Gosha who is in charge, who does all the cooking and the cleaning (which is a lot). As someone on holiday, coming to work for my bread at a picturesque mountain inn, I came with ideas about what that should feel and look like. I didn't realize I had ideas, but I did. But this is not Gosha's holiday. This is her job. She misses Poland. She misses her sisters. She misses speaking Polish. Actually, we made a new development yesterday, because even though there are always people around, I am isolated, since no one here speaks English. The first few days I was quiet and unhappy. And then I realized that it didn't matter if no one understood me, because if I spoke, I would feel better. And so I started sounding like a crazy person, but Gosha caught on. And since I don't understand Greek or Polish, she can speak Polish to me, and it doesn't matter. It's very cathartic.

The Greek Chic, the Italian Schmuck (you thought I was going to rhyme Italian with stallion?) and other stories

Beyonce is everywhere the radio is. This is nice--there's a comfort to hearing something so familiar and distinctly American--and not nice, because I want to hear Italian music, Greek music, etc.

I'm in Greece, and yet, I am not done talking about Italy. I'll miss even the things I hate. The brash baristas and the men posturing, everyone smoking in the places they shouldn't--bathrooms, bus stations, beaches--everyone yelling in the street and the inability of Italians to move out of the way and all of the Italian brats and all the terrible music. Italians are wasteful--driving a few blocks to the bar instead of walking, using plastic plates and cups when there is company, and even when there's not, putting on the TV as soon as they get home, and then not paying any attention to it. The men walk like they are saying "I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man," (to themselves more than anyone else). In fact, I once heard a man muttering this to himself. Because of the behavior of Italian men, Italian women can be aloof and silent, even to other women. And it takes a whole room of Italians to decide the best way to cut a cake or wash a dish. Everybody has three or four cents to put in. In the street, everyone is so completely absorbed in his or her own world. No one sees you, or will admit to having seen you, so no one moves aside. Americans are always hyper aware and even self conscious of the world around us: we are always wondering what other people are thinking and doing and if we are passing ourselves off okay. So at first, the Italian ego is a hard thing to process. But I think it's beautiful. It's not arrogance, it's confidence. Italians appear to be a disorganized, bumbling mass, and perhaps this is true. But it is only because they are all following their own paths (and therefore colliding). Finally, Italians are ridiculous and I love them for it.

The French understand, maybe best out of all people, the game and absurdity of the wonderful joke that is life. You can listen to it in the way they speak, and feel it in their cinema--perhaps it is why they smoke so much--but I think it is the place that their special brand of humor and enjoyment of life comes from. And sometimes, it also makes them very serious. The Italians, on the other hand, are full of nonsense. Simple-minded, like children, all they want is for everyone to take pleasure, and the three main derivatives of pleasure, according to Italians, are food, sex, and the sun, in that order. This is why the 3 most commonly said things in Italy are "Mangia," "l'amo," and "Impossibile" (when it is raining). Basta. I need to talk about the country that I'm in.

Greek people have the sense of humor, good looks, and relaxed energy of the Italians, but with the sophistication of the French. I know: the best of both worlds. You thought it wasn't possible. Also (this is really hard for me to say), Greek food is better than Italian. It's more varied. Athens as compared to Rome. What is the value system of a culture? Walking around the Acropolis and the very lovely new Acroplis museum, I felt a strong sense of respect and education--not at all like what I described in my visit to Rome and the Colleseum (see post: "Roma o Napoli..."). Perhaps it's because the Acropolis is a site of old temples, whereas the Colleseum was a slaughtering house, but I think it has more to do with the place the site holds in contemporary culture. The Acropolis is a point of gravity and pride for Athenians. The restoration has been undertaken to preserve a structure, but also a symbol and reminder of Greece's roots: intelligence, discipline, and ritual. It is a kind of cultural weight, and the restoration reflects this.

Rubbish in Italy.