She has overstayed her intended date of departure, each day carrying out the same futile conversation with herself and those around her. “Should I stay?”
She has danced in a tiny street with an older man while a woman’s passionate voice sings achingly beautiful Rebetiko songs.
She has watched a red moon rise slowly from the horizon while a fire crackles next to the sea and a kitten purrs like a motor.
She has shamelessly snored under an olive tree, taking refuge from the afternoon sun.
She has sung an aria for an older woman as a birthday gift, only to be told “Anything you want, it is yours. I am the mafia..”
She has traded songs late into the night over a bottomless bottle of raki, blurring her ability to discern what language she is currently singing.
She has jumped heedlessly into the sea in her bra and underwear, her swimsuit tucked uselessly away in Greece and an abandoned church on a small empty island beckoning.
She has wandered narrow broken streets and daydreamed over the romantic lines of a house leaning precariously towards crumbling to the ground.
She has watched men do “men’s work,” fully confident that she could solve their problems in half the time but enjoying the sounds of their grumbles and the way the sun glistens on their round bellies.
She has attempted to play a zaz, her entranced fingers running curiously over the microtonal frets.
She has traded life stories with a beautiful woman in possession of a powerful voice, finding common ground in each word shared.
She has bought infused olive oil on the side of the road, susceptible to the claims of healing powers and loving the stories in the lines on the face of the old woman selling.
She has shared a tiny boat with five sweaty friends and a nervous dog.
She has been held longer than necessary by an attractive police officer at border control, a man who seemed genuinely disappointed to discover that she is not single.
She has bought a beer for the ferry ride home because duty free does not sell water.
She has returned, smiling (and slightly drunk from the aforementioned beer,) her clothes dirty and her backpack sticky and stained with the syrup of an already devoured baklava.
