In that Land with glory glowing

Come my heart together

Let us go seek the Friend;

So fear not with one accord

Let us go seek the Friend. 

In that land with glory glowing 

Where ever sing the nightingales;

‘Tis from thence these breezes blowing,

Let us go seek the Friend.

Ah, my heart is burning 
and my footsteps are turning,

For the truth I am yearning,

Let us go seek the Friend.

-Yunus Emre 

13th Century Turkey

It is always difficult to leave; pulling away from a port, lifting off from a runway, counting the steps, kilometers and miles from those you love and leaving pieces of yourself behind with each. 

It is difficult to be in love with the world, willing to call every and any port home, creating nostalgia and romance in every tree, mountain and body of water, wondering at the possibilities of each different path. But I am so in love with this world. I want my bare feet to touch her every day. I want to swim her depths, climb her heights and sleep in her embrace. I want my hair hopelessly tangled and my skin leathery from too much time spent kissing her sky. I want my mouth to know the shape and taste of every sound in every language. I want to sing her songs in my heart and feel her voice resonate in my chest... renewing my strength to breathe in and breathe out, my breath feeding her as she feeds me. 

Why I am not a Mother.

I used to dream of a little girl; A little girl, her brown eyes large with wonder and tiny fingers sticky with unmitigated curiosity. It never occurred to me whether she would be of my body, carrying my blood, my strengths and my deficiencies. She was simply a child whose hand permanently fit mine.  As the plans of a young woman have become the reality of my today, I have seen her less as being of me and more as being of the world. I look for her here, in Greece, in the eyes of the little boy who frequently sticks out his tongue at me or in the touch of the young girl who ties a homemade bracelet on my wrist. I wonder is she near, perhaps in one of the camps, alone and wandering between tents. Is she currently waiting on the shores of Turkey, her hand reaching to grip another who is no longer there? Is she lost at sea, is she waiting for me to stand up, to speak up, to do something, to do anything? 

Even so, doubts creep in. Would her small arms circling my neck serve as a tiny albatross anchoring me to a life of suffocating convention? Would I give her everything in my power at the expense of others, unaware of the world around us in my quest to care for her? Would I forget to love others or myself, obsessed only in loving her, or would I come to resent her, for always being more important than me?

I am incapable. I cannot protect her. I cannot assure her of good health. I cannot shield her from or cure her of loneliness and depression.  I cannot guarantee an ever present father. Hearts change and love is unpredictable. I cannot say that should she belong to another, she will not be taken and traded over and over until our hearts are broken so small that we cannot find the pieces. This is foster care. I cannot protect her from rising seas, stronger storms, polluted air and poisoned water. I cannot promise that I will be next to her, able to step in front for a bullet shot by another lost child. I cannot shield her from hate, from the pain of being different. I cannot stop bombs. I cannot say that should we be in danger, we can cross a man made border without her being torn from my arms. Her only recourse being to cry alone late into the night with just an emergency blanket for comfort. I cannot tell her that God is good when his word is so often used to justify acts of cruelty, greed, bigotry and hate. I cannot even guarantee that I will always be with her. I can only say that I would love her until the end of all I know. 

And so I return to my original question. Why am I not a Mother?

I am not brave.

Awkward Ambrosia

I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia. 

-Ptolemy

There is a special awkwardness to being the only person dressed on a nude beach (or as they say in Greece.. a beach..) There is also a certain unfairness to being surrounded by beautiful fit people after being fresh out of the second year of a Masters degree, a Masters degree which had sucked up all time to eat, sleep and exercise properly. Midday, when one of our companions left on an errand into town to pick up a friend, I prayed that he would bring back someone average, but sure enough, he returned with a stunning Spanish woman; tall with a beautiful face and completely comfortable in her own skin. I hated her instantly. (not really, she was actually quite lovely.)  I wasn’t even able to cover my awkwardness in the sea as I am a terrible swimmer and could possibly accidentally drown myself in my own mortification. To top things off, we were staying the night and I was woefully unprepared. (To be fair, it’s tough to fit a sleeping bag and blankets in my luggage from the States alongside 22 ukuleles..) 

Now, one might think that spending a weekend being perpetually embarrassed, completely unprepared and ever so slightly terrified of the sea would be a recipe for a miserable experience, but actually, quite the opposite occurred. I napped under a tree with a breeze off the sea blowing between my toes and rustling my hair. I learned that I am capable of having a mostly coherent conversation with a naked attractive man that I just met, all while keeping my eyes firmly focused up. I discovered the nearby hot springs and sunk my legs in next to a giggling pair of topless retired German ladies.  I ate delicious local cheese cut by a pocket knife and drank a potent Greek alcohol, of which I forgot the name. I would like to say that I forgot the name because I drank too much, but really, names fly from my memory. As a setting sun necessitating clothing, we relaxed on blankets mere feet from the gentle waves rolling in, and we played music; guitars, ukulele and voices carrying on the breeze. When darkness fell over, the stars took center stage, demanding us to drown our eyes in their depths. As a reward for our attention, multiple shooting stars left trails across the heavens. The constellation of the vain Greek queen Cassiopeia drew my eyes, time and time again, to her crooked crown. “I learned my lesson about vanity and am now here for all to see. But tonight the question is, did you learn, Jen?” 

Point taken...

Though the waves leave the shore

Though the waves leave the shore, they always find their way back..

For 45 euros, one can take a large overnight ferry from the Athens port of Pireaus. One can sit on the deck, concurrently watching the sunset in the west while glancing at a disappearing Athens to the north. Eventually, when the novelty of watching seagulls soar over the wake of the ship has worn off, a passenger then has about ten more hours to fill aboard this florescent lit behemoth alone in a dark sea.

I imagine the sunrise was stunning over a clear sea, however, I missed it while hiding under a blanket that I had accidentally stolen from the SAS airline. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, Mytiline appeared all sharp, clean angles in the bright morning light. Mariza greeted me at the dock with her cheerful hat and little red car to drive me and my 22 ukuleles two blocks to my tiny home. (where I promptly fell asleep for 3 hours..) 

Lesvos is familiar this time, her turns and curves leading to places that I understand. My bed is the same. The same freakishly dull cutlery is in my apartment. Little decorations that I left last year are still in their place. The lamp that I bought and proceeded to knock over last year has been glued back together and placed cozily in the window.  The guys in the copy shop (that I go to EVERYDAY,) smile with recognition. The uneven stone streets do not trip me up and the food... ah, the food. I’ve managed to stay away from the ice cream shop on the corner, though I remember well the taste. I may give in tonight. 

After sleeping and showering off the overnight ferry adventure, I met Mariza and headed to Mosaik together, where we, along with Christina and a man who's name I have forgotten, would have two hours of children’s choir rehearsals. Mosaik’s beautiful courtyard and high ceiling airiness filled with the voices of kids anxious for the freedom of summer. Two sisters walked in, the older showing signs of becoming a young woman and the younger smiling with a mouth still half full of baby teeth. We recognized each other from last summer, exchanging rib crushing hugs before forming a circle for the start of class. As the younger sister, with her dark hair and freckle sprinkled nose, took my hand, she hugged my arm, sighing softly. “I love you,” she said.

Now, I am aware that there are countless studies on the effects of trauma on children with outcomes being that they form quick attachments or no attachments at all. I know these things. But this little girl?  She can have my heart. 

έχω χαθεί (I'm lost.)

έχω χαθεί (I'm lost.)

For the moment, Athens is the city that robs me of my equilibrium. I suspect that will change in the future, but for now, her streets veer off in directions unknown to me. In Chicago, I am one of those annoying people who gives directions using North and South, rather than right and left. But in Athens, I receive directions with a blank stare, unable to even pronounce street names as the Greek script is outside of my realm of Latin based languages. 

While Nadia was at work, I left her home to journey the six miles to city center to pick up ten ukuleles. I closed her door behind me and walked into a world in which I would be unable to even give my address to a taxi driver if necessary. (I considered stealing a piece of Nadia’s mail with her address) I headed towards the train station, an indecipherable fifteen minute walk, and I proceeded to double back multiple times. It did not help that up to this point Nadia had, without malice, managed to take a different way home from the train station each time we returned. My phone and maps sat uselessly in Chicago. 

The following night, after meeting up with Mariza and hearing Polyphonica, her Athens choir, sing, I stood alone at midnight near the tunnel of the Monastiraki train stop waiting for the next train north. The sound of clanking silverware from above mingled with the plaintive modal melody of a bouzouki as a dry wind passed through the tunnel heralding the arrival of the next train. Directly across the tracks from me, a couple made out voraciously.

Sometimes, getting lost is being found.

έφαγα (I ate)

έφαγα  (I ate)

We say that we travel for various reasons; a desire to explore, a willingness to experience new things, an ache to climb mountains, a hope to meet new people, a need to de-stress, a goal of trying to understand the world... etcetera, etcetera. But, if we are honest with ourselves, we would discover that the true reason we travel, is to simply eat. 

I ate. Each day in Athens, Nadia's father would ask, "Would she like stuffed peppers and tomatoes? Mushrooms? large beans soaked, simmered, drained and then broiled with olive oil, garlic and tomatoes? Would she like baked whole bass?"  Every lunchtime, I shamelessly and greedily ate while the hot afternoon sun shone into Nadia's cheerful orange kitchen. 

Last summer on Lesvos, I had felt incredibly isolated and overwhelmed. I had made a couple of friends who were truly amazing people, a young English woman and a very determined Iranian man. I also, befriended one tiny little puppy, Googool.  But apart from them, I felt very much on the periphery of life on Lesvos. So, in my last week on the island, I did what any musician would have done. I went to a community choir rehearsal. There I met Mariza, a powerful pixie of a woman, Christina with her valkyrie voice, Vagalis, Mariza’s guitar playing boyfriend and a choir full of some seriously warm hearted people. From that moment, my time alone changed into gatherings full of laughter, obscene amounts of food and a meshing of music, instruments always at hand. On one impromptu night of camping on the beach, I got to know Vagalis’s sister, Nadia, a woman impassioned by all things Rock and Roll. 

And so this summer, I found myself in a bustling Athens, in the northern neighborhood of Nea Filadelfeia, in Nadia's homey apartment in the same building with her parents, with two talkative cats and twenty two recently purchased ukuleles..  And I ate.  

Someone I tell you, in another time, will remember us

Someone I tell you 

In another time

will remember us

-Sappho

There are echoes of footprints all across this island as humanity has traipsed back and forth for thousands of years, marking a shifting balance of East and West. The weary traveller touches feet on the dusty shores while clutching equally to dreams of an unknown future and fears of an all too familiar past. Some stay, making a home and building a community, blending recipes, rituals and songs until the origins are indistinguishable. Others stand on this island with raised heads, their eyes lifted and scanning for a far off destination, always just beyond the horizon. And still others will return back the way they came, overtaken by a past that they race against. 

I swim one last time with the kids at Pikpa. There is laughter and splashing as an evening sun paints everything gold and pink. There are crying babies and sea salted cheeks kissed by little girls all too accustomed to saying goodbye. Later, Nadia, Vergelis and I, sit outside an ice cream shop, contemplating round two as passer-bys with familiar faces join our table to chat. Two hours later, my hands are coated in grease, ketchup and mustard and I dust off my last gyro. A patient dog lies next to my chair, as Nadia’s laughter echoes off stone walls lit by the florescent lights of the gyro shop. In the small hours of the night, Kini and I make a trek on quiet hilly streets to her home, carrying the contents of my packed up temporary home; potatoes, cheese, an oregano plant, a bedspread.  

After a frantic morning and a bag haphazardly packed with half opened eyes, I kneel down in Sappho Square where Arash sits vigil. His skin is darkened by a merciless sun and his movements lethargic on the dawn of the third day of a hunger strike. We say goodbye and I head off to freedom while he remains chained, waiting only for a chance to live free with his brother and attend university. Where will he be in a month, a season, a year? 

My footprints are echoes interwining with the familiar ghosts of all those who have come before and will come after. By the time I return to this island, the smiles of many who I have known in Mytilene, will have moved on to new lives and new dreams all across Europe. But I know that this island is not done with me. Her siren song will call to me in the dark of winter when I will find myself seeking her warmth and searching airfares at 2am. There are plans to make and work to do.

(Postlude: Arash held out and abstained from food for an unfathomable 41 days before his brother and friends were released from Moria's jail. Arash continues to fight for the rights of all refugees. In the meantime, I am solidifying plans and will be returning to Lesvos for two months next summer.)