Hope and Transience

Thursday May 5. Can it really be Thursday already? Two weeks is such a long time to be able to stay in a place like this, to settle in deeply and stroll slowly along the cliffs breathing in deeply the air that wafts in from the sea. 

And yet, time passes. We will be leaving Sunday morning, heading for another beautiful place (and facing the nervousness that comes with negotiating airport logistics and security in Heraklion, finding our way to an unknown hotel in Venice, and Monday finding the train station in Venice and the track for our train to Verano, and in Verano negotiating a transfer to Bolzano - finding the track for the train to Bolzano and getting there in the time available (20 minutes, which is plenty of time but that doesn’t keep me from worrying: what for example if our train is late?) - and then finding our way to the cable car station in Bolzano and finding the cable car to Klobebstein). The prospect of leaving Crete stirs many feelings - gratitude for the beauty and deep peace, sadness at leaving (and uncertainty, given our age and the earth’s many traumas and turbulences - war, climate extremes and wildfires, refugee crises, pandemics - whether we will be able return again), anxiety about the logistics of travel (that certainly become more challenging and anxiety-provoking as we age) AND the excitement of facing that anxiety and moving through it, and the anticipation of the very very different beauty and peace we will encounter in the Dolomites (the alps of northern Italy). 

One of the themes for me this visit has been my delight in the sheep and the goats and what a hard time I have discerning which is which. I have long noticed a spatial dyslexia (a more than random tendency to chose the wrong direction) that extends beyond the physical realm into the moral. I have often wondered how people tell right from wrong (unless they embrace an authority that dictates the distinction). Separating the sheep from the goats (the saints from the sinners, in Matthew’s gospel) seems equally problematic for me. Here in Crete the sheep seem to be mostly fenced, the goats mostly free to roam. But I’ll be darned if I can tell them apart. 

Okay, these are definitely sheep. When I find them behind fences and in a herd, I have no doubt. 

They usually startle when we pass and run away. The group below, however, startled and then eagerly followed us. When we walked by their food trough, I realized they were hoping we would feed them and I felt thoroughly guilty that I could not fulfill their trusting hopes. 

But on the other side of the road, behind fences, are those sheep of another color or long haired goats? Darned if I know. 

I love the free roaming goats. Like this one standing against the sea. 

Or this one turning to gaze at me. (That’s the town of Hora Sfakion in the background).

 I was returning from my solo hike along the coast (last Friday) when I took a picture of that goat. Chris didn’t come with me. The footing was pretty challenging and just at the edge of what I could manage. (I was distressed when I found an article that ranked hikes by difficulty - where A was short and easy, B slightly more difficult, with C D and F more so, F being reserved for the most skilled and experienced mountaineers - ranking my Friday hike “b.” Yikes - and it was just at the outer edge of what I could manage! So much for my illusions about my hiking prowess. 

Scrambling over rocks in parts of the trail from Hora Sfakion to Loutro was quite a challenge.

I wished I had the sure feet of the goats that move so skillfully along the cliffs and make it look so simple. 

On the other hand, the rugged beauty along the coast was a huge reward. 

Saturday May 8. Now our last day has arrived. Friday I went on a solo hike up Kalikratis - a shorter and easier gorge than the famous tourist destinations - and had a pretty big scare when I couldn’t find the trail.

I ended up clambering over and climbing big rocks and boulders until finally I spotted the trail quite a way above the bottom of the gorge and found a way to scramble up the almost vertical incline to get to the trail. I felt it was not a safe situation for me - that my balance and agility were not up to the challenge, and that I had been a little too confident in hiking it alone. I hadn’t realized there would be no cell coverage. I would have turned back except that I was more scared of returning where I had been than going forward.

 I decided this was definitely my last hike in a gorge in Crete. 

However once I found the trail it was a beautiful and easy hike and I found myself not at all sure about that decision. 

As I emerged from the shade into bright sunlight, I suspected I just might be called back to this place. And who am I not to come when I’m called?

Today Saturday Chris and I took a long walk together on a paved side road down to the beach and back up to the road. 

And by the way I found another bench I like to imagine you sitting on just being there gazing out at the sea. It’s been not enough here that you would definitely be grateful for the shade. 

There are a ton of stories I want to tell, experiences and reflections I want to share but I am not sure I have the energy to do so.  So many stories. For example, Chris and I were eating at a Taverna a mountain village looking down on this stone circle.

We asked the woman serving us what it was. She explained that it was a mill and that her grandmother used it, with a horse, to mill grains and olives. We are so moved by all the multi-generational families here. We love that the apartments where we stay are a family business. This year our favorite taverna is beside the shop run by the man Giorgio who rented us our car. He and his brothers own the taverna, the shop, the rooms for rent. The young man who served us at the restaurant today explained that the business was named “Babis and Popi” for his grandparents and that Giorgio was one of his uncles. I have mixed feelings about tourism (and being a tourist) but I love that it makes it possible for young people to stay in the countryside and for extended families to thrive. Once when Chris and I were walking on the beach she asked me if I thought I would know when to head up from the beach to find the taverna. I looked up and saw this.  I told her I thought I’d be able to find it. 

Maybe I will just end this post here, yet another incomplete project, with a photo I took on our Thursday walk of what appeared to be another abandoned and incomplete project. I love the red poppies in the foreground and the mountains in the background. 

Chris and I have loved being here and I am very aware of the poignancy of having a special time come to an end. Yesterday was Freud’s birthday and, just as we have every year for at least 30 years, we celebrated by reading Freud’s essay on transience. Here’s a link to the essay if you are interested. 

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Transience.pdf

I found myself reflecting on transience on many levels: our lives, this visit, the world as I thought I knew it (and tend now to romanticize it) before Trump, the pandemic, climate change related storms and wildfires, etc. So here is a photo that celebrates transience. (I write this without having chosen a photo - it’s a challenge to myself to pick one). 

So once again thank you for being there and joining with us in imagination. I look forward to sharing our trip through Venice to the small town of Klobenstein in the Dolomites. Blessings. 

Oh my gosh I forgot to tell you about the oranges. On our Friday walk Chris and I stopped very hot and tired at a small cafe and ordered fresh squeezed orange juice. (The oranges here are locally grown and really good and the fresh juice is such a treat when we are overheated and tired from walking). The woman went to make it and discovered she had only two oranges. So she made us a small glass for which she charged us only one euro. As we completed our walk I realized we would be walking by one of the small markets that they call “supermarkets” here and then passing the cafe on our way back to our parked car. So I went in and bought a bag of oranges. I walked into the cafe, handed her the bag, said “for you,” and walked out. It was my little attempt to honor the two little girls who gave me magic moments - the one whose little stuffed walrus rubbed his head affectionately against my hand, and the one who ran up and gave me a loquat. I felt so shy that I had to turn around and run out of the cafe as soon as I’d given her the oranges but I hope I passed on a little of the magic in that way.