Greece

It's absolutely beautiful out. The weather makes me want to dress in tight red and black clothes and strut down the street in my long red "Carmen Sandiego" coat and a black fedora. Problem is, the image would work better with a supporting cast, and I think most of my guy friends would take it the wrong way if I called them and said, "You up for a round of being cartoon!cool?" I swear I'm not crazy. Just impulsive. Okay, so maybe a little crazy. :)

Had the most fantastic meal at the Parthenon (restaurant, not to be confused with The Parthenon in Greece) last night. The gyros were incredible, and the feta cheese tasted like it actually came from Greece. If I closed my eyes tightly enough and scooted toward the smoking section, I could almost picture the sidewalk cafés I frequented in Athens.

Those cafés were droplets of heaven on earth. (Is it strange that my heaven comes with cigarette smoke and the smell of fresh squid and bad wine?) All through my trip to Athens, I slept most of the day away, getting up to do the obligatory touring before dark, then finding my way to the pedestrian marketplace. The marketplace, crammed with people speaking every language I've ever come across, was always tight and musky, and the air there was filled with every scent known to man. It's indescribable, but it hearkens back to the first days when Athens was the center of half the known world, when Athens was the apex of civilization. It smells like old leather, sandalwood, incense, and oranges.

But the marketplace. I would wander up and down among the stalls, occasionally stopping to finger the merchandise but seldom buying anything. It was enough just to know that I was there, in that moment, at the heart of something so basically human that it took my breath away. Then I'd go track down a cup of coffee and a corner table at which to sit with my notebook and scribble randomly. Whatever came into my head was good enough to write there on the hazy line where fantasy blends with reality. It was a euphoric week.

When people ask me about visiting Athens, they always ask about the Parthenon, the Acropolis, the Agora. I tell them about the markets, the cafés, the winding side streets. I tell them how glorious it was to be an American in a pre-9/11 almost-Middle East. Mostly, though, I tell them to go. Go to the city, immerse yourself in the culture and the language, buy a red rose from a street vendor, and when you go to see the ruins, look up and watch how the columns hold up the sky.

( 6 - Summer Reading )

Forrest, Forrest Gump

Yes, just finished watching Forrest Gump. I'd forgotten exactly how much I loved that movie, but revisiting the scenes - a young Elvis, a pre-"Imagine" John Lennon, and of course the bumper sticker salesman whose "Shit Happens" is now an American catchphrase - was a lovely experience.

I've always had a warm place in my heart for Lt. Dan. He reminds me of a lot of the war veterans I know (and being a Navy brat, I've met far too many.) Some of them are the most die-hard atheists, but underneath they always have a lingering question of the meaning of their lives. There's something immeasurably sad about an eighteen-year-old who can't live for a single moment without being tugged back into memories of a war he didn't start and doesn't feel particularly inclined to continue.

I spent hours last summer talking to a young man who had just returned from Iraq and was serving restriction (the Navy equivalent of punishment for a crime) for being visibly drunk in uniform. He was on trash and cleaning duty; I was on customer service duty; we had both exhausted our patience with staring at the blank wall fifteen minutes after office hours began. Since I couldn't generate trash simply by willing it to appear, and he had already scrubbed the entirety of my minuscule office, we sat next to each other for a while, exchanging strangers-on-the-bus glances. Finally, I held out my hand, told him I wanted him to act like a normal person instead of shuffling around like some sort of servant, and introduced myself.

After that, we started conversing as equals instead of as overseer and worker, and I eventually asked him why he'd been drunk in uniform. He shrugged, blushed, and muttered something about how it hadn't seemed to matter at the time. He just wanted to be drunk and he didn't care that he was wearing a uniform. This didn't really answer my question, so I asked him again a few weeks later, and this time he told me that he had been so relieved to be in a place where he didn't have to fear for his life that he had taken advantage of it immediately by sacrificing his ability to think clearly. I suppose that could've been a complete lie, but the drinking age in Italy is eighteen, he was nineteen, and he sounded just enough humiliated about the entire experience that I didn't ask further questions. Just told him not to do it again and spent the rest of the day playing "Go Fish," having pen-clicking contests, and avoiding LT, who would've found work for us.

By the end of the day, I saw what a lot of other people had forgotten about him: he was a kid, straight out of high school, only a handful of years older than I was. He laughed at my stupid jokes, still remembered his teachers' names, and sent letters to his mother once a week. He'd never been out of the US before he was sent to Iraq. I wanted to march over to the CO of the base and scream at him, yell "Look what you're doing, you bull-headed idiot!" But the CO's not really responsible, and I would've lost my job over an irrelevant argument. So I settled for listening to a young man whose ability to feel safe had been forever stolen from him.

War is fucking pointless.

When I told him I write, he joked that I was a "wise woman." Actually, four or five years ago I wrote a little almost-poem that I rediscovered this afternoon. It sums up my feelings quite nicely:

Yeah, I'm a writer
Meaning of life? Not a clue.
Am I really supposed to be wise beyond my years?
No one's ever called me wise
Smart, sure
Smart, intelligent, witty, sharp
A wise-ass
But wise? Never

Wisdom comes with experience
And me? I'm a kid still
Or at least that's what people tell me
I'm "living my childhood"
Storing up the memories for the day I graduate
And someone hands me a plaque that says
"Congratulations, you're wise"
Because I sure as hell won't know on my own