the cassandra pages

Short Story with Swans

Mountains and Orchard

The large mountains behind the city of Edessa intrigued us, and one afternoon, curious about what we might find, we drove west of the city and up into them. After leaving the main highway, we followed a smaller paved road through huge orchards of densely-planted, unfamiliar fruit trees with an upright habit of loosely vertical branches -- were they almonds? I got out to take a closer look, and decided they might be cherry trees, but there were more than we imagined possible, stretching for miles in every direction, the only cultivated crop in what appeared to be a rocky, dry wilderness.

After traveling along these orchards for a while, we came upon a small hill village. It was built of rock, and although we saw a few cars and motorcycles parked along the roads or in driveways, there were no people walking around, just a few stray cats and the occasional dog. The little closely-placed houses seemed well cared for, with tall, blooming rose bushes and sometimes a heavily laden pomegranate tree in a front yard. But the village streets were so steep that our underpowered car needed several tries to gain the top of one of them.

After leaving the village, all signs of habitation gradually vanished. The road, now unpaved, climbed and narrowed; the slopes became steeper and rockier, and the vegetation wilder. Figs and hop vines scrambled with abandon over every tree and rocky outcrop. Just as we were about to declare defeat and turn around before the road became impassable, we suddenly came upon a blue lake with a flock of large white birds on it, in the middle of nowhere.

We pulled the car off onto the non-existent shoulder of the road, and got out; the water wasn't far from the road itself and you could stand on the edge and get a good look at the birds, who seemed unconcerned about the presence of human eyes. All of the white, large birds were swans but, closer to us, we could also see a flock of small ducks that I couldn't identify. Wildflowers, some of which were familiar and others not, bloomed on the edge of the bank, and behind the lake, the mountains rose: dry, rocky, bare except for the occasional patterned rows of a vineyard or orchard. Just beyond them was the border, and North Macedonia.

After ten minutes or so, we heard a vehicle approaching. It was a small beat-up truck that stopped when it came around the bend in the road and saw our car, parked on the side. The driver peered at us out his window, and then pulled off in a nonchalant fashion which seemed to indicate both familiarity with the road, and that there was seldom any traffic to worry about. Both doors opened, and a middle-aged Greek couple got out and walked closer. Initially they seemed concerned that we'd had a breakdown, but they quickly realized, when we gently gestured toward the water, that we were watching something.  I recalled "poulia" - "birds" - but couldn't remember the word for swan, which annoyed me because the word appears along with a picture of a swan on the red tins of the "swan" brand of Greek tomato paste and sauce. I had liked those tins so much that I had brought an empty one home, from our first trip here, to use in my studio. 

But the couple now said "swans" aloud  -- "keeknous!" - and nodded to us in some excitement. They walked over to the side of the road to get a closer look. "Mikres papies" said the woman, pointing at the little birds in the foreground, "little ducks." I nodded and repeated, "papies," which was another word I had learned and forgotten.

The four of us stood watching the birds on the blue water for a few minutes, and then they turned to us, quizzically. Both of them had open faces, and were dressed simply; they were probably local people who lived nearby. He was stocky, with a round face and short grey hair; she was short, smiling, and blond. "Tourist?" they asked. "Canada," I said, pointing at both of us. "We like your country," I managed to say in Greek, and in a combination of pantomime and words I conveyed that it was our third trip there. "How long?" they asked. "Three weeks." "Pou?" "Where?" "Edessa, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Athens..." I stumbled over the word "Chalkidiki", the peninsulas to the east of Thessaloniki, and looked to them for help, and they quickly pronounced it for me.  We all laughed.

Before they had arrived, I had plucked a ripe fig from the tree growing wild on the lake side of the road, and the woman spotted it in my hand. Ah! she said, and told her husband to go look.  She brought her cupped hand to her mouth and raised her eyebrows, then pointing at my hand, wanting to know if I had eaten one. I shook my head no. The man went over to the tree and rummaged through the branches, looking for the best fruit, and picking a handful. He held out his open palm to me, and to my husband, proffering the small, dark figs. We each took one, and he pressed us to take more, so we did. The man nodded slightly, pointing his index finger toward me and then toward himself in a gesture that said, "Look!" He took a fig between his left forefinger and thumb, and began to slowly but deftly peel off the skin with his right hand, looking over at me to make sure I was watching -- it was a lesson. Then he split the flesh, examined it to make sure it met his expectations, and handed the peeled fig to me, gesturing to me to eat it. I took the fig and ate it in two bites; it was delicious. "Nostimo," I said. "Efcharisto!" ("Delicious, thank you!") and we all began to pick and lazily peel and eat figs, keeping the unconcerned, floating swans in the corner of our vision. The woman split a fig open, laughed, and shook her head "no", making a wiggling gesture with her finger as she showed it to me -- that one had a worm in it. I nodded, and glanced at Jonathan, who raised his eyebrows and surreptitiously dropped the fig he had been holding into the bushes.

Swan and wild fig tree

After a little while, we felt it was time to leave, and I gestured to the couple that we were going back to our car. They had been talking together and grazing on the figs, while J. and I took some pictures of the swans and the lake, but now we approached them to say goodbye. I smiled at the man and put my hand on my upper chest. "Elisabeth," I said. He grinned and said, in Greek, "Like the queen!" I got it and laughed and nodded, then pointed to Jonathan and said his name. They shook hands. The man touched his own chest and said, "Konstadinos," and then turned to his wife, who was also smiling at us, and said, in halting English, "She is  -- Chryseis. It means...gold."

We drove back through the endless orchards of fruit trees, down the winding roads through the stone villages, until we re-joined the main road that led to the Edessa highway. I couldn't believe I had actually met someone named Chryseis. At the beginning of the Iliad, a young Trojan virgin of that name has been seized by the Greeks and given to their leader, Agamemnon, as his slave and mistress. She is the daughter of Chryses, a high priest of Apollo, but Agamemnon refuses her father's pleas to return her. Chryseis, desperate, prays to Apollo. The god hears her and sends a plague that strikes the Greek camp...and sets in motion further events that alter the course of the war. (The name Chryseis literally means "of Chryses", and it is Chryses that means "golden".)

When we were finally back at our inn, we asked the innkeeper about the fruit trees we had seen up in the mountains. She asked us what towns we had been near. "Agras?" I offered. "Nisi?" She nodded, and answered, "Then they must have been kerasies. Cherries." She gazed at us calmly with that knowing, slightly sly smile we've seen on many Greek faces when suggesting something we must do or try: the special dessert they are offering "on the house", the free glass of homemade tangerine liqueur, the sight to be seen if we would just walk up to the top of the hill. "You must come back in the spring," she said, "when they are all in bloom!"

A Brief Stay in Exarcheia

Today, November 17, marks the fateful day in 1973 -- fifty years ago -- when tanks were driven through the gates of the National Polytechnic University in Athens in an attempt to put down the student-led uprising against the military junta that had ruled Greece since 1967. 24 civilians were killed. Several days before, students had barricaded themselves in the main university buildings and called on their fellow citizens to rise up. These events are acknowledged today as the beginning of the overthrow of that oppressive regime. They are still commemorated with a permanent shrine, including the wrecked and twisted metal gate, inside the university entrance where many of the victims fell.

In preparation for today's expected 50th-year commemoration, we hear that 5,000 police have been stationed in strategic areas around the city, including at the US and Israeli embassies. The US embassy is the usual end point of student marches on this date every year, since the country is generally blamed by them for having been in league with the military junta, and now for being a partner in "imperialist wars." The police have said that drones and helicopters will be hovering and transmitting images to their operations center throughout the day. Yesterday, crowds of people, as well as the political opposition leader and the head of the communist party, laid wreaths and carnations at the Polytechnic site in memory of the students who were killed.

The surrounding neighborhood, called Exarcheia (or Exarchia) continues to be known as the home of anarchists, activist students, and bohemian intellectuals who oppose the government's authoritarian and conservative policies. In recent decades it also became a refuge for migrants who established squats in empty buildings, with periodic crackdowns by the government to clear out those settlements. The clashes between students and police have often included tear gas, Molotov cocktails, and broken windows. However, Exarcheia also one of the most vibrant and interesting neighborhoods in the city, and we've stayed there twice.

I drew this view into the courtyard of the historic neoclassical buildings of the Polytechnic University back in 2019, from our apartment balcony. At that time, students had taken over the main building and seemed to be living there, and in the evenings there were meetings with music and speeches in this courtyard -- all peaceful but continuing well into the late hours. These were the original university buildings; the main campus is now located elsewhere. 

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After arriving in Athens our taxi dropped us off at our small hotel, where we'd be for the next two nights, and after a nap we went out to explore. Many tourists would probably be freaked out by Exarcheia, with its Marxist posters, abundant graffiti, edgy vibe, and continual police presence. We were prepared for that because we'd stayed in the area previously and realized there was little to fear under normal circumstances. What got to us this time wasn't any perception of danger on the streets, but the greatly increased police presence since four years ago: large groups of helmeted police riding motorcycles through the narrow streets at all hours, and three huge buses filled with police in full riot gear, with shields, parked on a main street, apparently perpetually ready to confront a student demonstration. Maybe, as children of the 1960s and peace activists who have experienced plenty of this ourselves, it feels unfortunate and wrong, but not that abnormal.

The next morning, jet-lagged but hungry, we walked up to a block of small restaurants with outdoor seating that we'd passed the night before, coming home from dinner. We chose a little eastern-European café, and sat there for an hour and a half, watching what was going on as the street came alive, shops opened, and people began their days. The gentleman shown in the drawing passed us, wearing a long black coat and carrying an armload of heavy books. He sat down at a table outside the door of the neighboring café, where he was greeted by the server in a way that made me think he must be a habitué. Was he a retired professor? Were those clerical robes? He didn't seem to be an Orthodox priest. Whatever the case, I'm sure he was doing exactly what he did on many mornings in his own familiar neighborhood  - sitting at that same table, ordering coffee, reading, checking his phone, and having a few cigarettes. Likewise, the man who ran the small fruit and vegetable shop on the other side rolled up his awning and came out to chat with a fellow who pulled up on a motorcycle, then later a woman doing her morning errands, and two men who sat down at a table to smoke with him: longtime neighbors and friends.

When our young server returned to the table with our breakfast order, I asked how things were going, and mentioned the police buses we'd seen the previous night. He shook his head and asked softly: "You know about this neighborhood?" We nodded. "It's been getting worse and worse. Constant intimidation, on the orders of the government. It's to try to keep the students quiet, keep them from protesting their policies. And the problem is, say if something bad happened or you had an accident late at night and needed help, then no one would come." We had the impression that student opposition to the government's immigration policies was at the heart of this increased intimidation, and also their direct opposition to police brutality, but there were many other issues as well, from economic policy to the planned construction of a new metro stop in the heart of the neighborhood.

Typical posters pasted up on the streets announced demonstrations, and exhorted people to take action on various issues, such as migrant rights, anti-police brutality, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, war in the Ukraine. The large letters on the top poster here say something like (Greek speakers please correct me!): The Elector is Responsible / Remember / The people choose the leaders they deserve. It's accompanied by a picture of Karl Marx. (This is basically the same as Alexander Hamilton's famous quote: "People get the government they deserve" - an ironic comment from an American founding father, in the light of current world and domestic events.)  The next sentence in black letters, is a quote from the "national poet of Greece", Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857), and reads: "My poor people, good and beloved. Always gullible and always betrayed." The poster below says "Marxism 2023" and advertises an action that took place this past July in Athens.

There's a lot of graffiti everywhere. It ranges from spray-painted names and tags, such as those above, to some breathtaking murals like the one below.

Everything in Exarcheia is not political. Because of the intellectual/artist/student vibe, the area is filled with small bookstores, art supply stores, vintage and ethnic clothing and thrift stores, small artist and craft boutiques, cafés and restaurants -- many of which are very good and far more affordable than those a few blocks away near the city center and Syntagma Square. One of our favorite restaurants is a mezedopolia, or "small plates" restaurant specializing in meze, located at the top of the hill. You eat at café tables in an outdoor terrace where vines climb on the rustic pergolas overhead, and cats wander between the table, in an atmosphere of convivial groups of friends. The food is fantastic, the wine and ouzo are great, and who could complain about jasmine blossoms falling on your table as you finish your coffee?

During our three visits to Greece, we've spent considerable time in Athens and grown to love this gritty, complicated city not just for its monuments, art, and cultural history but also for its people and vibrancy today. Most tourists sleep and spend their time and money in the city center and the area around the Acropolis. These are fairly sanitized and curated, with English signs everywhere, good restaurants that provide predictable menus and a "Greek experience," and shopping from the very high-end to souvenir shops filled with evil-eye jewelry, sandals, cheap reproductions of classical vases, olive oil soaps and Mediterranean sponges. You're much more likely to get your pocket picked in those crowded places than in Exarcheia. But you won't be as likely to fall on cracked and uneven pavement, or stumble over garbage and animal waste, or find yourself in a neighborhood populated by non-white immigrants wearing ethnic and religious dress. We've stayed in Plaka, the area near the major museums and monuments, and yes, it is pretty incredible to go up on your rooftop and watch the sun set over the Parthenon. But it's also much more expensive, and at this point we are less interested in seeing those sights again than in trying to understand the city and the country in a deeper way. When we planned this particular trip to begin and end in Athens, we deliberately chose two neighborhoods - Exarcheia and another, close to it and to the northwest - where we'd see a different side of the city.

Having said that, I am always skeptical about how much a visitor can ever truly understand a place where they don't live and don't speak the language well. You can read history from a book, and absorb plays and poetry and art, and enjoy the local cuisine. You can even get a college degree, like me, in "classical civilization." But there is no way to fully grasp the lived reality of present-day people, or the effect of politics, and economic and social movements over time, on actual lives, without living there for a long time yourself. I know that I've been extremely irritated by newcomers to Quebec who rhapsodize about how wonderful it is, and even pontificate about the political situation, when they actually don't know anything beyond the superficial. I hope - even after twenty years here - that I am always willing to listen to French Canadians about their own long, fraught, and particular history. Likewise, I've now lived in Quebec long enough to have my own opinions and experiences, as well as a personal stake in it and full citizenship, so I resent being made to feel like an outsider, while acknowledging how complicated such questions of belonging and identity can be. 

With an unfamiliar country, like Greece, if we want to learn, we have to get off the beaten path, live in real neighborhoods, talk to Greek people, and remain porous, inquisitive, and open-minded. I'll write more about my language adventures in another post. I just want to express my respect and humility at the outset, and try very hard not to write with more authority than is justified. Certain qualities, however, cannot be mistaken: the natural beauty of a place; the warmth, generosity and openness of the people; and an intangible sense of a history to which I do feel, in some soul-level and lifelong ways, connected.

Views of Edessa

View of Edessa, Greece, looking southeast.

After arriving in Athens on October 8, we stayed in the city two nights to give our bodies a chance to acclimate, and then took off in our rental car for the roadtrip portion of our Greek trip.

The first day's drive was the longest of the entire trip, more than six hours if we had gone straight north and not stopped, but we did take a break for a picnic lunch on the seashore, and then stopped a few more times to take pictures of cotton fields, orchards, and mountains on our way to the north of Greece. Our destination was Edessa, a city in the foothills of the Pindus Mountains near the Macedonian border, not far from Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and Vergina, where his father Philip II and many other Macedoniam royalty are buried. We were going there not so much for culture or ancient history, although there is plenty, but for natural beauty and a few days of quiet decompression as we began our journey. And spectacularly beautiful it was.

The old city, with its fortifications, sits high above the newer Edessa. We stayed in Varosi, the oldest inhabited part, above the fortification walls, in a stone building that has been lovingly restored and turned into a bed and breakfast inn. Our room was on the second floor of the heavily-timbered structure, with lace curtains and a wooden balcony that looked south across the broad valley, and east toward Thessaloniki.

View to the northeast. The mountains weren't snow-covered, just rocky.

One of the main attractions of Edessa has always been its waterfalls, which spill from rivers coming off the high mountains behind Varosi, and historically powered the city's textile mills. The cataracts were within walking distance from our inn, along with low-key restaurants, service businesses, and a tiny Orthodox church in a shadowed park filled with ancient plane trees, above an old grain mill, no longer in use. Now the water is channeled and collected for human use and water power in the valley far below the falls. Everything was very lightly curated, and because it was already the off-season, we saw few other tourists.

Edessa is thought to be where Caranus -- ancestor of Alexander the Great -- founded the first capital of ancient Macedon. Our waiter at dinner confided to us that Greece had it wrong in spending so much money on the archaeological site of Alexander's purported birthplace, Pella, because those who live in Edessa know that he was really born there. Whether that is true or not, ancient ruins have started to be excavated down in the valley. The city eventually became a major cultural center during medieval times, and has been the site of much fighting during all the centuries and all the wars since, because of its strategic border location and the clashes between Byzantines and Serbs, Ottomans and Greeks, Bulgarians and Greeks, Nazis and Allied powers, and Communists factions and Slav-Macedonians during the Greek Civil War.

The streets of Varosi are ancient and beautiful, and here we met the first of the many stray cats with whom we'd became acquainted during our journey. Some were in good shape, others less so, but many people put out food and water for them, and the cats are opportunistic too, hanging around restaurants where they know they're likely to find dropped tidbits, or sympathetic diners. This beautiful kitten spent most of her days on a rock near the door of our inn, and it was only later that we discovered she was managing on only three legs.

Within a short distance from our inn, I think I counted five Greek Orthodox churches and chapels. The main cathedral was open, and a tall bearded priest in his black robes sat talking with his assistants in the garden courtyard as I went up the steps. In the foyer I lit a thin beeswax candle for peace, placing it in the sand-filled container with other burning tapers, as war broke out in the Middle East. I sat for a while, meditating beneath the huge brass chandelier and its hanging ostrich eggs. The priest eventually came in, kissed the two main icons, and then paused near me to say a warm kαλημέρα, good morning, before he disappeared behind the iconostasis.

Someone's sunken garden, orchard, grapevines, and extraordinary woodpile.

I was able to draw in Edessa, on our balcony, and expected to be able to continue what I had begun throughout the trip, but it turned out to be almost impossible as our pace picked up and we had less time to just sit and observe our surroundings. I took lots of pictures though, and did as many fast sketches as I could, so in the weeks and months to come I hope I'll be able to fill in the gaps. Now I look back at our stay in Edessa as a particularly quiet and lovely few days -- and although I didn't draw the famous waterfalls, I'll try to paint them to show you.

Pine tree and a view toward the lower town, with orchards and vineyards.

Packing for Painting

For the first time in nearly four years, we're planning to go on a significant trip abroad, and I hope to do quite a lot of sketching. This is going to be a carry-on-luggage-only journey, so whatever I take has to be light and compact, including my bag of art supplies. As of the end of yesterday (which included a quick trip to the art supply store to buy two tubes of watercolor paint), I think I've got it all sorted.

The big decision was to take my larger travel palette rather than the tiny one shown in the top picture. This one holds 24 half-pans of color rather than twelve, has a considerably larger mixing area, and I can also fit several travel brushes into it, but it's still quite compact at about 6 x 4 inches. Today I worked on cleaning it up, refilling the color wells, shifting the arrangement of colors, and substituting a few new ones, mainly Potter's Pink, which I haven't used before, and a pre-mixed well of cool grey. Both of those will function as neutrals, be good mixers with other colors, and save time in the painting process. As usual, I painted a lot of swatches to make sure the pigments chosen are what i really need -- for instance, the greenish-grey swatches at bottom right above are tests for the silvery grey-green of olive leaves...a hint as to where we're going.

I'll be taking a new Stillman&Birn Gamma sketchbook slightly smaller than my usual landscape-format 7" x 10" book. This one is 6" x 8", with a vertical spiral binding, but I will most likely turn the pages and work horizontally. The painting at the top of this post is the first page in the new sketchbook. It seems like the format will be fine, and the paper is what I like best and am used to for both ink drawing and watercolor sketching. Sometimes I also take a watercolor block of high-quality paper but decided to buy one there if needed. I always go with great intentions to draw or paint every day, but when traveling it's not always possible to take the time. We'll see how it goes; I'm going to be as prepared, and as relaxed, about it as possible.

For tools, I've whittled things down to the bare essentials because pens tend to weight quite a bit. I'll be taking a mechanical pencil and an HB Dixon Ticonderoga, two Grumbacher charcoal pencils (hard and medium) and a tiny, light sharpener that works for two sizes (it's actually a makeup pencil sharpener that I got at Sephora.) For pens, I'm packing my Sailor fude-nib pen filled with my favorite Noodler's ink color, "El Lawrence", (thank you, Pohangina Pete), which is an olive green-grey; I have a small bottle of extra ink in the bag. For this I used an empty bottle of eye drops; the screw top is bullet-proof and I've never had trouble with it. I will probably also take a Faber-Castell medium fude-nib marker, a white gel pen, and a water brush. The other brushes in my kit are recent acquisitions that I think will work really well: it's a set of Princeton travel brushes, sizes 10, 8, 6 and 4 of which I will only take the larger sizes, plus a very small brush for details. They're synthetic sable, with handles that double as holders when the point-end is reversed. They'll be fine for this purpose and if they get messed up, it's not a loss of hundreds of dollars as sable brushes would be.

Add to that a small white eraser, some pieces of microfiber dishtowels (Trader Joe's) that are highly absorbent, washable substitutes for paper towels for wiping brushes and regulating the water/pigment load, and a small sea sponge, and the kit is complete. 

All of this will go into the plastic, see-through zip-top bag shown above (this one's from the Container Store; you can find similar bags online), which fits easily into my "personal item" bag rather than the carry-on, so that I can sketch in the airport or during the flight.

I'm excited! And anxious to start using the new set-up.

The Myriad and the Particular

from my travel journal, handwritten on a flight to Mexico City, this week in March, a number of years ago:

We had left the snow-covered earth behind and entered into a dim space above the indistinct but thick fog below, and a cloudy but brighter layer above.

Somewhere, about midway in our journey through this region, we came upon a little atoll of clouds. They were small and delicate and softly reflected the light of the unseen sun, still hidden above yet more layers of fog. These island clouds were bathed in a pale golden light and their tenderness touched something in me so suddenly and unexpectedly that I felt I might weep.

I brought my face close to the glass and looked down on them as if they were a dream of a place I must remember, and then they were gone behind us and their meaning -- in this middle world between fog and obscurity -- also stayed behind. But I continued to ponder them as we climbed out into that upper world, above all the clouds, where the setting sun reigned brightly, finally making himself known.

Hermit Diary 32: Sketches from a Greek Roadtrip

 

Come along with me on the road in Greece, as I try to sketch quickly from the car and during brief stops in-between destinations. (Headphones and full-screen viewing recommended, but it's also fine without.)

And please tell me what you like or don't like about this experimental video, because I'm hoping to do more of them. My videos so far are collected on a new page at my artist website, Studio Cassandra.

Thanks for watching!

 

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 8. In Italy, Derek Walcott

View from the theatre at Segesta, Sicily toward the sea, oil pastel, 2018.

Many of us think of Derek Walcott first as a poet of the Caribbean, but he was widely-traveled and wrote some of his most evocative poems about, and in, the different places he found himself. In his elegiac book White Egrets, written late in life, there's a sequence of twelve poems under the title "In Italy." In the fourth poem, he speaks about coming to that beautiful country late in life, and how perhaps that was better. I feel the same way. Even though Italian art and music, and Italian food and their zest for life, had always meant a great deal to me, I didn't visit Italy in person until I was over 60. It was as if an impression I'd built in my mind finally took on its true color and sound, taste and smell, and became so much more vivid -- and also more nuanced -- than I had been able to imagine: I fell in love with Rome, with Palermo, with Catania, and the ancient Greek cities on the coasts; with the Roman pines and the lichen-covered ancient stones; the pale frescoes and glittery mosaics; the lemon trees and the blue sea; the wizened olive trees and vibrant purple artichokes and glistening fish markets; and most of all the people, without whom Italy would not be Italy. What they are going through now is so terrible, and yet the pictures of the streets that we see, and the people singing from their rooftops, are a moving and beautiful witness to what makes Italy, Italy. Walcott's poems capture some of that combination of beauty and melancholy. Here's the fourth and perhaps best-known one, because it appeared in The New Yorker, and in coming days I'll post a few more.

 

In Italy

IV.

Roads shouldered by enclosing walls with narrow
cobbled tracks for streets, those hill towns with their
stamp-sized squares and a sea pinned by the arrow
of a quivering horizon, with names that never wither
for centuries and shadows that are the dial of time. Light
older than wine and a cloud like a tablecloth
spread for lunch under the leaves. I have come this late
to Italy, but better now, perhaps, than in youth
that is never satisfied, whose joys are treacherous,
while my hair rhymes with those far crests, and the bells
of the hilltop towers number my errors,
because we are never where we are, but somewhere else,
even in Italy. This is the bearable truth
of old age; but count your benedictions—those fields
of sunflowers, the torn light on the hills, the haze
of the unheard Adriatic—while the day still hopes
for possibility, cloud shadows racing the slopes.

--Derek Walcott

Athens: Anarchists and Antigone

The Polytechnic University of Athens, on a bright day.

The first apartment we stayed in was located north of the center of the city, near the National Museum of Archaeology and the Polytechnic University. Last year we stayed in a tiny room in a less-than-stellar hotel in the touristic center near the Acropolis - a great location, with good breakfasts, but we could barely turn around in either the bedroom or the bath, and we heard loud guests at every hour of the day or night. This time we wanted a larger, quieter place where we could cook, and learn about another part of the city. The apartment we rented turned out to be perfect. It was on the seventh floor, with a wide balcony that looked out over the buildings and courtyard of the Technical University, site of historic resistance by students against the military junta that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. On November 17, 1973, after several days of escalating student demonstrations, armed police crashed through the university gates with a tank. 24 civilians, including students and a young boy, were killed, and hundreds injured, though the official government inquiry disputed these deaths. Nevertheless, this catastrophe triggered events that led to the fall of the government the following July.

After that, a law was passed making university campuses safe zones, where the police cannot enter. The Polytechnic became the main site of resistance movements, and the home of the contemporary Greek anarchist movement. The neighborhood around the campus is called Exarchia, and is controlled by anarchist groups, but we didn't feel any threat from them -- rather than being against authority in all forms, their philosophy seems to be a bit more subtle: they're against the police, capitalism, globalization, and fascism, supportive of immigrants and refugees who they see as victims of capitalistic military actions and policies.

A poster in the neighborhood. The headline at the top reads "οχι αλλοι νεκροι, οχι αλλα στρατοπεδα συγκεντρωσης", "No more dead, no more concentration camps."

Our apartment host explained that the main university building was now occupied by students, and while the area was safe, she was glad we wouldn't be there on the 17th, because that was an annual day of demonstrations, when the anarchists and police always clashed, sometimes violently, with some danger from tear gas, Molotov cocktails and the like. While we were in residence, we watched the students coming and going, as well as faculty -- apparently classes were still going on in some of the other buildings. Graffiti, posters, and large homemade banners in a several-block radius indicated the presence of active resistance by these anarchists, with messages of solidarity with refugees and migrants -- of which Greece has a disproportionate number, many in controversial detention camps -- and anti-capitalist slogans. One weekend night, there was a demonstration that went on into the wee hours, with speeches followed by live music; we had a ringside seat, but couldn't tell what was really going on.

A pencil sketch from our balcony, looking toward the courtyard of the Archaeology Museum.

The buildings of the Polytechnic University are gorgeous examples of neo-classical architecture, designed by the architect Lysandros Kaftantzoglou (1811–1885) who would not be happy to see their current condition. From our balcony we looked down over the tiled roofs of two open, colonnaded buildings modeled after the classical stoa, or marketplace with columns, common to all public agoras in ancient times, and the beautifully-proportioned main building, with its pediment and Ionic columns flanked by staircases. Part of the roof of this building has fallen in. There's a courtyard and garden filled with flowering plants and trees, and, closer to the street, monuments to the fallen students as well as the remains of the gate that was smashed by the tank back in 1973.

Socrates (right) and Plato (left) presiding over the entrance to the Academy of Athens -- the name harkening back to Plato's Academy --which is the country's national academy and highest research institution, where work is divided into three orders: Natural Sciences, Letters and Arts, Moral and Political Sciences.

Anarchistic thought has a long history in Greece, going all the way back to Socrates, who, if not being an out-and-out anarchist in a modern sense, taught his students to continually question authority, and value above all one's right to a free will. He was tried and put to death because of his criticism of the political authority and direction of the Athenian state at the time. (As a political concept, Αναρχια, "anarchy," is a Greek word that first appears in plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles around the same time, in the fifth C. BC.)

A copy of Sophocles' Antigone in modern Greek that I bought in an Athenian used bookstore. I can read the Greek alphabet and had three years of university-level ancient Greek, but don't know the modern language at all. I can only decipher it with difficulty and the help of translation programs. I've forgotten most of the ancient Greek I once knew, but I thought I might compare this text to the original and learn something: intellectual folly, probably, but it was one of those things you see when traveling, and just want to have.

As one article I read pointed out, Sophocles' play Antigone is centered on the anarchist question of whether the young protagonist, Antigone, is right to exercise her free will against both family and the authorities -- to choose to properly bury her brother against the advice of her sister, and the express decree of the king, who has forbidden the burial because her brother had died fighting against that state.

Posters for (I think) current theater productions in Athens. Sophocles' Antigone on the left, a play titled The Building" on the right.

These are human questions that have persisted throughout recorded time. It's not surprising to me that this Greek play not only continues to be performed, 2500 years after it was written, but has also inspired a number of recent works, such as Kamila Shamsie's novel Home Fire, in which a young British woman rejects her sister's (and the state's) prohibitions by trying to aid, and then bury, her brother who left Britain to fight for ISIS, then regrets his decision and tries to return home. We still have a very difficult time deciding which is the highest "right": following the authority and wishes of one's family or one's country, or doing what an individual feels to be right and just, according to their own conscience or spiritual convictions, even if the penalty is ostracism, exile, or death. Jesus' difficult and hotly-debated parable in Luke 14:26, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple," speaks to much the same issue.

Here in Quebec, we also have a new film titled Antigone. The writer/director Sophie Deraspe said she was inspired by her reading of the play many years before, and by the story of Fredy Villaneuva, who was killed by a Montreal police officer in 2008 after an illegal game of dice in Henri-Bourassa park escalated into a physical confrontation with police. The film is about a girl in a Montreal refugee family whose brother is shot and killed by police. Against the wishes of her family, she tries to save her remaining brother, who has been arrested and faces deportation, and then runs afoul of the law herself. 

Socrates would be right at home.

Return

A sketch of the Acropolis done at home, back in October, shown here in three stages. Drawn with a Sailor fude nib pen on toned paper, with some added gouache in the other two stages below.

Apologies for my long absence here -- I've just come back from 2 1/2 weeks in Greece, and the month before was a bit crazy because J. had a show for the launch of his new book two days before we left. I don't like to post much online when I'm away; maybe it's paranoia, but it doesn't seem smart to telegraph to the world that you're not at your home or workplace for an extended period. Anyway, we're back. On Friday it was 20 degrees Celsius in Athens. Today it's -4 C. here in Montreal, and there's snow and ice on the ground and sidewalks. We were forewarned, and to be honest, it wasn't that big a shock when we stepped out of the Trudeau airport terminal  into air temperature and wind I could only describe as "bracing" and a complete change of seasons from when we left. As lifelong northerners, winter feels normal to us, and we had packed extra layers in case, so we opened our suitcases near the baggage counter (like a lot of other Montrealers were doing) pulled out the hats and gloves and parkas, and stepped off into home territory. Still, the next morning we couldn't help remarking about the bougainvillea and lantana that had been blooming around us the day before, or the taste of beautifully heavy, ripe tomatoes, or the oranges, limes and lemons just getting ripe on the trees that grow along Greek streets and in gardens. As I described to a friendly barista in a favorite Athenian cafe, in Canada it really is like the tale of Persephone, where she ate six pomegranate seeds in Hades and the earth was plunged into winter for as many months. At least, that's what how Roman writers like Ovid told the tale. For the earlier Greeks, Persephone's punishment for eating food in the underworld only required that she spend a third of the year there -- a more accurate reflection of Greek seasons. Winter, even in the mountains in Greece, doesn't seem to last much more than four months.

November is the time of the olive harvest, and of pruning and burning in vineyards and olive orchards. We also saw people pruning shrubs, like overgrown laurels, and pollarding their trees, especially in villages.  Their fall has been unseasonably hot -- it was certainly cooler when we visited last year -- and everyone remarked on this. Last year there was snow on Mt Parnassus and skiers already on the slopes; this year people were still swimming in the sea. But further north in Europe and in northeastern North America, the cold has been much earlier than usual, and the storms more violent. When we passed through Paris on our way home, there was snow on the ground and our flight was delayed for de-icing. I don't see how anyone can possibly deny that climate change is real.

Last year we were in Athens for a shorter time, about a week, and drove through parts of northern Greece, visiting Meteora, Thessaloniki, Vergina, and Delphi before returning to Athens. This year we spent longer in the city, on both sides of a road trip to the Peloponnese: Napflio and Epidaurus, Mycenae, Sparta and Mystras, an amazing drive over the mountains through the Langada Pass to Kalamata, down into the remote Mani Peninsula, and then back past Tripoli and Corinth, stopping for a night on the sea at Kineta, and driving above the Gulf of Corinth to visit the Osios Lukas monastery and then drive past Thebes before heading back to Athens. Along the way we met and talked to a lot of different people, and while we had planned the basic shape of the trip beforehand, a lot happened that was unexpected, which is one reason why we like traveling this way. It was such an epic trip that in some ways it doesn't seem real. It's hard for me to process all that we saw and experienced, let alone formulate words to describe it -- which is also what happened last year: I started to try, and gave up.

But I did draw quite a lot, throughout the two and a half weeks, trying to keep to my goal of doing at least one drawing a day. The only sketch I did in color was the very first one, of a baked-goods and candy seller in Syntagma Square while J. was buying SIM cards for our phones. After that I switched from the toned paper sketchbook I had made to my usual Stillman & Birn hardcover, and sketched in pencil or ink only. Whether these drawings will form the basis for other work now remains to be seen, but I'm happy that I was able to keep up the sketching practice, even sometimes in the car as we drove through changing landscapes, and to work quickly. I was very aware of being helped by all the drawing I've done in the past -- it's like playing scales on the piano; you do get better, and more confident about tackling difficult or complicated subjects. This awareness also helped to keep me from being discouraged by the inevitable, less-satisfactory drawings. It's all a process, and these are sketches after all: a very personal way for me to record places or experiences that, for various reasons, I wanted to remember as important. Sitting down with the sketchbook for half an hour in a place that has touched me is an experience in itself that is forever linked to that drawing -- I remember the calls of the birds, people's voices, the sound of the wind, the feeling of the earth or rock or bench on which I was sitting, what I was thinking as I worked.

After two trips to Greece and one each to Sicily, Lisbon, and Rome, I know that the Mediterranean, and Greece in particular, have gotten under my skin. Actually, I suspect that they touch something that was there all along, even from childhood. I'll be exploring that in more depth over the next weeks. For now, it's good to be home, and back with this far-flung community of online friends.

Lisbon, Incomplete

Something about this picture embodies the last two weeks spent in that city better than all the tiled façades and wrought iron balconies and pastel loveliness, more than the hilly streets and clanging trams, and much more than the throngs of tourists eating their natas, and buying shoes and clothing from international fashion shops. Beneath all of that is a melancholy solitude that is difficult to glimpse or grasp, but seems as deeply embedded in the city's spirit as the two-inch chunks of black and cream stone, laid in geometric patterns, that pave the sidewalks and plazas: installed originally, I learned, by prison work crews.

The tradition of fado, and the now-overused Portuguese word saudade... these seem increasingly exploited as commercial expressions, losing meaning rather than being an entry into the soul of the place and the people. Saudade, which has no English equivalent, means a longing for an absent something or someone who may never return; saudade brings both happy and sad feelings, but it is more than nostalgia. It is  described as "the state of mind  that has subsequently become a 'Portuguese way of life'': a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wistful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for the return of what is now gone, a desire for presence as opposed to absence." Fernando Pessoa, the greatest of Lisbon's poets, wrote an unfinished work called The Book of Disquiet:

"The fragmentary, the incomplete is of the essence of Pessoa's spirit. The very kaleidoscope of voices within him, the breadth of his culture, the catholicity of his ironic sympathies – wonderfully echoed in Saramago's great novel about Ricardo Reis – inhibited the monumentalities, the self-satisfaction of completion. Hence the vast torso of Pessoa's Faust on which he laboured much of his life. Hence the fragmentary condition of The Book of Disquiet, which contains material that predates 1913 and which Pessoa left open-ended at his death. As Adorno famously said, the finished work is, in our times and climate of anguish, a lie."  --George Steiner

 

So, I walked. Where do all those kilometers of pattern lead? I wondered. To the plazas, certainly, but then they wind out, up another hill, into a narrow maze of streets, curving out and down again to the edge of the sea, along the edges of buildings the color of marigolds, lavender, sky, up into the maze again. It is a city that leads the walker to walk, but toward what? Toward incompleteness itself, perhaps. The image at the top of this post shows the only conclusion I found: a place where the pattern changed into green growth and light, at the end of a small dark tunnel.

I also kept a journal with some drawings, which I'm still adding to; I'll probably share them here as time goes on. But I struggled with making art there. I had the sense that drawing and photographing were, to some extent, futile -- I left Lisbon feeling that it was impossible to capture its essence, because we cannot capture incompleteness, absence, and longing, even in the present age where the emphasis is on having a "complete experience", of checking items off a list, taking selfies at the proscribed spots to prove we were there. The Time Out Market, a concept that was first tried in Lisbon, is a perfect example: the tourist doesn't need to discover anything for him or herself; they can just go to a centrally-located and packaged "destination market" -- an upscale food court where a curated selection of restaurants and shops have stalls with the same signage, the same style, offering a sample of their wares, with long tables for seating in the center of the space. It's enticing and exciting on the first visit; on the second, not quite so much. All major cities will soon have these markets, and they will all look alike, too. 

Better then, perhaps, to write in fragments, like Pessoa, or to express feelings in music, or simply to reflect on experience in solitude. Even as a brief visitor, I sensed Lisbon's elusive, melancholic undercurrent, and I find I'm appreciating it even more now that I am home.