November 23: Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
And I’m re-reading the week of Athens in my journal, looking for tiny essences in the few sentences. Other than notes about Greek gods (Artemis’ sacred animal was a bear; Aphrodite’s, a dove) I’m not finding much. I was happy this week, so I was living instead of making commentary on the living I wish I were doing. I went to bed early every night with what Thoreau called “the infinite expectation of dawn.” I drew the temples, I walked through the fish market, I savored every food, I spent four hours in a Picasso exhibit, I wandered through hacklers and military bands, and I didn’t talk to anyone from back home. Now, again on the east side of an airplane on an international flight, I can almost feel the magnetism of the woman I was eight months ago balancing me in this orbit of The Great Perhaps. I am returning, I learned the presence I sought, and I now desire to understand rather than to be heard. I am returning, but on a different flight path. The first time my plane broke through the thick cloud cover this year, I looked down and thought about how everyone who walked on heaven or earth disappears. Now I look down, humanity and land completely obscured, and remind myself that just because I can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.