CALM
I am writing this on Tuesday the 7th after taking a couple of days off. I am sitting on a white balcony on a white chair with my iPad in front of me on a white table in the sunshine while all around me are pink bougainvillea flowers. There are no cars or motorcycles on this lane because there are steps in the lane as it leads up hill. Sometimes a car whishes by at the end of the lane 100 feet away. But otherwise the only sound is Efi’s voice below me as she talks with another woman, maybe her sister, and a man, maybe her son. Beyond the sound of Greek voices there is silence. According to my weather app the temperature is 74 now and will go down to 68 tonight. There is complete peace. Beside me is a cup of hot coffee which I keep warm with the coffee warmer I brought along. The only difference between sitting quietly on my back porch in Swannanoa looking out over the valley as I type on my iPad is that here I am sitting in Greece with Greece and the sounds of Greece all around me.
Remember this is an old man’s way of traveling. It is very different from leading 20 students around India as I have done so often. In those days I needed to be active, but at 86 something has shifted and sitting still on a beautiful balcony in the sunshine for hours is quite good enough for me.
On this Sunday evening I went for a walk around the beautiful lanes of Naousa, almost empty of tourists. I took a few photographs. But except for this brief walk I haven’t done anything except read books from the extensive Kindle online library I brought with me and listened to music, napped and typed. So I have nothing to report. The big event of the day was the hot meal of minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves that Efi unexpectedly brought to me. So having nothing of significance to report on Sunday I lazed around didn’t write anything. Now on Tuesday I feel a brief stirring and am writing. But what I am doing is, I imagine what anyone reading this would like to do, to sit on a white balcony in the sunshine shaded by bougainvillea flowers doing nothing at all.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 