Tuesday, 27 October 2009

roots...

Imagine a sky so blue, so blue, a sky that made Nobel Price winner poet Odysseas Elytis write "my God, the amount of blue that you spend so we don't see you"... and under this blue, warmed from a sun that looks as if has nothing else to do but keep her warm, the Acropolis... and Parthenon so white that shines in the sunlight and combines with the blue of the sky in the most harmonious image... and imagine being there, close to it, able to see it and witness the beauty with your own two eyes...

Yes, I was in Athens recently... and yes, when I'm there my heart is filled with such joy that I usually cannot describe... it's not just because there I meet long loved friends, friends that are nearly (or sometimes better than...) family, friends I cannot but miss when we are apart... And it's not just because when there I always savour the tastes of Greece in little taverns, sitting outside and watching the people pass by... and it's not just because there I can enjoy the sound of (certainly one of...) the most beautiful language in the world... a language that sound nice even when people are saying bad things to one another (and yes, I can be as much biased as I very well please, thank you)...

No, it's all those and one thing more... it's this feeling of being there and doing exactly what people were doing at the same space 2500 years ago and then some! It's this amazing feeling of roots, of belonging to a place even if it's this little corner of an immense universe, of becoming one with it... and this is the feeling of security for me... whenever I'm in Athens, I look up and see the Acropolis, still standing there after wars, fires, looting, earthquakes and more wars, defying time and wrath and greed and the elements of nature and just... still standing!

And this is the most amazing feeling for me... better that slipping my foot into the most precious shoe, the most comfortable, the most valuable and the most beautiful... It's better and it is always there to feel my heart... and it's all I need to reassure myself that things are going to be fine, that no matter what happens, we will still be standing... like those "stones"... ;)

ps. the above stands even in times that my souvenir from Athens is a major flu.. still...

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