stargazing
It’s my ninth day in Greece, and life is slow.
My grandma used to tell me that intelligent children can entertain themselves. I’m no longer a child, but still generally believe this statement to be true, and a year of low screen time (as well as a lifetime of unemployment) has found me testing its verity more than ever.
In London, I go to the cinema once a week; sometimes more. I play guitar, and piano, and I sing along, and write songs, poems, and stories. I post these writings online (hello!). During my university’s holidays, I try to meet a friend every day. I try and fail to cook, and to read in French, so I read in English. I take short trips to see my friends in other cities.
But here, on a small island in Greece for the sixth year in a row, I feel as if I’ve stepped into a painting. The air all but hums with beauty. Where the crowds disperse for long enough to allow you a view over the island, you could be Herodotus surveying the land, with the lights from tiny churches dotted up the hills dim enough to dismiss as vision-tricks.
I’m a Londoner. I hate the beach, and I haven’t the heart to tell my parents, or the family friends that we travel with, who are so proudly from here. I can’t swim, and I don’t like sand, or being hot. I am, in fact, not a summer type of girl at all. I try to sleep through as much of the day as I can before I’m dragged up and into the car to be driven to a beach bar or restaurant, where we spend the afternoon. There, I read (currently reading Crash by JG Ballard - do NOT pick this to read in public!), or play cards with my friends if they aren’t swimming, or by myself if they are. Oh, the humanity!
Then the day is over, and comes the night.
There is nothing quite like a starry sky. At home, light pollution squanders my hope to see anything that isn’t Polaris or a planet. But here, at night, the sky looks like it does in the planetarium. You are always five minutes away from an area of total darkness, and there you can lie down, and look up, and I swear, feel your body lifting off the ground.
Last night I walked back from the bar with my head tilted skyward. As I strayed further out of the main town, I realised that this is one of the few moments in my life when I have absolutely no chance of being seen by anyone. I put my headphones in and danced like a maniac.