15th June 2004

GVA airport rooftop café

having just slurped down cappuccino and croissant

the wind still blowing

Leaving Switzerland again soon for the sunny unknown which has me carrying blue flippers in a red cloth bag, with sunscreen, snorkel & mask, and this journal. I have been so much on the move, these last few weeks: to Joe’s in North Carolina, to New Haven, to Lausanne, to Athens and Andros today, with a stop on the way in NY/the eternal transit hall of the restless mind. And one yesterday to Orzens: Camilla Philippe & Emily Lou. Who are very convincing, as a young family. Their care for one another & their bickering well-tempered. It occurs to me today on the train that their absence of worry about work & income is only possible in a country with a social infrastructure, a country where at least until recently it was possible for Camilla and Charlotte to live safe & rent-free in a squat in the middle of the financial capital. I am overjoyed to see young parents enjoying their child & their lives & each other without being obsessed with the spectre of college funds already, annuities already, overwork as the key component of responsibility, already. Camilla will not work for now; Philippe will work 2 days a week; they will eat eggs and lettuce from the garden; Philippe will make sculptures of cows & for now all will be well enough.

Politically, Americans currently tend to act as though fear of survival is based in threats from the outside, from terrorists, from the global other. In reality, we feel so threatened because in the US basic structures for protecting the health and well-being of individual citizens are lacking. Basic public means of moving around the country are lacking. We act as though our military were all that stood between ourselves and destruction, when in fact it is the overfunding of the military & the underfunding of health, education, public transportation, and cultural growth that brings us to this sense of desperate efforts required to stave off the unspeakable. Without my overwork my child will have to attend a school where she won’t be able to learn. Without my overwork I won’t be able to afford the car which is my link to the wideflung & fragmented world. Without my overwork I will grow abjectly old, uncared for and unprotected from the inevitable onslaught of decay upon my overworked body…

18 June 2004

Andros

Rising early to a warm & windy still-grey dawn world: yesterday’s odd rain still around as a light wooly cover on the sky. Which has by this point become the thinnest of veils, thin enough that the geometry of shadows is back. I am eating one of the excellent pains au chocolat from the young woman’s shop down in the village: last bite, pure bliss. Hers are light and flaky, with real bitter chocolate, where the ogling baker’s are heavy, bready, big-as-your head, reminiscent of Caribou heavy-artillery scones.

Earlier, before laundry & the village, a long spell of sitting on the roof, watching goats play by the chapel in the valley, watching the light come into the sky, singing to the wind. I am aware of sleeping short but very well in my narrow bed. I am aware that not-reading, not-listening to the news (beyond the day’s European Cup games) does not make the world go away, but it does give me respite from the barrage of terrible-things-I-can’t-do-anything-about. So. Vacation. Is wonderful.

In the village, making photographs here for the first time, walking down the main street to where it tapers back, walking up the quay till honking scooters send back into the calm of mostly-closed shops. Swallows dive-bombing a cat in the middle of the street: who looks at me, as if to say, what the fuck? And makes an amazing spaz-out leap after a rapid series of 3 passes from the cocky birds. Exchanging kalimeras with the mostly-elderly people who are also up at this ambitious hour. I like the word: kalimera. It is tender in intonation, feels like an acknowledgement not only of the inherent goodness of the morning, but of one’s intentions in it.

On the way to the village, I cross an old man astride a mule. Put the camera away. He’s been here forever & doesn’t need reminding that people don’t ride mules anymore. The mules of yesteryear! On the way back to the house, the mule is parked by the side of the small road, sans old man. Still no photograph: my hands are full of pastries and oranges. Later, as I write this, 2 piercing whistles & an old woman calling across the valley. I wonder if it’s time for Mule Man’s breakfast.