Meteora (and South Korea)

Even from the base of the boulders in Meteora, it was impossible to tell how they'd managed to get a monastery up there, or how we'd get up there in a bus, but it happens somehow through the magic of pulleys, and roads, and stairs. 

My love is ancient Greece, so I gave Byzantine Meteora a miss on my previous trip. My sister was keen to go though, so we looped it in this time, and I'm glad we did. It was pretty incredible.

Also, on the bus I met a young person from South Korea who had been at the poeple's protest that brought down martial law just last week, and they shared their pictures with me and I shared them on the family chat and immediately became cooler to my kids.

Pic: We're dressed in long skirts and have covered our shoulders because that's the required dress code at the monasteries we visited. We both went to convents for school, so we chatted up the nuns just like old times. We're wearing the matching necklaces we got at the museum store--my sister's is visible, mine's hiding under hair.  

Delphi

As I climbed the ruins, I looked up at the lofty crags thinking how that view hadn't changed for centuries. The rocks that had been carved were impressive, but the rocky cliffs all around were simply majestic. 

Somehow, in my head, I expected a cave of some sort to mark the omphalos-aspect of it, but other than that Delphi delivered. It was charged with power (like Stonehenge, like Tirupati)... In fact I noticed at least one other person saying a prayer at the Temple of Apollo. 

At the museum I wandered off by myself because my head was too full. I thought Kleobis and Biton, the Argos twins, looked like they were wearing dreads/locs. I kept coming back to the room with the charioteer--that beautiful figure--and marveling that the only reason we have him at all is because he disappeared in a fourth century earthquake before he could be looted or razed and magically remerged almost completely intact in 1896. Life/history is so strange.

And then I read Helen Monroe's poem and cried. "Higher up in the mountain, in the stadium/ Coursed the Charioteer. /Of all the thousand statues only his alone/ Has won the long race with Time/ Here at the goal he stands, lifting the reins,/ Young, beautiful, alive;/ Gazing at our incomprehensible world/ Through enameled eyes.

Pic: We're bathed in light at the Temple of Apollo. (And we have matching scarves today!) Also: we found a simple necklace featuring a pair of silver peafowl--that I liked and made my sister happy--at the Museum shop.

Olympia

My sister and I haven't shared a bedroom in thirty years. 

On some level--I think--it makes us revert to feeling like kids. We hung out with a delightful couple from New Zealand at the Museum and we were being respectful as though they were our elders. It was only later that it occurred to us that their kids were around At's age so they are our peers!

Today we spent a rainy day in Olympia trooping through the archaeological ruins of the ancient Olympic site and then exploring the museum for much, much longer. (We're museum people not sporty people.) I learned that the reason Olympia is so far inland is because the organizers wanted to diminish the risk of the games being attacked by seafaring enemies. 

Pic: Today we have matching handloom wraparound skirts from India and were showing them off while the guide was getting our tickets. I heard my friends say we should get matching jewelry in the comments and I may allow something small and meaningful. I think I'll know it's right when/if I see it...

Corinth, Epidaurus, Mycenae, Nafplio

I've even had students named after Greek philosophers before, but oh--the thrill of hearing "Aristotle!" or "Chimera!" shouted down the street... or classical names on nearly every billboard and storefront! 

We took off early this morning, stopping to see the Corinth Canal, geek out in the Sanctuary of Asclepius, be poseurs in the amphitheater in Epidaurus, pick our way around the tomb of Agamemnon and the acropolis in Mycenae, and finally finished up by wandering through the charming streets of Nafplio (where I said no to every piece of matching jewelry my sister wanted to buy).

Pic: Here we're on a very windy hillside in Mycenae with the sea behind us. (The sea always seems present in Greece...) And yes, we're wearing matching blouses.

"Of course, you must absolutely win at your vacation"

 My sister and I have been dreaming of going to Greece for practically our whole lives, and we've been planning it for months now. But it always seemed a bit unreal given the state of the world, our parents' health, my incapacity lately to spend money on myself, etc. But this was my sister's big birthday present, and I decided to just go for it.

I started to get really excited about it this past week and told EM that I must read up on all the places we're visiting so if the guide asked questions I would know the answer. This led EM to gently mock me: Of course, Maya, you must absolutely win at your vacation." (Hence the title of the post.) 

As it happened, I got too busy to actually read up. But then my sister and I have prepared for this our whole lives: from the Greek wedding dolls my father's Greek colleagues gave us when we were babies, to the Greek myths we pored over, the Byrons, the abridged and then unabridged versions of so many Greek classics (epics, plays, poems), Gerald Durrells, Lawrence Durrells, Mary Stewarts, Mary Renaults, --heck, even the Mills and Boons, etc. that loved Greece and Greek culture so much... So I think we'll know most of the answers already... we'll be ok.

We're here for a week and we plan to cover so much. We haven't seen each other since Summer 2023 so today is just for catching up.

Pic: My sister in profile... We were marveling about being able to see the Parthenon from our hotel room.

weeks where decades happen...

*Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide, I know the U.N. and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have made similar declarations, but Amnesty is somehow better known and represented in the U.S. 

I also saw that the Vatican's nativity this year features a sweet baby Jesus swaddled in a keffiyeh; the statues themselves are carved by carpenters from the West Bank, reportedly. 

*The CEO of the largest US health insurance company was killed and the killer immediately became a folk hero. Stories about the killer abound (the bullets were inscribed with insurance delaying feint words, the backpack was full of Monopoly money) and it feels like this is how it might have felt to hear Robin Hood stories back in the 1300s. Big A said that when he walked into the ER the day it happened, he had never seen so many people celebrating someone's death since Bin Laden. It feels ugly to celebrate anyone's death. But it's also obscene to make 10 million dollars a year for sucessfully turning people's life support off and denying life-saving treatment from behind a desk. 

I am in NYC on a six-hour layover at JFK (on my way to join my sister for our long-awaited vacation together!!!!) when a friend jokingly texted to ask if I was there for the look-alike contest. Apparently, New Yorkers were celebrating by holding a killer look-alike contest. 

*Martial law was declared in South Korea and FAILED WITHIN HOURS due to people's actions and protests. 

* The Assad regime has collapsed in Syria and people are already making their way back home! 

the resistance

I am a little nobody

anyway, you're about 

               to tell me how I've sinned

               and now have to pay for it

yet don't we all suffer

for our own pleasure

               wanting to find it or die for it

               an animal snarl between words

so you hold the book

you ask the questions

               I turn the page, I lose my place

               I close the book, can't turn back 

I learn to ignore the door

make it my job to send 

               messages so secret only kisses

               taste the words we're thinking

______

I've done all the things: graded everything, uploaded all the recommendation letters, reviewed all three journal articles that had been languishing in my folder, designed a take-home comparative essay for the Gaza class that feels do-able. (Steph asked if it would be a pass/fail and I'm asking the university admin if that would be ok.) 

________

Pic: Koi in this weather seem miraculous to me... Radiology Gardens.