Summer in the City

When four-legged visitors come to relax on your balcony in the morning.

When you can enjoy a cocktail early in the afternoon because you don't have to go to work for another three months.

When you can lie in a hammock with a good book and a glass of cool white wine.

When you can relax under the full moon, grateful for the gentle breeze, listening to beautiful tunes on the radio.

When you can't wait for the days to go by so that you can hit the islands already.

Would YOU take the leap?

Ah, summertime. That blessed time of the year when my friends and I visit the most beautiful islands and find enchanting beaches on them. Some of them sandy, easy, accessible, and some of them hidden under steep rocks. After a climb -which, if you are clumsy like me, involves your mobile landing screen first on the rocks while you are trying to take a photo of the breathtaking view- the unique, wild landscape unfolds in front of your eyes and you just cannot wait to dive into the clear blue water.

Once I've taken the first dive and relaxed for a bit, I start looking at the rocks around the beach. Without fail, there is always a group of young people, often little children too, who climb up a rock and jump into the water from there. I admire them for a bit, getting excited at the prospect, and after debating for a while I join them at the top.

When up there, I look down into the water. How deep could it be? Is it deep enough or am I going to land on a rock and die? Perhaps it is too high, although it doesn't look like a long fall... And what if I fall in an utterly idiotic way and end up in a wheelchair? Gee, I cannot do this. I start sweating. The sun is hot on my skin but I don't want to go back to my friends defeated. Oh look, that little kid just jumped. What is he like, 10 years old? Surely I can do it too.

I go as near the edge of the rock as I can without fainting. The rock under my feet is sharp and uneven. I cannot take a few steps back and then jump because it looks slippery. My heart is racing, I feel the blood rising to my head. Am I having a heart attack or a stroke or something? Is that what this feeling is? Adrenaline. I take deep breaths. I start pep-talking myself: “Everyone is doing it. People your age, people in similar shape. You CAN do it. Just go for it. If you don't take the leap now, then when? Don't be afraid to jump. Never be afraid to jump. Never be afraid in general.” More deep breaths.

The youths that are jumping talk to me, encourage me. They're very friendly. They tell me to just walk to the emptiness. A lad is walking backwards towards the cliff while talking to me. “Look!” and he just goes for it. When his head surfaces from the water, he whips his hair, laughs and says “Come on!”. I can't. People are jumping. One by one, two of them together, quietly or with a scream of joy, they just do it. I look down one last time. It's now or never.

I can't. I just can't. I am overcome by disappointment. Why can't I just take a stupid leap? I used to do these things all the time when I was a child. What changed in-between? Did I become aware of the dangers of the fall or did I just somehow lose my courage? I lower my head and go back to my friends. I must have stayed up there for the bigger part of an hour. The whole beach has witnessed the scene. What a failure. “Let's go in”, I tell my friend.

Maybe taking the leap is something that I am afraid to do in general. Maybe it has nothing to do with heights, rocks or jumping. Maybe I am just so terrified of getting hurt that I decide to just stay in my comfort zone. I will take the road not taken for a bit, sure, I will explore what is there, but then I will return. I won't go all the way in. Not without someone holding my hand and telling me that if we fall, we'll fall together. 

                    Seychelles Beach, Ikaria Island, Greece

Mild Obsessions

Obsession has always been a recurrent theme in my life. Doesn't this hold true for everyone? It is only natural that when you find something that you really like, whether that's a series, a band or a person, you start obsessing over it. You start watching a series and once you are caught up, you start looking for more information about it: theories, commentaries, extras, all of it. You hear a song that speaks to you and you start listening to it on repeat, over and over again. You meet someone you are attracted to and you start engaging in the whole drama, will he text me, will he want to see me, will he like me back? And you talk about all that to your friends until their ears bleed.

The good thing about obsessions is that eventually, you grow out of them. You get sick of the song, you become bored of the bar that you've frequented for the past five Saturdays, you find a new series to watch. But does the same hold true for people? Do we at some point get bored of our crushes? Do we go like “ah, fuck it, nobody has the time to wait over the phone” or do we stalk the shit out of the person till we find someone new to torment us? And what if the world consists of an endless chain of people not being attracted to each other but each one to someone else? The way I imagine it, is you fancying someone who fancies someone else, who in turn fancies someone else and so on, a never-ending chain of unrequited love. Isn't that a disturbing image.

My current obsessions are trying out different cocktails and binge watching series. They may not be original but at least they're relatively harmless.

One Warm Winter Night...

I recently met up with an old friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in quite some time. He came over to my house and we sat on the terrace. It was a beautiful night in the middle of February, a night that smelled of spring: calm, without a single leaf moving on the trees and with the stars shining above us.

We sat there listening to music and a fair number of drinks later we got to talking about relationships. It was basically me narrating the story of my most recent heartbreak and him pretending to listen patiently while in fact thinking about completely random things, I'm pretty sure (by the way, if you are reading this, know that I tried to be as brief as possible!). Among other things I told him that for some weird reason, the guy I was talking to him about made me trust him, despite barely knowing him and although I find it very difficult to trust people in general.

“And you know what?” I told my friend. “He was the only person to whom I've been the first to say “I think I like you.”

My friend let out a laugh, maybe with a hint of bitterness. “Every time I've told a girl I really like her, she eventually disappears.”

We, humans, are truly strange creatures after all. That's why I think I'm going to stick with cats.

On Valentine's Day

My first high school crush did not exactly have a happy ending. I was twelve years old or something like that and the boy I liked ratted me out to the teacher for writing on my desk that I loved him. Mind you, all of the desks were dirty as hell but I got my name written on the -very literally translated as- “penalty book” nevertheless. And that was the end of it. I decided I hated him and found someone else to stubbornly crush on although there was no response. I had to change schools for that second person to finally come to me -something like two years later- and admit he had always had a crush on me too. Naturally, I was crazy about someone else by then. Story as old as time. But that's the way people are, that's how we behave. And no matter how many times we make the same mistake, we seldom learn from it. Like the fly which bangs on the window glass again and again in an attempt to get out. Isn't that what every single one of us does? No matter how well you know that the dish is damn hot, you are going to burn your tongue tasting it anyway...