street step athens

2007-07-14T21:36:00.001-07:00

so long old friend

(the last post)

second to last is a blast

2007-07-02T00:10:00.001-07:00

2007-06-11T03:56:00.000-07:00

time to rearrange

2007-06-03T06:36:00.001-07:00

donkey see donkey do (this is not athens)

2007-05-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

i miss mom and korine
air kisses from athens

2007-05-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

histories all around, stories abound

It is hot outside, and the man is sweating inside his clothes. He notices because the weather has only just shifted. It is better to sweat inside your clothes than shiver, he thinks. He sits on the same busy piece of pavement nearly every day, and today it is warm against his legs, heated by the sun. He is not idle as he sits, he watches peoples’ shoes. Sneakers, high heels, sandals, dress shoes. He spends each day watching the shoes of the city pass, and he enjoys this work. He feels that he is a particular guardian of the city, keeping watch over the whole of something very important and very overlooked. Footwear is what contains people. Shoes carry people. And who more than this man is so intimate with this part of the city?

As intently as the man watches the shoes pass, he does not notice the people wearing the shoes. He vaguely knows that they are attached to the individuals who wear them, just as he is attached to the clothes on his body, but he does not think about this. In any case, he does not feel particularly attached to his clothing. He looks past the rolled cuffs of trousers and curves of exposed ankles. He sees only the shoes. Yesterday a large pair of shiny blue high heels dropped him a 5-euro note. Today a pair of beat up running shoes kicked him as they shuffled past. He grunted in response to both of these pairs of shoes, but neither of them turned. They hardly even paused. That is fine. He doesn’t want to know about these people any more than they want to know about him. It is their shoes he is enjoys watching pass.

The man has a thick beard stained yellow from nicotine. His long hair is held back in a loose knot. He does not think often think about his face or body, much less his hair. It has been a long time since he has seen his reflection in a mirror, although there are several mirrors in the city. He has not bathed in sometime, and today, sweating, he realized this. Slouching on the pavement, he looks down at the grayness of his body and sees his cracked hands piled on his stomach. He hold them up as if they are not his own. Bringing them close to his face, he realizes that they are completely foreign to him. He does not know these bent fingers, or the creases on the palms of these hands. He begins to inspect, carefully turning each hand as if they would break if moved to quickly. Thick fingernails with crescents of dirt. Thick-skinned palms, hairy knuckles. Are they really his? He uses his fingertips of his right hand to touch the rough back of his left palm. He does not feel anything. He sees that he is touching himself, and he remarks that he can feel almost nothing. He wonders at this, and remembers the smooth slim fingers of his boyhood. Those trained fingers, which spent so much time plunking at the keys of his grandmother’s piano. Just think of those hours! And all of them spent not thinking of the music, but dreaming of the life of a musician. The fame, the glamour, the food, the women. He had been a dreamer. He smiles. He is still a dreamer. A brand new pair of men’s business shoes passes quickly, and distracts him from his memories. He wonders where they are going. He wonders where they are coming from.

2007-05-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

this is not a love song

grit in my teeth

2007-05-05T03:17:00.000-07:00

4 from 487 and counting

2007-04-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

found when lost

2007-04-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

2007-04-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

back in it

after the day trip

2007-04-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

The Nigerian prostitutes are so beautiful. They stand lamp lit on a corner strewn with trash from an overflowing dumpster. Their colorful clothing shows off their powerful bodies. Their faces are perfection; their hair defies laws of physics. They do not notice me; at least they do not look as we walk by. They seem only to see each other, laughing as they teeter on the highest of heels. My friend and I pass them once, on our way to buy a late night telephone card, and in five minutes we pass back again. This time, there are two fewer women. My friend doesn’t look. I try to follow his example, but I can’t avert my eyes. These women are so beautiful, and they have a bold unshakable confidence that Greek women do not. I admire this. When we are one block away, my friend turns to me and makes sure that I know that all of the prostitutes are all Nigerian. There are no Ghanaians among them. I tell him that I don’t care where they are from, all of us were standing together on the same dirty corner of Athens late at night, and anyway I thought that they were beautiful. He shakes his head and falls silent as if there is no possible response to such naivety. We walk a few more blocks and stand at the bus stop on the busiest late night corner waiting for the 813. An old looking young man weaves between the speeding traffic speaking madly. He is almost hit several times, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He is concentrating on something, but only he can know what. My friend stands behind me, singing quietly to himself. A tall man from South Asia stands to the side of us. He looks as if this is the last place on earth he would expect to find himself. He seems both surprised and disappointed to be there, looking at the sad spectacle of a junkie in traffic, standing next to a tired American woman, and a humming Ghanaian man. Finally our bus comes and my friend and I enter. He looks around carefully and spotting someone he knows, he looks the other way. I ask him why, and he says, “Tonight I am not in the mood.” The stress of his life is starting to show in his face and in the now careless movements of his body. I am not sure if I should worry about him or not. When I almost miss my stop, he saves me, calling loudly in Greek for the bus to wait while I get off. I push my way through the knot of old women on their way home from church and exit. My feet and hips are tired from walking all day, and as I make my way home I think about how sore the feet of the Nigerian prostitutes must be after standing for hours on that dark slippery corner.

rainy tuesday

2007-03-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

12. c'est la panique

2007-03-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

11. feeling blue?

2007-03-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

10, If I could hide

2007-03-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

9!

2007-02-27T04:47:00.000-08:00

love for 8!

2007-02-14T02:03:00.000-08:00

Love Poem #1280

How are you today, I was asked.
I am in love! I replied, and it was true.
Oh, how I love! How I love to feel this strangest of feelings!
It is the most warm: the burning on the inside of the ears
the red fuzz in the stomach
the unaccountable rise in the chest. The cross-eyed smile.
But how curious my love is –
not for a single person, nor song, nor food -
my love is for the music of sounds
and the taste of plain air.
I am in love with each person in my life (this means you!)
and I love your absence as much as you presence, for
it is only in your absence that
I can live in your memory. Although, it is only in your presence
that I can touch your hair, smell your skin.
Even while I love you, I am loving all the daytime and the
the night too. Those dreams! They are superb! The ones of kites
and windows; just think of all of the times when
you thought that you heard your name and turned your head (isn’t it
true that it always happens on sunny days?)
-Anonymous

I found this poem yesterday and began to think of all of the things that I love. There are many. I am lucky to love like this, I have heard that some people have difficulty loving. I love to love. I love to laugh and to cry and to feel jealous and to walk arm in arm with my friends. In fact, loving may be my worst vice. I fall in love with everything: foods, places, events, emotions, people, clothing, books, ideas, moments. It is never a light love. Every day I find myself tumbling hard for something, and take a moment to remind myself to breath. Every night I am exhausted and happy with the crusted beauty that I have seen during the day. My list from today: a text message that read: Amara, please tell me the weather in Athens: in Crete rain & I feel cold. By the way, how are you? A business man in the post office with an accidental silk stocking hanging from a buckle on his computer bag. The last bite of the gyros that I ate for dinner. It was perfect.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day, a day for love and lovers. Although I am quite single, I am a serious lover, and I think that today is for me, and everyone in my life. It is a day to celebrate the haphazard nature of emotion, and to think about the joy and the pain of love. Today I will take time to remember the strange and wonderful ways that I feel, and the wild directions that love comes and goes through me, always unexpectedly and always enjoyed.

7.

2007-02-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

6.

2007-02-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

5.

2007-01-13T03:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the United States Embassy in Athens was bombed at 5:55 AM. It was the middle of the afternoon before I learned about this attack, and for some reason it seems to have struck a nerve that I didn’t know I had. I live about 10 minutes walk from the US Embassy, just on the other side of one of Athens’ two large hills. Because of this natural separation, I did not hear the explosion, which apparently shattered windows of nearby buildings. Despite the fact that I did not feel the force of the actual explosion, I am sure to feel the aftershocks for days to come, not only as I eat with friends who work at the Embassy, but as I think about what the bombing means to me as an American living abroad.

Here in Athens, there is a strong anti-American current that draws mutterings of disgust out of most Greeks, and news stories out of thin air. This distaste for America takes many forms, from casual remarks about American imperial culture to violent protests that culminate at the American Embassy. The anti-American sentiment can be somewhat understood coming from the mouths of Greeks, who lived under a brutal dictatorship in the 1970’s that was put in place by the CIA. However, the anti-American thoughts also run strong in many Americans, and I can’t count the times that I have heard Americans saying emphatically, “I am not American!” I am always a bit confused when I hear this. To be sure, American popular culture can be nauseating, American history as taught in our schools is a layering of falsehoods, American foreign policy is a nightmare, and the Americans that you remember seeing abroad were probably loud dense tubs. But America is also where each of us Americans comes from for better and for worse. We can hate our current political administration, we can read histories of slavery, of conquest, of secret wars, of how fast food is made, and we can feel unspeakably angry and disillusioned by what we thought was American, but this is precisely where we are lucky. We are allowed to learn! We are allowed to question! We have libraries, we have roads, we have free schools, garbage collection and machines that wash our clothes and do our dishes. Here in Athens, these things cannot be counted on. Garbage may or may not be picked up (the landfill is now full), libraries are not quite public, many people wash their clothes by hand, and as for the schools and roads, well, they leave much to be desired.

Greece is a proud country that has been pushed around in the past, and, perhaps as a result, is overly sensitive. The American Embassy is an easy symbol to push against. Several years ago, it was forced to move because of the level of violence that it attracted. It is now situated in a recessed compound behind a 9 foot steel fence, with a maze-like interior, and guards at every corner both outside and inside. It is an imposing structure. I have been there only once, and at that time was struck with the coldness of the building. Outside, there were long lines of people, Americans, and others each confusedly waiting, needing something, passport and papers in hand, unsure of what would happen once they entered after the long wait.

When I first heard that the American Embassy was bombed (to be precise, an anti-tank grenade was fired from a building across the six-lane street landing in a third floor toilet, narrowly missing the intended target of the large American seal on the outside of the building), my first reaction was, “Of course. Someone in Greece bombed the Embassy.” I was not surprised in the least. This casual reaction surprised me, and needs to be explained somewhat – explosives are commonly used in protests here, as is tear gas, loose rocks, bricks and police batons. In the three months that I have been in Athens, there have been at least three protests that have turned violent, and countless peaceful protests. There have also been multiple cases of fatal beatings (of immigrants) by police. I have tried to stay away from all of these protests, but living in the city center, it has been impossible. The whole center shuts down for large scheduled protests, and although there are usually warnings on television and radio of the places that have turned violent, I was once visiting a friend when her boyfriend staggered into the apartment coughing terribly. He had been walking home from work and making his way around a protest, he was unlucky to be present when the police threw tear gas. After hearing this, I re-doubled my efforts to steer clear. So, although it was not quite a shock when I heard that the Embassy had been attacked, it caught me off guard and struck me deeply.

I have lived in many places both within the United States, and externally, and never have I felt threatened because of my nationality. Because of my gender, yes; because of my language, ok; because of my skin color, certainly; but never because of my nationality. When I heard that the Embassy was attacked, however irrational it might have been, I felt a twinge of vulnerability. Walking through the twisting streets of the city center, I suddenly began to wonder if people around me could tell that I was American. Most people can tell that I am not Greek, but how many know that I am American? I felt naked. I felt unjustifiably nervous and exposed. I looked at the faces around me. Then I looked harder, and felt ashamed of my thoughts. I was in an immigrant neighborhood; most of the faces around me were not of individuals who had chosen to come to Athens. They were faces of people who had fled war, poverty, and social persecution. They were faces hardened by weather and hard work and discrimination. Once again, I was made aware of all the privilege that comes bundled in the package of being an American. We are the ones who can leave our country as we like, and return as easily. As silly as it sounds when uttered, we have the luxury to say, “I am not American,” whether at home or abroad. We are blessed if only for what we do not have to think about daily, and for the simply fact that we are all told, whether it is true or not, that we can realize our dreams.

The attack on the Embassy made me think about my identity as and American. I realized that I am proud of who I am, and therefore where I come from. As hard as it can be, the more I learn about the difficulties of the past and the flawed present, the more I dream for the future. I am not ashamed that I am American, nor am I afraid to say that there are many things that I do not like about the country in which I was born. But rather than make a laundry list with balled fists and feelings of disillusionment, I choose to take the other route, one which I can only hope will more powerful in the end. I choose to take my privilege and hold hands with the children with whom I am working. I choose to ask questions of strangers and listen to their responses. I choose to hug and eat with and build memories together with people from all over the world who happen to be my friends. I must believe that in the end, the boundless intelligence, love and strength in each of us will outweigh the rest, as long as we aren’t afraid of it.

4?

2007-01-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

3.

2006-12-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

Lykavittos Hill

2006-11-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

We met at the entrance, and climbed the hill together, the slim German woman and I. She wore tall black boots, tight jeans, and a black sweater, held the thick leather leashes of her two ferocious dogs tight. She spoke to them in a curious mixture of German and Greek, when they didn’t mind, she blew a shrill whistle. We chatted awkwardly to each other about being in Greece, about our families at home, about horses, about nothing. Neither of us knowing whether we should be friends, or what we were doing climbing the hill together. We were shy the way that only pairs of young women can be, as if there are secrets waiting to be spoken, a hidden meaning behind words and gestures.

As we slowly wound our way up and around the hill on paths that had long been beaten though the scrubby brush, the air seemed to become clearer. It was warm, and as we walked, the strangeness of the inner-city forest grew more and more like a scene I would imagine in a fairy tale. Suddenly, we were sisters, escaping the evil dirt and congestion of Athens, entering this thin spittle of forest that grew thicker the further up we went. From half way up the hill, we could see the smog hanging over the tracks of street below us. When we passed though a patch of sun, I slowed, opening my palms to feel the soft warmth against my skin. I was alive but dilute, as if I were living in remembered moments. We rose gently, curving over and around the hill, cutting back and forth so as to avoid the steepest paths. Living in a big city, one shares experiences with strangers everyday, but it is rarely acknowledged. Here on the hill, we were alone, seeing no one but each other. We stole glances shyly, feeling strange to openly share an experience with a near stranger, but the self-consciousness wore off. Here we were, two young women and two large dogs running off their leashes. The further up we went, the more distant we felt from our everyday selves. We could no longer hear the traffic, or anything beyond the sound of our own voices, our footsteps, and the dogs. It was as if we had entered another world, an island that hovers between earth and sky. Taking large steps as we went up, we descended quickly, our conversation running dry. At the gate to the street, we parted silently, and walked our separate ways into the city.

1.

2006-11-14T07:53:00.000-08:00