Santorini

Being here is fantastic! Yet between these moments of feeling fantastic as the wind blows hard through my sun streaked hair are moments of quiet sadness. Because these moments are too short. Moments in beautiful places just like moments with beautiful people, are too short.

I could pick any spot, and I would still have this feeling of calm peacefulness. This feeling of belonging, of, this is where I am supposed to be. I forget now if it was on the island of Santorini, or Crete, or Athens. On Santorini, known as Thira to the locals, we sat, my brother and his girlfriend and I, on this old wooden balcony over looking a cliff and down below were black volcanic rocks and all the small white washed cubicle villas, and hotels, and houses, bars, and restaurants. Beneath that, just the emerald, mercury sea. The sun was setting and as the waitress brought my beer, a cold Amstel, I said "I could sit here forever!" And I meant it. With my feet up against the wooden ledge, the sounds of decadent rock music coming from the bar, the American bar tender/waitress with the easy smile and sarcastic comments not caring a bit about pleasing her customers, only caring about enjoying these moments just as I was. I wondered what it would be like to be her? To live this life…to own a bar on top of a cliff with white washed walls and where the sun is easy and the breeze is gentle and the people are friendly and when it is too hot I go down to swim in the warm Mediterranean sea. The hardest part of my job every day is figuring out what drinks to serve the tourists, and understanding what it is they are ordering, as some are American, and some are Greek and some are German, and some are French and some Spanish, and some Italian and I would even learn to love that. The sound of all the languages a perfect backdrop to the sound of the bluesy decadent rock music that is playing from her cheap stereo. No surround sound here. No dolby speakers. No flat screen TV's. Hell she don't even take credit cards. Who needs the hassle. Okay true if it was me I would have more on the stereo than just rock music, the cliffs and the sea and white cubed houses call for something more, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, John Coletrane, Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, hell maybe even some classical because nothing goes better over a cliff than some violin or Cello music. It makes you want to fly. I 'm going to fly, with the first of my beers almost gone and the sun burning into my chest and eyes I too feel as if I can almost fly. If I just stick out my hands I can touch the clouds and I do touch them and imagine cotton dipped with honey that is what it's like touching the clouds. Cotton dipped in honey I can dig that. That too is fantastic. Me being here is fantastic. I have so many rich ideas here rich like the deepest darkest chocolate. You know what I mean? On the way back from the bar meandering through the maze like alleys of the town I let my hands glide across the walls of the alleys, leaving a trace. My fingers on the walls, or the walls on my fingers? I turn my hands over now and they are covered with white powdered dust from the alleys, like sand from the sky, or like honey dipped cotton from the clouds.
places just like moments with beautiful people, are too short.