Homeward Bound. . .

This rare odyssey is winding down in the next week. I am still in Naxos, my beloved spiritual home, but preparing to leave for Athens and thence home to Canada. Spring has fully arrived here, with warm days, lush wildflowers, and the first trickle of tourists. I’ve even been in swimming, for the beaches in Naxos are truly the best in Greece. To swim off Agios Prokopias is to float inside an aquamarine jewel.

I am sad and oddly tired. I am anxious to return home to my friends who supported me so much in this endeavor and to my darling unfaithful dog Daisy. But I am loath to leave the only place in the world where I feel whole, sound and right.

I’ve started the rounds of fare-thee-well visits to my friends and neighbours here. It mostly involves drinks, meals, lots of hugs and kisses and promises to return. I drink in the emotion like a parched vampire, but it exhausts me and leaves me fighting tears much of the time. Mama has ramped up her daily gifts of hot home cooked meals, cakes, cookies and produce from the farm. Today I gave her a gift of some lovely artwork done by one of my new friends from Crete. She cried. I cried. And I promised to be back.

So, now I need to get my brain and soul off island life and back to the insanity that is Athens. A few days there to do some last minute power shopping and then home and reality.

But, man, what a ride!



“One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Henry Miller