Arrival in Athens

I had to scramble to get my affairs in order, seek permission from professors to skip their classes on epic and folktale and Jung for the sake of a soul’s journey. Yes, one professor said, I might skip the class on Homer’s Odyssey for my own pilgrimage. A comedy of errors meant that the trip’s organizer did not read my queries until almost too late, because my emails were flagged as spam, and so help me UPS really did lose my check in the mail— but at last I found myself bound for Hellas.

Now I pick up the tale from my little handmade leather-bound journal.

30 April 2005

Athens.

At the floor-length window of a tiny room, I sit late in the night in the glow of the Acropolis. The fireworks that sprinkled the city are over. Gunfire and the sound of Greek Orthodox hymns have died away. The city is very quiet, although I still hear a few glad voices, the swish of a car below, and the soft squeak of bats.

The Acropolis is golden. The Erechtheion and the Parthenon peek over the top by their head and shoulders. What did they think tonight with the hymns booming out: Christos aneste, “Christ has arisen!” I suppose Athena is glad the fireworks don’t come too near; the Parthenon is looking a little worse for the wear nowadays.

First picture out hotel window