Frome how big you are! How full of roads & cars & houses, and how overwhelming damp & colourless... apparently there's been an Indian summer here last week but I've returned from Atsitsa on Skyros island into the season of mists and a 10 degree drop in temperature.
No blazing cerulean skies here, no strobe-bright dazzle on an indigo sea, no stark dark pine-tree shadows. No nightly views of the sky glittering pink and the ocean silvering as a big red sun drops like a blob of ketchup below the horizon, no more red moon rising above Juicy Bar beach on a warm evening, with mojitos. No more mealtime bell announcing trays of banquet-luscious food arriving, no more extreme (Irish) yoga, or demos group appreciations, or oikos groups and, big on this miss-list, no more marvellous shared words from the writing group.
My awesome octet met each morning in Adonis taverna on the beach to drink greek coffee and write, and each morning they astounded me, and sometimes themselves, with memories & inventions, feelings & observations, stories & poems.... meanwhile the fishermen mended their nets & drank grappa and the local ladies gossiped & laughed loudly and the sea methodically slapped the white pebbles and the sun shone. Miss that? Just a bit. That's litotes - understatement to emphasise an affirmative. And this is flow, which is only allowed ten minutes (Ted Hughes says so too) so I must stop. Normal service will be resumed next post. In the meantime in the words of physicist Carlo Rovelli, which I read aloud in the warm full-moon darkness beside a bay on the island after our starry starry night walk, Here on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking.
No blazing cerulean skies here, no strobe-bright dazzle on an indigo sea, no stark dark pine-tree shadows. No nightly views of the sky glittering pink and the ocean silvering as a big red sun drops like a blob of ketchup below the horizon, no more red moon rising above Juicy Bar beach on a warm evening, with mojitos. No more mealtime bell announcing trays of banquet-luscious food arriving, no more extreme (Irish) yoga, or demos group appreciations, or oikos groups and, big on this miss-list, no more marvellous shared words from the writing group.
My awesome octet met each morning in Adonis taverna on the beach to drink greek coffee and write, and each morning they astounded me, and sometimes themselves, with memories & inventions, feelings & observations, stories & poems.... meanwhile the fishermen mended their nets & drank grappa and the local ladies gossiped & laughed loudly and the sea methodically slapped the white pebbles and the sun shone. Miss that? Just a bit. That's litotes - understatement to emphasise an affirmative. And this is flow, which is only allowed ten minutes (Ted Hughes says so too) so I must stop. Normal service will be resumed next post. In the meantime in the words of physicist Carlo Rovelli, which I read aloud in the warm full-moon darkness beside a bay on the island after our starry starry night walk, Here on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking.
2 comments:
I wish I could afford to go back to Skyros to one of your writing groups
I enjoyed one weekend with you on the Isle of Wight some years ago and have always wanted to be in a group in happier times than my one and only visit to Skyros. Group therapy was not for me - but learning to massage was wonderful.
One day I hope to come to another of your groups.
Thanks Jane - it's certainly an inspiring place for creativity.
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