Tue 10.Dec.2013
Rhodes, Greece
A odd post today, obsessively vegetarian, as you'll see.
"It is ten degrees today. There is snow on the mountains in Turkey." My
friend was right; you could feel the bite in the stiff wind that had been blowing
in from the North all day, subtracting a big chill factor from that ten degrees,
which after all is only 50 Fahrenheit. My flannel shirt and light jacket were much
better than nothing, but the wind trumped them yesterday.
The snow-topped mountains made a picture-perfect backdrop to a crytalline
day out on the Aegean. I walked to the northern tip of the island to admire it
all, and froze my nalga off by the time I reached home again. It was worth it.
That said, this round of photos has a unifying theme, which is a six-bit way of
saying a trip throught the stalls at last Thursday's market. Here we go!
It is OK to let my thoughts ramble while we wander among the vegetable stalls.
Since childhood, I have nourished fantasies of being a writer. These have
always dead-ended against the reality that I have nothing to say. There is no
satisfaction in setting words out "just to hear my head roar", as Foghorn
Leghorn used to say.
These days I am seeing a more technical barrier as well, at least to
fantasies of being a novelist. I type these words during break in my reading
of my friend Barbara Stoner's novel Ghosts of the
Heart.
It is easy to take some random book for granted, part of the natural landscape,
as Neil Gaiman said more less about Tolkien's prose. Knowing the author, some
part of my mind gets more analytical. "How is she doing this?" The upshot is that writing
a novel isn't something you just sit down and do. It is a craft that obviously requires
considerable skill and forethough. Like musicianship or celestial mechanics.
As the old joke says, "I don't know if I can play the piano; I've never tried."
What am I getting at with this ramble? The light has become too dim for
reading here in the common room, where the chairs are reasonably comfy,
and there is hot Greek coffee on this cold, rapidly darkening evening...
My annoyance and frustration at this forced break in reading make me
sharply aware that my friend has succeeded in something that I doubt
that I could pull off, if only from lack of patience. Congrats to her! For
me, I'll read the books of others, and practice amateur photography.
An afternoon of Motown on the house muzak here. Off on a tangent to my musical
center of gravity, but it has enough old memories to be a pleasant change of pace.
Part of the long sound track of my adolescence. Later, in post-adolescent years,
'twould be a rare Jerry Garcia Band set that didn't have a Motown tune or two.
The Walk Inn remains as ever, a zone completely free of the mechanized
stamping mill soundtracks of the dungeons down in the bar district. Let's
hear it for Home Away From Home!
Next post, it is back to normal travel pictures.
I don't think there is
a fruit bin in the bunch.
See you then!