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To bathe in the sky

I am currently reading Henry Miller’s love proclamations to Greece in ‘The Colossus of Maroussi’, and it’s exciting. A piece of text very unusual for such a particular person. At the same time - kind of expected. Each statement is followed by an argument - that is how Henry Miller does it. His most honest and real text, according to himself. Greece, where you can bathe in the sky and the gods keep walking on the ground, again according to Miller.

The rawness, the beauty, the soul, the sky, the sea, the colours, the dynamic - everything that makes us fall in love with Greece is here. Greece, as we like it - not the one that belongs to tourists. The raw Peloponnesus and the colourful Crete. The weirdos and the real people; those, that aren’t for tourists. The dusty roads and the citrus plants; a small shop, somewhere in the mountain town of Metsovo, where the owner is resting at home, and if the bell were to ring, she would come out and sell you the most delicious cheese and the most fragrant tsipouro. It is otherwise open and empty, no one is entering. That’s the etiquette.

Greece is a country of islands and the best thing about it is islands during the time they aren’t inhabited by tourists each summer. In reality, there are about ten families that stay behind. For Greeks family is everything, that’s when you’ll see the country in its truest form - alive, proud, and honest.

A quote by the French novelist Romain Gary hasn’t left my head: “Nothing can stop people from coming to Greece, but the typhus”. That’s what the Frenchman said in the years after the Second World War, but how accurate is it actually today...

Back to Henry Miller - a piece, written more than 80 years ago, in 1939, on the edge of the war. Miller is traveling through Greece: from Italy to Athens, Peloponnesus, and the islands Poros, Hydra, Spetses, Crete, and of course Kerkyra where his good friend Lawrence Durrell.

And the other Greece used to look the same way according to the notes of both authors - real. There is no vanity, no tourists. Heraklion is an ugly city and Knossos is unknown. This according to Miller.

These days despite the direct connections, the other, secret Greece is still magic, that we return to every chance we get. Because nothing else gives life such a push, like a hidden Greek village, where life is just flowing. The goat’s cheese is fresh, half way there, or totally matured. At the next domestic airport those checking your luggage of jealous of your loots. The local farm produces a bunch of other staples - tsipouro, freshly picked oregano, other herbs, honey... There is a heard of goats lying on the road, that ask you where you’re going. The sea is blue; the wind is curling the waves. You sign up for bread and eggs at the supermarket just with the name of your boat, and everyone is happy and loves one another. It’s as if you go even further back than Miller’s time.

We pair this poetry with the music of Manos Hatzidakis and the voice of Nana Mouskouri. A video from a concert on Kastelorizo - the Dodecanese island located most far away from everything, which brings us back to the good old days.
As well as Mouskouri’s whole album, while she sings Hatzadikis’ music. Poetry that merges sea, music, and soul.

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