In Athens, another Haven

Our Aegean Airlines flight touched down in Athens and let us off old-style, with a mobile staircase at the front and back of the plane. As I stepped out, a god kissed my face with a fresh breeze. In the distance, the Saronic Gulf, smoky blue. I leapt off the last stair, hit Hellenic tarmac, and let out a whoop.

Our guide this time is Dimitra, who took charge of us in a fashion worthy of her divine name. She is just like the Greeks envisioned a goddess-- too young-looking to be in her thirties, but too polished to be in her twenties. In other words, ageless.

We have been to the Acropolis already today, and I watched (and photographed-- wait for that) a column slice for the inner row of columns winched up on a crane and carefully placed in its new home, atop another column slice. New marble is fused to old to make a complete whole: pale white to whispery gray conspires with aged yellow, a kind of Acropolis dental job, to recreate antiquity.

The project is supposed to be finished in 2010. Criton, our smooth-talking, knowledgeable guide, drily suggests it will not be ready by then.

We are fattening up on the best souvlaki take-away wraps in Monasteraki. Instead of tzadziki, they cream up their shaved pork with an addicting mayonnaise. This time I asked for "little sauce." I was somewhat heeded.

On the plane ride, I opened Haven Kimmel's second novel, Something Rising (Light and Swift), which so transported me to Indiana and then New Orleans that I worried when I came to Greece I'd have to take another journey (of the spirit) to bring my soul into Greece.

Not an issue. Turns out this journey of the spirit doubled back into the ancient heart that gave birth to Greece-- a story with a heroine who learns through hard experience (pathei mathos, the oldest of Greek wisdom) that, unlike Oedipus, we do not need to be ruled by the curses laid upon us by our genetics and circumstances of life.

This novel is diamond-hard and so fearless it made me believe for a second that there is never any good reason to fear anything. You can also tell that the author believes in the "Amazing Grace" that a man in the Cafe du Monde belts out during a downpour in New Orleans.

I am running low on Internet credit-- so more later. Gotta get those pesky photos posted somehow. Geia sas! (Bye for now)