Kkhhhokay…

As mentioned below, I am in Athens and basically settled. I have moved into a duplex apartment in the same neighborhood in which I lived in my last five years in town.

There are some unusual sensations that have occasionally bubbled up in the early days of my return. Living here and not having an affiliation with the university is unusual if welcome. Living in a seemingly suddenly altered version of a town, to whose changes I previously had been too close to observe, scrambles my sense of space. And in perhaps the cheapest but most palpable sense, living in an apartment with the reverse floor plan of my old home sometimes makes this feel like a bit of a Bizarro Athens.

And I think Bizarro Athens is a fitting way to say it. For me, it is a version of Athens in which I am not so busy that I can’t think. It’s a version of Athens in which I can genuinely enjoy living rather than paddling with all of my might most of the time. This version of Athens contains a lot of history but few ties, a lot of potential but few demands. It is also the site, for me, of contentment rather than panic, and love rather than need. If it is Bizarro Athens, I prefer it in many ways to the original.

As I reread that, I realize that that is a bit unfair to suggest that I was lonely the last time I lived here. You know what I mean.

The longer I am alive, the more clearly I hear screams of testimony from those who know the truth that still sounds like a whisper to me: Life is too short not to do what makes you happy. That is exactly what I am doing. It seems to be working.