Skip to main content

An Ode to the Small Town

Image
By
It was while I was extolling, rather formulaically, the virtues of Athens that I learned to appreciate life in a small town. O Nonós, the Godfather, rhapsodized (swift, tight flicks of the wrist, palms always open, furrowed brow) over life in Agriá, from which I interpreted the following:


 I, Iphigenia’s godfather, the free spirit of Agriá, am fulfilled.
Insouciant, I jump on my creaky moped and speed off.
With both legs hanging over the same side of the scooter, I wave and smile at each passer-by. 

A large cup of coffee and a chat at the same café every morning — this routine is not to be broken! 
I know everyone, and everyone knows of me.

I am practically toothless now, a testimony to my love of sweets, but also to my je m’en foutisme.
My shirt is dangerously unbuttoned, the top four or five ever undone regardless of the clouds or sun.
Tufts of grey hair emerge with confidence, virility and enthusiasm.
I am old now, but don’t you go telling that to anyone!

I love Agriá because it is where the sun watched my birth and is where the moon will stand guard during my final breath.

What would I do in Athens. . . in Thessaloniki. . . or even in Volos?

Wither away and die in anonymity, I suppose, the light from my eyes slowly but surely petering out.


   *  *  *
Select Enlightenment:
J. Lucas, 92 Acharnon Street (London: Eland, 2007).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Them Memphis Notions

By
I believe that the minds of men. . . will change . . . that all the old pictures will fade out, and new ones will take their place. . . that what we have in our heads now is only one of millions of possible seeings ; I believe that the man animal got started on the wrong foot. —K. Patchen, Albion Moonlight , 298 For J-Y In Memphis I saw plainly that for all these years I’ve been travelling with an indifference that now leaves me feeling incredibly ashamed. I tell myself that I should know a place well before visiting it, and so I prepare by picking up bits from books here and there. But being interested in the idea of what other people have found a place to be like has blinded me from seeing what is actually in front of me. I get hung up on history and aesthetics and the like, which are arguably only of academic or cocktail-party use. Because of this I’ve been content to let someone else take care of the suffering I see. I had been wanting to visit Memphis for a lo...
Post a Comment
Read more

HE AIN’T HEAVY — THE GRAND FINALE

By
( Cont’d from parts I and II .) After a year in town the sounds of the street which I once thought sensuous became nothing more than endless streams of noise. Once again I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. Rhappy, V. E. and Co. were at it right outside my bedroom window. I considered getting up and roaring from the balcony, fist pumping like Il Duce, but finally could not bring myself to do it. It will only make things worse, I decided, because then they will start to take pleasure in annoying me in subsequent 3:30 am sessions, talking even louder to mock my fury. Better to let them remain oblivious to my suffering, to do it in silence. At length I became so tired that their voices seemed sufficiently muffled to act as a white-noise machine . When I got up later that morning I took a closer look at the pine tree whose branches shaded my window. It reminded me of a tree I had seen near a chapel at Kodjori, a town in the foothills above Tbilisi with a ruined fortress t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beijing The Behemoth

By
Beijing the behemoth. At the airport I’m beat from being up some thirty-odd hours, but too sentient to think of sleep, the hotel be damned. Throw me instead into this sea of concrete, bemused smiles and unabashed stares. In the taxi with Chris, the school’s recruiter, Iphigenia and I watch the towers of concrete repeat themselves for miles. I command myself to take in every detail, no matter how small. But I’m fading fast and when the city center at last comes into view, she’s too late. The fatigue has unfortunately set in and I can’t make out much but the obvious: taxis, bicycles, rickshaws. . . . And so the hotel it is for us, because anyway I’m just too damn worked up. I don’t have a map, I don’t speak Mandarin, I haven’t changed any money yet. I promise myself a good random stroll the next morning, one which will enlighten me as to the way of the street, the dao of the hú tòng.  But the morrow brings nothing so edifying. Only a short walk with killjoy Chris, who cl...
Post a Comment
Read more