I was thinking about place, the importance it plays in stories. The constant duality of place for me is shifting between Greece and the USA. Movement from one location to another has been a teacher, a stimulant, and a source of inspiration. It awakens my imagination and frequently becomes the canvas of my stories. Similarities and contrasts provide diverse and wide-ranging text and ultimately point out the diversity and connectivity of my world, accentuating universal themes. During coronavirus days I have been grateful to travel by reading books.
Here is an excerpt about my childhood summers in Greece:
"In the summer I travelled splashing in the sea, visiting islands, getting a tan and sitting under beach umbrellas. My episodic memory is filled with family excursions to the waterfalls of Edesa, day boat trips to neighboring shores, hours of play outdoors with cousins and new friends whose families vacationed next door. We gathered shells, sand dollars, white nautilus treasures in our buckets and marveled at their rough exterior and perfectly smooth interior in neighboring shorelines. We traded with each other to make sure we had collected every kind of shell, and then we built sandcastles with towers and gates. We dug in the sand with our shovels and filled our buckets with salt water, splashing each other and pouring it into freshly dug moats. It felt good to be buried in the sand..."
It's timely to think of Greek vacations with nostalgia. Recently, in the Pacific Northwest we have lived through a week of scorching heat, reminiscent of August temperatures in Thessaloniki. But my tolerance for heat has changed as I have lived in the cooler climate of Seattle for a long time. I now look for air conditioning and a cool basement. Despite all that, I would be in Thessaloniki, if it were not for COVID. What I have missed the most is my trip back home.
