Ashes, Ashes, All Falling Down

After a short trip to California for my daughters wedding, I am back in Athens. It was a very nice wedding with mostly family, about 80 guests. Somehow as I sat there with family in this very simple wedding dinner, I thought how sometimes the celebration of two people seems more personal with just family and close friends without all the trappings that some weddings seem to gather. It is good to be back in Athens. The wild dogs are still here, the bars at the marina are still playing loud music until the wee hours of the night, and most important, it appears the boat has been fixed. I contact the mechanic and arrange for the boat to be put back into the water. After making all of the necessary payments and getting all of the right official stamps on all the right papers my boat is once again sailing in the air and back where it belongs, in the water. It feels like home again.

Since coming back to Athens, there has been a constant flurry of ash swirling in the air and around the boat. It is everywhere. I wake up and it has built up in the cockpit like a light frosting of snow. I keep the windows closed even in this oppressive heat, but it still seems to filter in. I don’t know how far away the fires are, and I really don’t know much about what is going on. No TV, no radio, no newspaper, just little bits from people that are still connected to the real world. They were deliberately set, and people are dying. It may be politically motivated, but everyone just sees it as a national tragedy that never should have happened. Some talk about terrorists that have now found a new country and more people to scare. People try to make sense out of something that is senseless.