The Therapist In The Olive Grove

Dear Courageous One,

So. I have arrived on the island, beautiful Lesvos, Greece . . .

But as I know well and still forget, memory is a trickster. We can long for something so much that we forget the reality of its sharper edges. Ouch! I remembered this place as I left it (and as I wish to remember it): the little house orderly and beautiful (waiting for the friend who comes to stay after me), my friends doing their thing, alive and well, the unchanging rhythms of island and farm life like a place holder for peace and stability in the midst of my own many changes.

But I was last here two and a half years ago, before Covid. It’s the longest I’ve been away in 30 years. And, like everywhere else, there have been profound changes . . .

I just keep thinking of that expression that begins “ something-something-something . . . and the devil bites your tail.” How does it go again? My mind is in a tumultuous vocabularic entanglement of Greek, Eresiotika, French, and to-do-lists . . .

Arrival to a tiny messy house. A wild field of olives and figs. Still, a bowl of tomatoes and a little bouquet of garden flowers is enough to flip my heart upside down. Greece! The beauty is everywhere, and astonishes me every day.

Flower, fruit and veg in the window well of the little Greek kitchen. Flowers from my neighbour’s garden. Apricots from the tree Panagos planted . . .

Yet this return was been more difficult. I am older. The world feels more wounded and precarious. I return to the old tasks, which are both deflating (must I do this yet again?) and grounding, satisfying. Physical work brings us back, brings us into the body and the reality of the moment: sweeping, swooshing down the stone terrace (so many wild apricots), collecting fallen branches, washing musty sheets, beating out the dusty mattress . . .

It’s always been this way (so why did I forget it?) and it is always new. What will I learn this time?

I water the trees, and wait. I fix things that are broken. This is a metaphor for . . . everything I do in life these days. It’s PERPETUAL. And I knew this, especially about a broken-down 120 year old shepherd’s hut in an olive grove . . . So. Why am I surprised?

Land as teacher. Brokenness as a part of home. Reality. The seeds called trivolia, with their three little spikes: I’ve already stepped on a few.

One of my best and oldest friends died during my absence--dear Panagos. He was a fisherman, a builder, a beekeeper. The best neighbor. His wife, Mireille, is my close friend. It’s not possible that he is not here: but here we are. His daughter and son have taken over his bee-keeping; the hives continue, so many generations of honey-makers. His solidity and quiet humor still seem to drift and move in the wind, rest on the sofa where he passed. I’ve slept many nights in their house now, more than in all the years I’ve come here, because he is gone . . .

Last night I did sleep in the spitaki. At 2 in the morning, I was crying, missing my husband and son, exhausted yet sleepless, regretful, complicated, full at heart, with millions of stars above the little house . . .

Then a noise came from outside--crunch, crackle, out there, under the apricot tree . . . What was it? Who came to visit? All my senses, re-calibrating, getting used to the night sounds, were on high alert . . . The terrace light was on . . .

I looked out the window.

There, a young fox, red and gold, was nosing through the mess of branches and leaves, eating fallen apricots. No bigger than a cat, but with distinctly non-cat-like movements. Little fox, reminding me to be light on my feet, to eat what is offered, to take pleasure in being awake in the night . . .

And the simple gift we receive upon waking: the gift of rising into another day.

Sending you starlight, fox-shadow, and olive oil soap,

Karen

The little fox, he or she, came back at dusk the next day to eat more apricots.