Keep going

We are approaching the 15th of August, a date often considered the very heart of the Greek summer. There’s a kind of national obsession with spending these days away from home. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s in a fancy hotel or a friend’s summer house, what matters is being away from the city.

Even if you’re one of the lucky few who can take a month off in July and another in September, spending the week around the 15th of August at home is enough to earn you glances of sympathy, or even disapproval and perhaps a slight sense of depression.

Still, I live in a small touristic town. I haven’t lived in a big city for more than a decade, and I can barely remember what it was like to spend August there. Although I think I enjoyed it back then. Roaming the empty streets on my motorbike, going to outdoor cinemas, lingering in bars with friends, all night long.

Now, my pleasures are different. A long evening walk, for example, enjoying the scenery and taking photographs. Watching the trees and the castle glow in the golden light of the setting sun. Gazing at the horizon and the yachts resting on the calm sea. Chasing the colours of the sunset and continuing on as the streetlights come on.

Small pleasures that, for a while, make me forget the cruel, irrational, self-destructive world we live in.

And give me reasons to keep going...