Day 2

To begin with, a confession: Day 1 was technically Day 3, which means that today, Day 2, is actually Day 4. But I decided to put the technicalities aside and allow myself a couple of days of transition. Before you attribute any undeserved wisdom to this apparently sensible decision, however, let me tell you it was driven entirely by necessity: I have been alone since Friday night, and spent the weekend of my transition paralysed with fear.

I’ll explain: It so happened that the last week of my original four months of writing coincided with my sister’s wedding, on the 30^th of August. A wedding which took place here, in Sifnos, in a field attached to our house and hastily (but successfully) converted into a suitable venue for a wedding party of fifty. That’s fifty of our closest friends and relatives, all arriving to the island in the week preceding the party, and then, inevitably, departing in the days that followed.

Which meant that, in preparation for the solitude that I, ostensibly, looked forward to, I barely spent a moment by myself for close to two weeks, and that in the last week or so, I’ve had to say goodbye to a shocking number of people, including my grandma, my mum, my dad, my stepdad, both my brothers, both my sisters, my sister’s husband, my most favourite cousin and a host of friends, old and new. This process of ceremonious and often tearful goodbyes and assurances that we’d meet again, soon, took place over several days, in an endless seesaw of emotions, and culminated in a solitary bus ride from port to home, which had all the makings of the ultimate anticlimax.

And I’m sure, as I counted out my change for the bus fare with trembling hands, as I stared out the window at the wild landscape of the island that is to be my home for the next few months, that feeling of anticlimax was present, somewhere. As was relief, and excitement, and hope. But they were all drowned out by a massive tidal wave of a much more powerful emotion: the generalised anxiety that had been my constant companion throughout this week of goodbyes now gave way to a total and all-consuming terror. Which, at least, had the decency of being very specific, and vocalised itself in the following, eloquent phrase: What the fuck are you doing?

It wasn’t a question I could answer. All I knew was that my teeth were numb with the fear, and if that isn’t a sensation you’ve experienced, I hope you never do. It’s not pleasant.

My resolve faltered; all my thoughts turned to the imagined comforts of Athens, of London, of anyplace but here. Of safety and stability and familiarity. Of teeth that feel normal in my mouth.

But I was saved by the Greek poet Cavafy and my Australian cousin Peter (a.k.a. Cousin), whom I’d just waved onto a ferry bound for Athens and then on to Sydney. Among several choice souvenirs that Cousin picked up during his week in Greece (which included a beach towel featuring a killer whale posing as a dolphin on a background of planets and palm trees, and bearing the legend GREECE) was a new translation of Cavafy. It included a poem entitled The Satrapy that I’d never read before. Cousin, who is in the process of forming some resolutions of his own, picked it out on the morning of his departure and showed me. ‘This is a good one,’ he said, ‘for when I’m losing my resolve’.

It was. And with the foresight that my own resolve would be tested, frequently and in many different ways (though I didn’t expect it to be as soon as that very evening), I took a photo of it on my phone so I could read it in times of emergency. Here it is, in an earlier (and better) translation by Edmund Keeley:

The Satrapy

Too bad that, cut out as you are
for grand and noble acts,
this unfair fate of yours
never offers encouragement, always denies you success;
that cheap habits get in your way,
pettiness, or indifference.
And how terrible the day you give in
(the day you let go and give in)
and take the road for Susa
and go to King Artaxerxes,
who, well-disposed, gives you a place at his court
and offers you satrapies and things like that—
things you don’t want at all,
though, in despair, you accept them just the same.
You long for something else, ache for other things:
praise from the Demos and the Sophists,
that hard-won, that priceless acclaim—
the Agora, the Theatre, the Crowns of Laurel.
You can’t get any of these from Artaxerxes,
you’ll never find any of these in the satrapy,
and without them, what kind of life will you live? 

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princeton University Press, 1992)

What the fuck am I doing? I don’t know. But I’m doing it anyway. And I’m still here, despite the fear, on Day 2 or Day 4, because I don’t want the comforts of Athens and London and safety and things that are easy and known. I long for something else, ache for other things.

And without them, what kind of life will I live?