island-hopping hippies


7/18/08. slow ferry from piraeus to melos. long hours on a blue-painted sheet metal deck, the overpowering smell of oxidizing steel dull in nostrils. strands of thought winding and unwinding, time advancing and retreating through a tangle of dream-crowded fitful bouts of sleep buffeted by dieselly wind under a cold moon as I settled onto a spray-slick railside patch. the upper promenade was inexplicably closed, and deck seating was occupied by the stacked bags of a french school group. unrelenting wind or the diesel stench of the hold. I realized that I needed to choose wisely or be banished to some corner surrounded by bikini-ed schoolgirls, so I followed the pros -- two greek hippies and an anglo-something around-the-worlder. their well-established campsites and routines confirmed that I'd found a serviceable spot.

the hippie woman was compelling, even militant in embracing her greekness.  dark olive, nearly gypsy-colored, shortish tangled dark hair trussed in a bandanna, sharp dark eyebrows...the last gorgeously unapologetic in the unkempt and all-real defiant arc traced across her forehead. classic greek profile with deep set eyes, lumpy diving nose, pouted lips with a smile always playing in the corners. so theran. casual skimpy top loosely and so confidently worn, not the stuffed and squeezed look of the modern EU woman. she reminded me of one of the most joyous people I've ever met, a woman worked a couple summers on kythera. couldn't immediately come up with her name, but it had something to do with the sea...Myrto. ever-smiling greek eyes, even when they were angry and fierce and crying, a stubby fireball with a raspy, more-than-infectious laugh, gapped front teeth that spoke to passion and verve. quivering energy and aegean lassitude somehow convergent.

and with this Myrtoan echo, her man: scrawny jesus/rasputin, shaggy thin hair, medium-wild beard, superbly intelligent-tender eyes, ridiculous honking nose, quiet mouth, cut off tshirt that hangs on his truly gaunt frame, scraggly shorts. who were they to so egregiously transgress athenian norms...blonded hair, tight white slacks-and-thong, bangly earrings, cell phone shouting, black clubbing shirts, italian boots? I've encountered this rare breed mostly at skandeia, a now-defunct beach bar at paleopoli on kythera. kythera is what the mid-outer banks used to be for americans...the place that athenians go when they're roughing it on holiday. none of the towns have the polished tourist aspect even of a low-key place like adamas on melos. and skandeia was even further from the norm. paleopoli is just a couple of beach houses north of kastri, almost all of it alpha-zoned because of chamber tombs and therefore off limits to development. skandeia was back from the beach a bit in a cluster of tropical-looking trees, probably almonds, and consisted of a low kitchen building and haphazardly erected bamboo shades, tables scattered on sandy ground. live unselfconsciously traditional music nightly, kahlua-and-raisin ice cream in the outdoor freezer. run by a hippie family that traveled around in a caravan of trailers and assorted volkswagens -- parked out back. simple, beyond cool, quiet, peaceful.

as I dozed on and off across the cyclades the couple they turned into more than just countercultural anomaly. I awoke at one point to a book passed back and forth as they shared passages aloud, her head reclined on his bony shoulder. in byron mode I imagined it was kazantzakis or cavafy (but who knows, perhaps harry potter in translation). I couldn't hear words, though, because everything about these two was tender and quiet. but the image jolted me back to a vision that had to be three years old at that point, the last time I could have seen them on a ferry, the summer of 2005. a timeless immediacy. that she's visually arresting. can't take my eyes off her. not for a physical attraction, really, just the sharpness of her features and how easy she is in her skin. and more than that...how they slide against each other, frictionless without sickly stickiness. looks, caresses, smiles, wordless communication. that I'd glimpsed the same private world before, yet unchanged after three intervening winters. an uncomplicated irrepressible connection, souls immersed in something devoid of self-conscious preening, seamlessly complementary.  no flirting, no misdirection, no peeve. and for all that fiercely separate spirits...perhaps even physically apart except for these summer jaunts.