On days when the sea is calmer and the exertion of watering the garden leaves me dripping with sweat, I nip across the street for a quick cool-down swim in the Aegean before coming home to continue with my day. Being able to slip on flip flops and cross the street for a swim whenever I get overheated is even better than it sounds.

The window behind my computer screen frames the view outside: rose geranium and periwinkle plumbago growing in pots against a whitewashed wall topped with a tall chain link fence to keep goats from leaping into the garden. Behind it, running parallel to the coastline is a hand-built stone wall, and on the other side of that is the Aegean. The warm-hued rocky hills of Tilos rise steeply out of the sea. In the distance is the coast of Turkey, humidity making it look much further away than it actually is. In the heat of the day the static pulse of cicadas is so loud that it is hard to hear them, but in the cooler hours of the day when the cicadas quiet down there is a steady rhythmic lull of waves breaking upon the shore.

Three days ago I went for an evening walk around Livadia Bay and up into hills that make touching the sky seem possible. My destination was the tiny chapel of Agios Ioannis, which sits on the top of a ridge that feels otherworldly. Along the way I passed families sprawled on the beach enjoying the last few hours of sunshine, a few other pedestrians who looked like they had just emerged from long siestas to enjoy the early evening breeze, and a handful of fitness enthusiasts who appeared to be losing their body weight in perspiration as they lifted weights in the open-air gym.

When I reached Faros restaurant, which overlooks a beach studded with blue beach umbrellas and sunbeds, its tattered blue and white Greek flag flapping above pomegranate trees filled with ripening fruit, I began to climb skyward. A twentysomething redhead whose hair echoed the rusty colour of the rock around us steamed past me, her legs flexing braids of solid muscle. I watched until she disappeared around a bend before letting my gaze slide down the hill to rest on a small harbour below me, a collection of colourful fishing boats bobbing on the turquoise sea. At the end of the pier a man was patiently teaching his young son to fish. I stopped to snap a photo of their father-son moment, remembering fishing with my Italian grandfather when I was about the same age as the little boy, attempting unsuccessfully to mimic my grandfather’s grace as I cast my line out into the sea while wearing rubber boots so many sizes too big that they came all the way up to my thighs.

I continued on up the hill, legs and heart pumping. Halfway up I paused to catch my breath and appreciate the view. Across the water was the faint blue coast of Turkey, looking like a long, narrow mountain range rising out of the sea. The calmer water of the Bay of Livadia was at my back. Beyond it to the west the sun was rapidly sinking down behind the hilltops. Two eagles soared in the sky above me. I watched them circle and then arc away over the hills. A few goats foraged along the steep slopes. Up ahead, at the top of the hill, the tiny whitewashed chapel of Agios Ioannis came into view.

Usually when I visit a chapel I go inside, but I have visited this particular one on previous occasions, and it was such a beautiful evening that I decided to remain outside, appreciating the shadow of the tree growing outside against the door, and the way the warm evening sunlight was making the low-lying shrubs that cling to the hilltops glow.

The trail continued past the chapel, winding its way up to the abandoned village of Gera and beyond. It was too late to hike to Gera and back before it got dark, but I walked further up the hill to look back down at the chapel perched on the ridge, the blonde grasses lit up by the sun rippling in the wind, and the remnants of traditional stone walls edging what were once cultivated fields. The wild, astounding beauty of the ridge left me in awe.

I believe that there are certain places where the veil between this world and the next has been worn particularly thin. Where we can catch glimpses of a beauty so absolute that the illusion of our separateness from the rest of the universe and any ordered sense of time that distinguishes past from present and future is completely obliterated. The spot on which Agios Ioannis is built is one such place.

As the sun began to sink behind the hills on the other side of the bay, I made my way back down to Livadia. By the time I reached the waterfront it was completely dark, a large yellow moon having popped up over the hills I had just descended from. Nearby someone was playing guitar and singing, the melody soothing. I deposited my bag under a tamarisk tree and went for a swim, the water cool against my skin, and so clear that I could see each stone on the seabed beneath me in the moonlight. When I got out I lay on a stone wall beneath the tree for a long time listening to the music and the sea lapping softly at the pebbles, my head propped up on my backpack.

The following morning I woke at 6am, the curtains billowing in the wind. The light in my room had a watery, bruised hue. Across the street I could hear the waves crashing up on the beach. Although I must have always unconsciously been aware of this, I’m realising this summer that there’s something about waking and falling asleep to the sound of waves breaking on the shore that makes me feel intensely and ecstatically alive. It has taken me until the age of 48 to finally begin to develop a sense of what I want in a home. Most of my friends seem to have had a clear idea of what home looked and felt like many years ago, and consequently are well settled into spaces that they have been renovating and customising for years—spaces that have become more and more of a reflection of who they are and what is important to them over time.

I’m not sure why it is only in the last few years that I have even begun to clarify for myself what I want in a home. Perhaps it is having grown up with one leg on each of two continents, or feeling so much more at home in nature than I ever have within four walls that what those four walls looked like and where they were located didn’t matter very much to me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I carried a student loan debt into my 40s that made owning a home feel out of the realm of possibility. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that when I was growing up in Cyprus my parents always rented, our choice of housing having more to do with what we could afford that was located near their work and my school than any real vision my parents had about their ideal home. Articulating these reflections makes me curious what my parents would have looked for in a home if they had had the means at the time to choose, and had been living in a country where they had had the ability to get a loan that would have enabled them to buy property. I will never know the answer to that question as they are both gone, but perhaps answering this question for myself will enable me to create the forever home that I know my parents had both hoped for.

It has taken me multiple trans-Atlantic moves and the purchase a house on a continent that I am fairly certain I don’t want to be living on anymore to finally begin to make a list of what I would love in a home. I imagine these things change over time, but here’s what I have on my list so far:

1. Be perched up high with a vast view of the countryside around me so I can see into the distance. I thought this meant that I needed a home up in the hills or mountains, but after spending the last two weeks blissfully happy in a very basic second-storey apartment across the street from the sea, I’ve realised that home can be both up high and near the sea at the same time—a portion of my home just needs to be above ground level.

2. Be close enough to the sea that I can hear the waves breaking on the shore, and so that I am only a few minutes’ walk from sea that I can swim in.

3. Preferably be in a place where people speak Greek. Possibly Italian. But ideally Greek!

4. Have lots of large, well-placed windows so that my home is filled with light, and air can move through the space freely, keeping it cool during the hotter months.

5. Not be too big. I do not want to spend all my time cleaning and maintaining. Simple is best. I’d like to use the gift of extra time that I have given myself by choosing to own a smaller house writing, creating, hiking, swimming, engaging with life and community, and being of service.

6. Have a garden that is manageable. I love plants, and enjoy tending them, but I don’t (at this point) want a garden that prevents me from traveling and living my best life. I imagine that this will change as I get older and my desire for international travel lessens (that will happen, right?!)

7. Have easy access to fresh, local food—a farm or supermarket I can source local ingredients from.

8. Ideally have access to transportation (bus, boat, plane) that allows me to travel without the need for a car.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but it’s a start! I will keep adding and fine-tuning.

Two days ago I drove to Livadia shortly after sunrise. My destination this time was Lethra, a beautiful valley and bay facing Turkey. I parked the car in the harbour and hit the trail with the sun just beginning to climb up over the hills to the east. The path to Lethra is fairly easy to navigate. There are a few short inclines, but a good portion of the trail is relatively level, skirting the breast of the hills and offering spectacular views of Livadia and the surrounding countryside, the coastline of Tilos, and Turkey. I enjoyed the initial climb up the hill behind Ilidi Rock Hotel and the scramble along the narrow portion of the alternative trail that was built when a rockslide rendered the former path unsafe.

I got across the wooden plank balanced precariously against the edge of the hill and proceeded along the path cut into the cliffside. The bays along this coast are beautiful, but the only way to access them is to clamour down the hillside, as there are no real paths. At other times of the year the scramble down and back up again is easier. In the blazing August heat with no shade to speak of the decision to sidetrack down to one of the bays would mean that it would become my main destination as I wouldn’t have time to climb down to one of them, get back up to the trail, continue on to Lethra for a swim, and hike back to Livadia before it got too hot. Last year I hiked to Lethra and stopped at Red Beach with its striking terra cotta sand, but that was in June when midday temperatures were less searing. This time I walked straight to Lethra, enjoying a birds-eye-view of Red Beach and the brilliantly blue (but sadly nameless) bay immediately before it from above as I passed by. As usual, I had plenty of four-legged company along the way!

Eventually the trail began to descend into Lethra valley, the patchwork of stone walls and carob and olive trees dotted with goats rolling out in front of me. Someone had done a major clean of the beach since my last visit and had erected a permanent wooden sign asking visitors to please keep it clean.

On this particular day the sea was agitated but clear all the way to the bottom. I swam to the far end of the bay and back. It was a good day for seeing fish of all sizes and varieties. I floated over a school of sea bass, a large garfish, a handful of brilliantly coloured ornate wrasse, and multiple clouds of Mediterranean sand smelts. Just before I got out, a very small, perfectly oval white pebble lying on the seabed caught my eye, so I swam down for a closer look. It turned out to be the hollow shell of a tiny heart urchin. Back on the beach I held the shell in my open palm, amazed that something so delicate had remained entirely intact despite having been perpetually churned by the Aegean.

I had breakfast on the beach after my swim: a spinach pie from Rhodes Gluten Free and a plum whose ruby flesh was tart and juicy. After eating I lay, arms and legs splayed open like a starfish against the warm pebbled beach to dry off before walking back to Livadia.

That same evening I was back in Livadia having a cold drink at Rementzo (the harbour café) while I waited for my friend Jen and her dog Lisa to arrive on the ferry from Nisyros. The café was packed with travellers headed to Symi and Rhodes, and as soon as the ferry docked everyone made a dash for the boat. I’ve never seen an establishment empty out so quickly! Jen, Lisa and I took a walk and went for a swim before settling on the rooftop of a small stone house on the waterfront that has been renovated and turned into the aptly-named Mikro Cafe (small cafe), run by Lily and Gianni. After a relaxing evening of drinks we had a delicious supper at Omoneia, a taverna just off the main square with outdoor seating. I had tender octopus and a plate of golden fries, and Jen had Stifado (beef stew) with rice. We shared a village salad. The full moon rose over the hills as we ate.

Back in Agios Antonios later that night I sat in a garden flooded with moonlight and listened to waves crashing against the rocks. I slept long and deeply, and was woken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of the palm tree fronds whipping up against each other outside. It was another windy day, and I spent most of it writing, but in the early evening Jen, Lisa and I ventured out to see if we could find a bay that was calm enough for a swim. We headed to Plaka, directly across from Agios Antonios, hoping that it might be a little more sheltered. The water was agitated there too, but swimmable, so we deposited our things on the rocks dove in. There is an invigorating energy released by the sea on windy days. The sea grasses undulated dramatically, the fish, seeking shelter and taking advantage of the algae that had been loosened from the surface of the rocks, swam in closer to shore. Sunlight rippled over surface of the water highlighting the white-capped waves. Less light penetrated the surface, so the underwater world was darker and more mysterious to my eyes.

After our swim we lay on rocks licked by the last of the evening sun before it sunk behind the hills. For the first time in months the wind felt cold against my skin. The headland above us seemed to be calling out, inviting us to explore, so we climbed the hill and took a walk out over a rocky point dotted with spiny spurge and grey limestone boulders mottled with reddish volcanic deposits. The sea exploded in white froth against the rocks on every side, airborne spray drifting across the headland horizontally, misting our hair, cheeks and lips with saltwater. Continually knocked off balance by the force of the wind, we stumbled across the barren headland like two drunkards, hair streaming behind us one moment and blinding us the next.

I was thrilled to be so completely enveloped by the elements: the fierce roar of the sea pushing us this way and that, the hollow moan that the wind played across the cavity of my mouth whenever I opened it to speak, the wind whipping wildly around us. We stood as close to the edge as we dared and flung our arms open wide. Is this, I wondered, how eagles feel when they ride the thermals high in the sky?

Eventually we turned to walk back to the car, much to the relief of Lisa who charged ahead, looking back over her shoulder every now and then to make sure we were still following her. Back at the house we made salad for dinner and then curled up with warm cups of tea, struggling to keep our eyes open. I fell asleep to the sound of the sea hurling itself unrelentingly, one white-capped wave after another onto the rocky beach outside, and the palm trees, bougainvillea and grape vines clinging to the trellis outside thrashing back and forth, back and forth in the wind.

I spent three months on Tilos last summer. It was the best summer I’ve had in years. I’m not sure what it means when you land on an island where you know nobody and your heart instantly feels at home, but such has been the case with Tilos. I’m not much into flashiness or glitz. I have little need for fancy shops and entertainment. I like peace and quiet. To be able to hear the waves breaking on the shore while I write, eat and sleep. To roll out of bed and, without getting into a car, be able to get on a trail that will take me off into the hills and peaks where I can walk for hours with nobody save the wind and goats for companions.

Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy the bustling island of Rhodes also. Love how many trees Rhodes Town has, and her elaborate network of convoluted cobbled stone streets. In August it is overrun with tourists though, and far too noisy for my liking, so I like to keep my visits short. Last year while on Tilos I took the ferry over in the morning and was always ready to be headed back to Tilos by the end of the day. On my way to Tilos this time I only spent one evening and the following morning and afternoon in the town before catching the ferry to Tilos this past Monday. Despite the short visit I did manage to stop at a few of my favourite spots in Rhodes Town while I was there. I thought I might share a few of those here in case you find yourself in the Dodecanese.

My first stop Monday morning was the Old Town Corner Café in the Medieval town. There isn’t much to it—a handful of tables and chairs are set outside on a corner in the town, but every single one of them is usually occupied, and for good reason. They make delicious breakfasts and cakes, and being in the heart of the old town, diners get to enjoy the sounds of the old town while enjoying their meal: mopeds bumping along the stone streets; shopkeepers opening their doors and setting their wares out for the day; the owner of the café yelling at the neighbourhood cats to climb down from tables and chairs when they get a little too cosy with customers who are attempting to enjoy their breakfast, and locals calling out wishes for a good week to one another as they headed to work. The custom of daily wishes is something I love about Greeks (and Cypriots). On the first day of the month it is customary to wish everyone a good month. At the start of the week people call out good week, and on any given day people wish each other a good morning, good midday, good afternoon, good evening, good night, and then there are a few expressions that can be used any time of day, like good continuing (with your day) and good whatever comes next! When I am in Greece and Cyprus my days are sprinkled with these good wishes throughout the day, and every time I receive one it puts a smile on my face.

While I enjoyed my breakfast I watched the owner of my favourite jewellery store in Rhodes Town, La Magia open her shop and set her displays out along the street. The shop focuses entirely on high-quality Greek jewellery designers, and the jewellery they sell is exquisitely beautiful. Though not inexpensive, it does make unforgettable (and light!) gifts that I can take back to close friends in Canada. I bought a pair of earrings there for myself last summer that I have been wearing almost non-stop ever since. I get compliments every time people see me wearing them for the first time.

From La Magia I made my way across the old city, along Orpheas street past the Suleymaniye Mosque (built in 1522, and rebuilt in 1808) and the medieval clock tower; along the shady, tree-lined Platanakia street filled with portrait artists calling out to passing tourists, and out of the old city through D’Amboise gate. Just outside the gate I passed the bustling row of souvenir stands, fresh juice sellers and henna artists before turning the corner and walking down the hill alongside a mercifully tree-filled park and into the new part of Rhodes Town. My first stop in the new town was one of my all-time favourite bakeries: Rhodes Gluten Free owned by a welcoming Greek man named Nicos and his Italian partner Arianna (who I share a name with!). The bakery is a hole in the wall hidden on a side street just five minutes’ walk from the old town. They have mouthwatering gluten free pizza, sandwiches, cakes, and all the Greek pastries made with gluten free flour! My favourites so far have been the tiropittes (pastries filled with salty cheese) and the spanakopittes (pastries filled with spinach and cheese). I also love their cinnamon rolls and bougatsa (a pastry filled with sweet cream)! Rhodes gluten free also sells a wide selection of gluten free drinks including iced matcha and gluten-free beer! They post what is fresh out of the oven to their Instagram stories Monday through Saturday if you want to know what is on the menu on any given day. Nicos and Arianna have set a few tables just outside the shop in a shaded area so customers can sit and refuel before continuing their explorations.

Once I’d stocked up on gluten free goodies to take to Tilos with me, I continued on to my favourite sit-down lunch spot. ONO is a vegan restaurant three minutes’ walk from Rhodes Gluten Free. I am not vegan, but ONO has quickly become another favourite spot to cool down and enjoy a delicious meal. My favourite dish from their menu is their vegan moussaka (a noodle-less lasagna of sorts with layers of potatoes, roasted zucchini and eggplant topped with béchamel, which they make with coconut milk). To drink, I enjoy the ice-cold ginger beer or a freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

On my way to the port to catch my ferry to Rhodes I stopped at Gelateria dei Greci where they make all their own gelato flavours in-house. I particularly like their fig and their watermelon, mango and basil sorbets. They have a peaceful courtyard garden behind the shop where you can sit and enjoy your gelato away from the crowds.

There are so many beautiful streets and houses in the old town that I find the best way to get anywhere is to just weave your way in the general direction of where you want to go and take as many tiny streets as you can. It really is impossible to get lost, and you will inevitably discover some beautifully restored houses and lovingly tended gardens hidden behind thick stone walls. Look for the holes! Most stone walls in the old town have holes in them, and peeking through them can feel like you are looking through a keyhole into another realm!

I do not have my sea legs, and have made peace with the fact that it is unlikely that I ever will. There are ferries to Tilos most days of the week, but many of them are smaller boats. The first time I came to Tilos I took the ferry over on a Thursday, and let’s just say that it was the last time I will intentionally choose to travel to the island on a smaller vessel. Mondays and Fridays the Blue Star runs between Rhodes and Tilos. It is a large boat that sits low in the water and gives the smoothest of rides even on blustery days, so it was this ferry that I hauled my bags onto on Monday evening for the two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride to Tilos. The boat is so large that you can move around during the journey--spend time out on the deck filling your lungs with sea air or relax in the air-conditioned interior areas. After a full day of wandering the hot streets of Rhodes Town I usually find a table in the air-conditioned café at the front of the ship to enjoy a cold drink. The tables are surrounded by windows that give you a clear view of the coast of Turkey and the other islands you pass by. When you reach the island of Symi (the last stop before Tilos) I recommend going up on deck to enjoy the view of the harbour and the colourful houses of Gialos and Ano Symi (or Chorio). Though blisteringly hot in summer, Symi is an easy day trip from both Rhodes and Tilos.

The ferry deposited me on Tilos just before sunset. My friend Jen had offered to give me and my bags a lift to Agios Antonis, the small community on north shore that is my home base this visit. She was taking a beachside yoga class when my ferry arrived, but parked her car next to the dock so I could stash my belongings before walking along the coastal promenade to meet her on the beach after her class. On my ten minute walk along the seafront I ran into multiple islanders I’d met last year, pausing to catch up with them all: a British couple whose house was just down the hill from where I stayed in Livadia last year; Xaritomeni, the owner of one of the local mini markets; and my neighbour Chrysa who I stayed in touch with this past year, hoping I would be able to come back again this summer.

I made it down to the beach just in time for sunset. I settled on the pebbles and watched the sun sink behind the hills before going to meet up with Jen.

_____

I’m staying in a small apartment complex facing the beach. I arrived that first night and immediately made my way out onto the veranda to take in my surroundings. The waves breaking on the shore to the north. The majestic hills to the east and west that feel like mountains to me after living on Canada’s Prince Edward Island for so many years. The narrow valley that cuts a path between them to the south, ribboned with the only road connecting this quiet community to the larger villages of Megalo Chorio and Livadia. The sound of grazing goats. My body immediately exhaled. My muscles released. I’m finding as I get older that places that feel like home have less to do with the amount of time that I’ve spent somewhere and more to do with an internal connection that feels more spiritual or energetic than anything else. I felt it when I got off the boat last summer, and again the minute Tilos reappeared through the window of the ferry on Monday evening. It is similar to the recognition I feel when I meet a kindred spirit who I know will become a close friend. It is an internal, intuitive certainty that for whatever reason, this is a place I naturally belong.

On Tuesday evening I went up to the abandoned village of Micro Chorio (or little village) with a group of local women to clean the Panagia Theotokissa Church in preparation for the festivities that will take place there this Friday night in celebration of the Virgin Mary. I rode up with two of my neighbours from last summer, Chrysa and Matia, and two other women, one of whom (Eleni) I met at the celebration last summer who now lives near where my father’s family is based on the east coast of the United States, but comes home to Tilos every summer. We spent a few hours scrubbing tables and chairs, sweeping and mopping the floor of the church, painting walls and readying the space for a night of food and dance under the stars. It was an afternoon of stories and laughter shared between women many of whom were either born in Micro Chorio or whose parents were originally from the village. By the time we left Micro Chorio that evening it no longer felt like an abandoned village to me.

On Wednesday evening my friend Jen and I made our way to a headland extending out into Plaka Bay for a swim. The rocks were splashed with warm evening sunlight, the water deep, crystal clear and refreshingly cold, the vast beds of seagrass on the sea floor thick and healthy. We explored the rocky areas that were more likely to have fish around them feeding or taking refuge. Just like Cyprus, climate change has brought many fish into these waters that never used to live here. On Wednesday evening we saw a showy pair of lionfish, an abundance of giant sea urchins peering up at us from the rocks, and a few enormous trumpet fish, all of which are invasive to these waters, as well as drifting clouds of Mediterranean silversides that made us feel like we were swimming through clouds of tiny glinting stars.

After we had dried off in the last of the evening sunshine we took a walk across the stony shrub-covered hillsides to watch the sun set and the waves crash full-force onto the more rugged side of Tilos’s coastline. Standing on the edge of the cliffs looking out at the sun sinking into the horizon beside the island of Nisyros I felt like the luckiest woman alive.

Today is Friday, my fourth full day on Tilos. It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been back for four days. In some ways it feels like I never left, or like a part of me has always been here, waiting for the rest of me to turn up. Tonight will be a full night of dancing under the stars in Micro Chorio, but for now I am bare-legged, bare-armed at the kitchen table, sipping a giant glass of ice-water and trying to stay cool through the hottest hours of the day. Through the window I can see the waves breaking frothy and white-lipped on the shore. Shortly I will cross the street for a swim. My days on Tilos are punctuated by swims, the temperature, colour, degree of agitation and clarity of the water the elements that shape these long August summer days.

Wherever you are and however you are spending these final days of summer, I hope you are savouring every minute. Before we know it, we will be watching the leaves change colour and fall, unpacking our winter clothes and gathering firewood to keep our wood stoves fed all winter.

What are the aspects of late summer days where you live that you enjoy most? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below this post! Happy August, friends!

This morning while I was watering the garden a (new to me) maintenance guy from Sri Lanka came to clean the pool at the house where I’m house and pet sitting. Today is the hottest day of the summer so far—so hot that the government mandated that all outdoor work for the day be postponed until later this afternoon because it simply isn’t safe to be working outside. So when I finished watering I collapsed on the couch on the shaded patio to do my morning pages, all the while keeping an eye on the man who was cleaning the pool in the blazing sun. When it looked like he was almost done I offered him a glass of water, which he accepted gratefully, joining me in the shade while he gulped it down. After handing the glass back, he asked when the owners of the house would be back, and when I would be leaving. I told him that I was here for another couple of weeks. He nodded thoughtfully and then asked if I was married, and whether I had any children. I told him that I was not married, nor did I have any children. He very matter-of-factly asked why, and after I had attempted to explain, he proceeded to inform me that he was single, and that I really should consider getting married. I haven’t received an actual proposal (yet!), but he does still have a couple of weeks!

II. Parea/Good Company

Yesterday morning I headed to my favourite early morning swimming spot—a bay called Two Palms that is a five-minute drive from where I’m staying. It was a very still morning, and the water in the bay was transparent all the way to the bottom, and full of fish. I put on my goggles and swam out to a collection of rocks around which there is often a good deal of fish activity. The water itself was beautiful, but the currents had pushed a large amount of plastic into the bay, and the surface of the sea was covered with microplastics. It is hard to focus on enjoying the fish when you are trying to make sure you do not ingest tiny flecks of disintegrating plastic. Most days when I see plastic in the water I turn around and come home and swim in the pool, because right now I have the luxury of access to one. But on this particular day I decided to do as much of my swimming as deep underwater as I could, only coming up to the surface when I needed air, to make the best of my morning and the start of my day.

When I finally made it back to shore two men were lying on the pebbled beach chatting. I noticed that there was quite a lot of plastic rubbish on the beach, so I got out a bag and collected as much of it as I could. When I got back to where I had left my belongings I was surprised that I recognized one of the men—a fit and trim house painter from Limassol named Aggelos who comes and camps on the headland above the bay for six weeks every summer, and who I had met there a few years in a row. Like me, he is an avid swimmer who starts as many of his days as he can with a long swim. We greeted each other, and he introduced me to his friend, Lakis, who was camping with him this summer. I sat down on the beach beside them and the three of us chatted. Lakis remarked on the fact that I had taken the time to pick up rubbish. He told me that it was one thing to say you love your country, and another thing altogether to put this love into action, especially when (according to him) I was fighting a battle that I was going to lose because there were so many more people littering than there were picking it up. I told him that it simply wasn’t in my nature to not do anything even if my efforts were not successful. He told me that he had also been swimming in this bay since he was a child, and went on to describe his memories of how many fish he used to see when he swam in the bay, and how clean the water had been until the last few years.

Once they had dried off Aggelos and Lakis informed me that they were going to head back to their campsite for a coffee to start the day, and invited me to join them. I accepted their invitation, and the three of us made our way up the steep path and across a wheat field studded with giant carob trees. They had set up camp beneath one of the trees. They pulled a table and three chairs into the shade of the tree, and Lakis (who had told me on the beach that his rather unfortunate hobby—he had said this as he patted his tummy—was cooking) asked me how I took my coffee.

There are three ways you can take your coffee in Cyprus: sketo (black); metrio (one teaspoon of sugar), and gliko (two teaspoons of sugar). Most Cypriots drink their coffee sketo. I only drink Cypriot coffee in situations like this, where it has been offered in a gesture of hospitality and friendship, and to turn it down feels rude. Generally I stick to tea. I find coffee bitter, and the only way I can get it down is if the bitterness is balanced with a plentiful amount of sugar. When I told them I took my coffee gliko they glanced at each other, and then without saying a word Aggelos took off at a jog across the wheat field in the direction of a camper van that was beneath another carob tree that Lakis explained belongs to a man they call thios (which means uncle in Greek). A few minutes later Aggelos came jogging back across the field in the blinding sun, looking very much, as Lakis tells him jokingly when he finally makes it back, like a member of the Maasai tribe. When I asked Lakis what Aggelos was doing, he explained that they didn’t have any sugar, but that their neighbour did, so he had popped over to borrow some!

Coffees made, the three of us settled down for a chat in the shade of the carob tree. Aggelos asked me if I read—since usually writers liked to read—and I said that yes, I did enjoy reading. I asked him if he read, and he said that the only thing he read regularly was the Holy Scriptures. Lakis told me that he read the Holy Scriptures too, and we chatted for a bit about the distinction between religion and the behaviour of religious leaders who are using faith as a means to achieve financial gain and prestige. Both men told me that they were believers, but that they didn’t agree with the ways that the church was profiting financially in Cyprus.

I commented on their campsite—the multiple tents and motorbikes, table and cooking utensils, and the fact that they had somehow managed to hook up to a source of running water.

“How else could we live here for six weeks?” Aggelos asked me.

The tents, they explained, belonged to Lakis’s sons who had come down for the weekend from Limassol, and will return next weekend. And one of the tents, Aggelos explained, contains a chemical toilet.

A truck came bumping across the field and pulled up next to our carob tree. The window rolled down and an older man yelled out a greeting.

“That’s thios (uncle)” Aggelos told me, nodding at the truck.

Once thios had gone, they asked me how much longer I will be here this year, and I tell them that unfortunately I only have a couple of weeks left.

“Where do you go next?” Aggelos asked.

“Tilos. In Greece.”

“We’re going to Greece too,” Lakis said. “After we leave Akamas.”

I turned and look at Aggelos. “You’re going to Greece too?”

“You’re not the only one who gets to travel!” he said, grinning at me from across the table.

I asked them how long they have been friends, and Aggelos said since they were children. A life-long friendship, and a shared love for the sea, camping and travel.

The morning breeze began to fade, and the temperature to climb. It was time to get back to my editing, and Aggelos and Lakis were planning to go into the town of Polis to explore. I said goodbye and told them that I’d see them on the beach soon. Lakis said he would look for some tea. Aggelos said he would try to find a mug, because I couldn’t drink tea out of a tiny coffee cup. Somehow in the course of a single morning, we had formed an impromptu parea. I made my way back across the wheat field to my car with a smile on my lips, ready to begin my day.

III. Friendship sprung from action

With the plastic situation being what it is on our beaches this summer, I decided that in addition to gathering what I can every time I go swim, I would also try to organise a beach cleanup while I was home. I did a post about the plastic situation in a regional Facebook group last week, and a woman living in a nearby village wrote back to say that she’d love to come help me pick up rubbish. She suggested we meet on the beach last Saturday at 6.30am to beat the heat, and pick up what we could. She turned up with her daughter who is visiting for the summer and working at the local watersports business in the harbour. The three of us gathered rubbish for an hour, and once her daughter headed off to work my new friend and I moved to another beach and picked up waste there for another hour. We gathered four large bags of rubbish before calling it a day and going for a swim to cool down. Afterwards we went for coffee to get to know each other a little better. It turned out that my new friend is only a few years older than me, is half Cypriot, and has recently moved to Cyprus from the U.K. to get to know the island her father’s side of the family are from. We had a lovely chat and agreed to continue meeting to gather rubbish together for the next two weekends, extending the invitation to others to join us so that after I leave to return to Canada for the winter my friend will still have company on her Saturday rubbish gathering days. She wants to make it part of her regular summer routine. We’re doing a second cleanup this coming Saturday (July 25^th) morning at 6.30am. I’m hoping it goes well, and that a few more people join us. If you are an early bird and would like to join us, we are meeting in the parking lot next to the Da Vinci Gelateria that is opposite Porto Latchi in the heart of Latchi. Please bring your own garbage bags with you, along with a hat and water. Maybe see you there!

IV. Gathering

This past Sunday I drove up to Psathi to join my dear friends for their traditional family souvla meal, which is a feast of seasoned pork (and in this case chicken) that has been cooked on a spit over hot coals. If you have read my earlier posts, you will have seen other mentions of this family and the many memorable times I’ve spent with them over the last few years. The preparations for the meal take a lot of work, most of which is done by the matriarch and patriarch of the family, both of whom are now in their late 70s. Costas was busy monitoring the meat, and his wife Efigeneia was in the kitchen making a salad, beef and potato stew and fries. When everything was ready all the other women of the family got to work, everyone carrying a few things to the long table that had been set up under a tree in the garden: a pile of plates here, cutlery there, cloth napkins, lemons from the tree in their garden, salt, Efigeneia’s freshly baked bread, icy cold Coke Zeros, 7ups and beers. Once the table was set the food was carried out: a freshly village salad made with greens from Efigfeneia’s garden; a giant plate of golden fries just removed from the oil; beef and potato stew in tomato sauce, and two large containers of grilled meat seasoned with oregano. When we sat down to eat the feast laid out before us was one fit for royalty. It was very hot and humid on Sunday, so we were all already a little drunk from the heat. But by the end of the meal most of the men (and a few of the women) were also drunk from the copious amounts of icy cold beer that was being consumed!

Mid-meal my friend’s brother-in-law passed me his phone. On it was a photo of a white lab. He informed me from the other end of the table that his female lab needed to be impregnated, and that he had heard from one of his daughters that I was pet-sitting a white lab.

“Is the dog you are taking care of a male labrador?” he yelled from the far end of the table.

“Yes,” I informed him, “but he is 13 and can barely walk.”

“Ah,” he said, sitting back in his chair, clearly disappointed. “So he can’t get it up anymore?”

I suddenly became aware that all the other conversations at the table had ceased, and that everyone was looking expectantly in my direction, waiting for my response to his question.

“I very much doubt that he could father puppies when he can barely walk to the end of the driveway,” I said.

And with that, the whole family burst into laughter over this awkward lunchtime conversation. I joined them, thankful for the belly-laughter, the animated family conversations, stories bellowed by the men from the far end of the table, shouts for more beer, entreaties for everyone to eat more meat, and the good-natured banter being tossed back and forth. At the opposite end of the table my friend’s husband raised his beer in the air.

“Stin Ygeia mas!” “To our health!” he said.

The rest of us raised our glasses in response. “Stin ygeia mas!”

V. Swimming with swallows

On the evenings when I do not drive down for a sunset swim in the sea I have been taking a leisurely swim in the pool at the house where I’m pet sitting. I have never lived in a home with a pool, so it is still a slightly surreal experience to have a beautiful swimming pool a few steps from where I sleep. As the sky turns cherry red, then a violet that darkens into an inky blue, I glide through the water. Oska, the dog I am caring for, and Charlie (one of the cats) sit on the lip of the pool watching me. As I swim swallows sail overhead, then dive down, skimming the surface of the pool before looping back up into the sky—playing in the last of the evening light. It is a special time of day, and one I love to get quiet and sink into as I watch the first of the stars become visible in the sky. The summer is passing quickly—too quickly. I memorise the sensation of the water and evening breeze against my skin, the colours of the sky, the sway of the cypress tree silhouetted against the fading light. It is a memory I know I will return to in the heart of the Canadian winter as I sip tea in my rocking chair while snow swirls dreamlike outside.

What are some of your favourite moments from this summer? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section after this post if you feel like sharing.

There are no longer any signs indicating the spot you turn off to access Two Palms. There used to be a sign that said “No Camping Allowed,” which appeared along the roadside shortly after another sign that read “Beach for Dogs,” but both of those signs have now been removed, much to the relief of those of us who love this tiny cove. Those who know, know, and the absence of any signs that could be used to give people directions to get to the beach may be its only saving grace given that it is part of the Akamas coastline—an area that receives an increasing number of visitors every year. The pressures of tourism, water sports, fishing and over-development are constant and unrelenting. Most of the beaches before and after it are now lined with beach beds and umbrellas that you have to pay to use—some leaving no space at all for those of us who mainly swim in the early morning before it gets too hot, or in the evening when the scorching heat of the day has let up some .

As a young child I came on an overnight camping trip to the headland above Two Palms with Keith—a man who was my school art teacher and a second father-figure to me as I was growing up—a man who taught me to notice details and record them faithfully. To pay attention, read the language of topographical maps, and use a compass to navigate wisely and respectfully through the Cypriot landscape by foot.

On this particular trip we were accompanied by a group of my fellow classmates, and I recall my teacher taking us down for a late night swim so that we could experience the magic of phosphorescence for the first time. The field at the top of the cliff was studded with carob trees (many of which remain standing today), and there was a donkey tethered to the base of the tree nearest to us who meandered over to our tent in the morning and stuck his head in to wake us up and demand breakfast! As you can see in the photo above, we ended up eating breakfast in the back of the jeep that day as the donkey took out our tent!

Throughout my teens, twenties and thirties Keith and I returned to Two Palms too many times to count. Sometimes we would go alone for long early morning swims. He was an experienced scuba diver and snorkeller, and all our long swims over the years made me into a very strong swimmer, a true lover of underwater light, and someone who is always curious to learn more about all the creatures and plants that call the waters along the Akamas coast home. And sometimes Keith’s former wife Rionagh, who remains a dear friend today, would join us.

Eventually Keith could no longer make it down the steep path to the beach, so we swam elsewhere when we were together. He passed away a few years ago, but my Two Palms swimming tradition continues today. What I have learned through talking to others who I’ve met in the cove is that many of those who swim along this shore have been coming here for many years, just like me, and also have a life-long relationship with these waters.

This morning I parked my car under the cluster of carob trees near the edge of the headland and made my way down to the shore. I was the only person on the beach when I first arrived—something that is rare these days, and always a gift. I peeled off my clothes, which were already damp from the heat of the day, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and fit my goggles over my eyes. From the beach the water looked clean and clear. The collage of colours from the pebbled seafloor danced in the morning light. But when I dipped my head below the surface and looked upwards, the sometimes pale blue, sometimes turquoise, sometimes pearly grey water was confettied with tiny pieces of plastic. Shifting my gaze toward the deeper water I could see larger pieces of plastic drifting like underwater ghosts.

We have had an increasing amount of plastic in our coastal waters and on our beaches in the last few years, but until now this beach has remained largely protected from the problems affecting many of the island’s beaches, I think because of the way the current moves. I have been seeing more and more plastic in the water and on the beaches all along Latchi bay—the pebbles mixed in with beads of plastic so small that they are inseparable from each other, but this is the worst year yet. Many days when I enter the water I have to swim underneath 100 to 200m of plastic-filled water before I can swim without worrying about ingesting plastic. Most days Two Palms is better. But this morning the current was moving toward the shore from the east, pushing everything in the larger bay up against the Akamas coast and into the cove. The scale of the problem on the island this year is heartbreaking. I swam around, gathering up as many of the larger pieces as I could. A couple of sea kayakers saw me attempting to swim with long pieces of plastic trailing from one hand and paddled over—offering to take what I had collected back to shore. Once my hands were free again I began gathering up smaller pieces—not the tiny flakes—those were too small for me to pick up with my bare hands, but the slightly larger pieces. I collected as many as I could, and then swam back to the beach and put them into a bag before returning to the water to repeat the process. The amount I managed to gather felt so insignificant in comparison with what was in the water that I wondered why I was bothering, but when you love a place the way I love this one it is not possible to not do something, however small and insignificant my efforts are in the grand scheme of things.

After my swim I sat on the pebbled beach, the stones hot from the morning sun, and observed my surroundings: the Troodos mountains veiled in a humid haze, wind rippling across the surface of the Latchi/Polis bay, which had come alive with a steady stream of excursion boats filled with tourists heading out on day trips to the Blue Lagoon. A few fishing boats trailed by, heading back to shore with their catch. In the distance a sailboat skimmed gracefully across the water, making the best of the windy day. I contemplated the pile of plastic I’d collected and tried, unsuccessfully, to come up with some truly useful way that I could contribute to solving a problem that I know can only really be fixed if all the countries in our region work together, since a large percentage of this plastic, I have been told, is washing over from Lebanon (and likely a number of her neighbours). With the people of Lebanon and so many of the other countries in our region being so focused on basic survival right now, I know that the environmental disaster affecting our sea is not and will not be anywhere near the top of their list of priorities any time soon.

As I sat there reflecting on the responsibility that is the birthright of loving this place I heard two voices in conversation behind me. Turning, I saw a couple who looked to be in their sixties arriving on the beach. We smiled and greeted each other. They introduced themselves as Maria and Christos, originally from the city of Varosha but living in Larnaca since they became refugees during the 1974 invasion. They shared that they come to Akamas four times a year to swim at this particular beach. That they had been bringing their now adult children here since they were very little—Christos held his hand out at knee level. They told me that the coast of Larnaca where they now live has been destroyed—all the smaller, older houses knocked down and replaced with ugly cement towers.

“All anyone cares about here now is money,” Maria told me. “But here—at least in many of the villages around Paphos—I feel that people still live a simpler, more honest life. They still love their place.” They told me how much they love this coastline. How it is one of the only areas where they can still swim in water filled with fish. How much they appreciate water that is clear and clean. I nodded and smiled sadly before telling them about the plastic. They undressed and entered the water anyway—eager to cool down. They’d driven three hours to be here. A minute later Maria called out to me from the water. Her arm was extended above her head, a large piece of plastic draped from her hand. I waded into the water to take it from her so that she could continue swimming, and added it to my collection.

When they got out of the water we sat and chatted. They asked me what I do, and I explained that that I’m trying to finish writing a novel—a work of historical fiction. They smiled enthusiastically. It turned out that they are both avid readers. They are particularly enamoured with Murakami, whose books they have read translated into Greek. Maria told me how she enjoys the melancholy quality of Japanese literature and then went on to list her favourite Greek and Cypriot writers. “Have you read Το βουνί (The Mountain) by Louiza Papaloizou?” she asked me. I told her that I am trying to read it now, but that it is slow-going—that my reading skills in Greek are much weaker than my speaking skills. She told me that it is about our place. About this land. This island we so love. She recommended a few other Cypriot authors, and we discussed the beautiful places that still remain on our island as well as the loss of many of the wild landscapes we grew up in. There is at least twenty years age difference between us, but change came more slowly back then. They got out some chilled Cypriot cherries and Christos offered me some. We sat on the pebbled beach and ate the cold, sweet cherries harvested from orchards in the mountains and talked about our island, other countries we’ve travelled to, and why we return to this particular cove year after year. Before I finally packed up and headed home they asked my name and told me that they will be looking out for my book, and that they hope I translate it into Greek.

As I climbed the steep path back up to the carob trees whose shade had been keeping my car cool, I felt like I’d made two new friends—the circle of people I know who love this cove and island expanded a little. Meeting two more people who value the wild beauty of our island gives me hope, despite all the challenges that lie between where we stand now and what would be necessary to protect the wild areas that remain from further development and prioritise long-term natural beauty over short-term profit.

Last September I was swimming along the Akamas coast when I saw an odd-looking rock on the sea floor beneath me. I was just about to dive deeper to get a better look when the rock started moving. It was a sea turtle—something I used to see in the water regularly when I was a child growing up in Cyprus, but had not seen in years despite swimming almost every day over the course of the three months that I spend here every year. On that particular morning the water was calm and clear. Sunlight penetrated the surface, casting my silhouette onto the seafloor beneath me. I had expected the sea turtle to swim away. Instead, it swam parallel to me—deeper down in the water. We swam alongside each other companionably for some time. Sea turtles always leave me in such awe. Most of their body is encased in a hard shell. Only their head and four flippers are exposed and able to move freely. And yet when they swim they are the epitome of grace, moving through the water with such fluidity. My early morning companion swam alongside me for some time before finally veering away into deeper water and disappearing from view. The magic of that swim remains with me today.

In this world in which so many are hurting right now, we desperately need more of the magic I felt swimming alongside that sea turtle. More waking up and going outside barefoot to enjoy the sunrise. More evening swims in water streaming with light and clouds of fish, not plastic. More pauses to watch the sun set. More moments of connection with new and old friends in landscapes that we love. There is so much confusion and darkness in the world right now. So much loss and suffering. But there is also so much light. I wish that I could get the governments of all of the Middle-Eastern countries whose coastlines touch the Mediterranean Sea to come together and devise a practical plan to deal with cleaning up the plastic that is already in our shared sea, and prevent any more from being dumped into it. But I know that at this time, when so many of the people of the Middle East are fighting for their lives, this goal is simply not possible. What I can do though is continue to use the written word and the art of photography to highlight why our sea is worth protecting, and share examples I come across of people who are doing their best to care for her—in small and larger ways. I will be weaving pieces about the sea into my Substack posts this summer. If you hear about initiatives anywhere in the Mediterranean that are attempting to deal with the issue of plastic in our sea (as opposed to on our beaches), I’d love to hear about them. Please leave links in the comments section below this post.

It is late afternoon. The sun is slowly sinking in the clear blue sky, the cicadas a steady static throb in the olive grove outside. Soon I will put on my bikini and head down to the coast. I never know what I will find. I hope the water is clearer today. That the sea grasses are dancing in the underwater light. That groups of children are playing at the water’s edge and that I do not have to swim through plastic to reach clearer water. No matter what state I find the water in though, I will find a spot on the pebbled beach to watch the sun set alongside others who share my love for this place. To appreciate the beauty of darkening sky over water. To remind myself to remain focused, always, on the light.

PS. The sea at the beach where I had my evening swim was completely clear of plastic today, and the sunset was…well, I will show you:

Read more

A lot has changed since then. The open fields we used to play in are all built up. Everyone owns a TV now, and all the houses on the street have so many cars outside them that it is hard to find somewhere to park when I visit. One thing that has not changed since then is the strong sense of community in the neighbourhood. Many of the people who live on the street are related to each other, and those who aren’t blood relatives moved into Paphos from the same villages, so they share common roots. It is a tightly knit community where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone knows everyone else’s business!

Two years ago I attended the wedding of my friend Popi’s daughter, Chrystalla. This past weekend I attended the wedding of Popi’s younger sister Savoulla’s son, Giorgos. Cypriot weddings are elaborate, all day and most of the night affairs that the family prepares for over a period of years. On the day of the wedding people gather at the homes of the bride and the groom for the pre-wedding adornment or allamata of the couple. Since I am friends with the parents of the groom, I attended the groom’s pre-wedding rituals which took place in his parent’s flat which is above the groom’s grandparents’ house, and across the street from the house I grew up in.

I arrived the day before to help decorate the house in preparation for the celebrations. We covered plastic chairs with white fabric covers, cleaned tables and spread tablecloths, tied tulle and flower decorations to the banisters and front gate, and set out platters of wedding favours. One traditional gift given at Cypriot weddings is small clusters of odd numbers of Jordan almonds wrapped in tulle. The odd number conveys indivisibility, and the combination of the bitter almond coated with hard sugar represents the bittersweet nature of life and marriage! Other favours we set out were candles in the shape of white roses, and traditional wedding cookies, which are filled with roasted almonds and dusted with powdered sugar. Despite having been gluten free since my early twenties, the smell of the cookies brings back a flood of childhood memories.

On the morning of the wedding family members, neighbours, close friends, photographers and musicians (a fiddler and lutenist) all poured up the stairs and into my friend’s living room. Once the music got underway the groom came dancing out of his bedroom and down the hallway wearing his dress pants, an undershirt and a giant, very proud smile. He settled on a chair that had been placed in the middle of the living room while his father and the best man danced around him, arms outstretched in traditional Greek style. The first ritual performed was that of the official shaving of the groom by the best man. The best man draped the groom with a white towel, lathered his face with shaving foam, and proceeded to shave him. The musicians played traditional songs as the ritual was performed. Throughout the pre-wedding rituals the lyrics of the songs are essential to the process because they narrate what is happening to the groom, and which one of his wedding party is engaging with him at any time.

Once the groom was shaven and splashed with a generous amount of aftershave, the best man, the groom’s father, brother and uncles danced in circles around him with a large flat basket that had the rest of the groom’s clothes on it. As one family member said to me: “the clothes must dance before they are ready to be married in!”

The next ritual was the allamata or adornment of the groom. The best man helped the groom put on and button up his shirt, did the groom’s tie and put a belt around the groom’s waist. The mother of the groom fastened a watch around his wrist, and his father helped him put on his jacket.

Once the groom was fully adorned the musicians transitioned into the next song, whose lyrics invite one family member after another up to make the shape of the cross on the groom with a red scarf which they then passed around his waist three times before draping it over his shoulder for the next person to use.

This tradition is the official farewell as he takes leave of his family and starts a new one of his own, so it is a tender-hearted ritual, and the looks exchanged between the groom and his parents and grandparents in particular brought tears to my eyes.

This ritual is called the zomata, and it represents the sanctity of the marriage. Once all the family members who want to participate have blessed the groom, friends are invited to do so also.

The final morning pre-wedding ritual was the blessing of the groom by his mother and father with olive leaf smoke. Both parents held the vessel containing the smoking olive leaves above the head of the groom, drawing three circles of smoke in the air before kissing him on both cheeks.

The final ritual done, the groom’s family stepped forward to celebrate by dancing in a circle around the groom before everyone moved outside onto the veranda for food and drinks.

The morning adorning rituals ended at lunch time, and the church service wasn’t until 5pm, so after the guests left we all collapsed for a few hours of much-needed rest. At 4.30pm we left the house in a procession of beeping cars and flashing hazard lights. We drove down through the town and around the main roundabout before heading back up the hill to the church, everyone beeping their horns enthusiastically the whole way—our raucous joy being met with equally enthusiastic beeps from the cars around us. When one family celebrates, everyone gets in on the fun!

The church my friend’s son got married in was the same one that my friends had been married in when we were younger. When you remain in one community your whole life traditions are built and passed down from one generation to the next—a custom that might be stifling when seen from one perspective, but are exceptionally beautiful and touching when seen from another. My friend’s son Giorgos and his bride Maria were excited and proud to be continuing the family tradition.

The first weekend of June is one of the busiest weekends of the year for baptisms and weddings, so when we arrived at the church we had to wait outside as a baptism was still in progress. While took photos in the blazing sun on the front steps of the church while we waited.

One thing that I love about Cypriot weddings is that all the guests wait on the front steps of the church for the bride and her parents to arrive. Maria rounded the corner of the church flanked by her parents and her daughter, Andrea, huge smiles on everyone’s faces. Everyone erupted into applause as they approached. She kissed her parents goodbye at the bottom of the steps and we all proceeded to enter the church and take our seats in the wooden stasidia, which are tall wooden chairs with arm rests and foldable seats—the Greek Orthodox version of pews.

The Greek Orthodox wedding ceremony is filled with symbolism. The rings are blessed by the priest and then exchanged between the hands of the bride and groom three times to join them together; the couple sips wine from a single cup as a sign that from that point forward they will share all that life has to offer—joys and sorrows. And my favourite tradition in the Orthodox wedding is the placing of head crowns linked by white ribbon on the heads of the bride and groom. The crowns are a sign of the honour and dignity that is conferred upon them by God through their commitment to the marriage. Once placed on their heads the crowns are exchanged back and forth between the heads of the bride and groom three times to symbolise the unity of the couple. Then they take their first steps together as a couple, led by the priest and accompanied by their best man. The first steps are three circles around the ceremonial table on which the priest has placed a bible and a cross. The circle is the shape of eternity, and taking their first steps in a circle with the bible and cross in the centre of it is a means of immediately putting into action the oath that they have taken to honour the marriage bond they have entered into, and to keep Christ at the centre of their lives.

After the service we gathered on the front steps of the church to celebrate the young couple as they began their life together—in this case along with their sweet daughter Andrea, who dressed up for the occasion!

We left the church in procession again, horns beeping, lights flashing, and ribbons streaming from the wedding vehicle as we proceeded up the hill to the reception hall. In Cyprus the immediate family of the bride and groom stand just inside the door of the hall to welcome everyone and receive blessings. Traditionally those who pass through the line say “may you be blessed” to the bride and groom, and “may they bless you” to the parents and the best man and woman. Guests also give the groom or the best man an envelope as they pass through the reception line containing cash which is used by the couple to cover the expense of the wedding ceremony and reception as well as the start of their new life together. Once I had congratulated the family I joined the buffet line. Cypriot wedding feasts are generous, mouthwatering affairs. In this case my friends served roasted lamb and chicken; golden potatoes and vegetables; fresh salads and resi—a porridge made from wheat boiled in meat broth with tender pieces of lamb in it. Once our plates had been licked clean we moved on to a plentiful dessert table filled with fruit, cakes, custards and pastries. All the food and drink at Cypriot weddings is free—a fact that has always impressed me given that there are often 2-3,000 people invited to the reception, sometimes even more.

Wedding guests arrived steadily from 7 until almost 11pm, but eventually everyone who was coming had arrived, the bride and groom and their families were able to sit down and eat themselves, and the dancing got underway. The dancing at Cypriot weddings is very collective. Even when people aren’t doing the traditional dances in which people hold hands and move in a circle, those not actually dancing participate by clapping along to the rhythm of the music to accompany those who are dancing.

You would think that the volume of the music contributes to the happiness and success of the marriage based on how loud the music at Cypriot weddings is, and this reception was no exception. My ears rung for a few hours after I left the reception later that night, and yet nobody ever seems to be fazed by the volume. I was surrounded by young mothers, all of whom brough their babies along. I asked my friend Popi’s daughter Chrystalla if she actually thought her kids were going to be able to sleep in such a noisy place. She nodded with absolute certainty, and miraculously, despite the noise level, by passing the infants from the arms of one woman to the next and taking turns rocking them, she was right. One by one the children around us eventually fell asleep and the women all took turns getting up to dance with the happy couple while other family members watched their sleeping children.

In breaks between dances I joined the baby rocking ritual, informal and unspoken, that allowed all these young mothers to not only come out and celebrate the bride and groom, but to really enjoy their evening—to catch up with friends and family, and even get the change to let loose and dance. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Observing the way that siblings, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents and friends drew together in a supportive network around Giorgos and Maria as they celebrated the start of their life together, and rallied around all the young couples who attended the ceremony and the reception afterwards I felt a deep sense of joy for them all. In other parts of the world so many of my friends are completely overextended and burned out as they try to work full time jobs and raise children without sufficient family and community support. Looking at the young women around me at the wedding I found myself thinking how transformative it would be for many of my friends back in Canada to have a village of arms that they could pass their children to with confidence that they would be loved and cared for when their own arms needed a break.

When I left the wedding close to midnight the festivities were still going strong. I wound my way home through the hills of darkened vineyards, Venus and Jupiter engaged in an intimate tête-à-tête in the sky above, feeling hopeful for all the young couples that I had spent the evening with. This is not an easy time in history to be trying to build a new life and start a family. Couples need all the support they can get. As I parked my car in the village of Lasa and made my way up to my room to sleep beneath a sky filled with stars, I felt more confident than I have in a long time that if the success of the marriages of the couples around me that night has anything to do with community turning up, there are going to be a lot of very long-lasting marriages among those present at the wedding. I lay in bed that night and reflected on how I could turn up more for my friends who are raising young children back in Canada who I can tell could use more support—how I could offer rocking arms when theirs need a break.

I’ve had my feet firmly on Cypriot soil for exactly two weeks. The mornings are golden, sky a crisp baby blue. Not a cloud in sight. Every day the sky and sun trick me into thinking that its going to be hot all day. But so far, every day for the last two weeks, a few clouds drift in around lunch time, and by mid-afternoon the sky looks like it is preparing for the apocalypse. Many days the moisture-heavy clouds have favoured us with a rain shower. I’ve taken to leaving the window next to my writing desk open to let the aroma of moist earth fill the room. Even after one of the wettest springs in recent years I can almost taste the shock of the soil in the air when it rains.

The density of dust particles in the air in the eastern Mediterranean has been increasing every year. Earlier this spring the mountains completely disappeared. It was reported that the percentage of dust particles reached forty times what the EU has identified as a healthy limit. Along with many of my friends who have been dealing with sinus and throat irritation for weeks, I sounded like I had a cold my sinuses were so congested the first week I was back. In addition to making the air smell good, adding much needed water to the reservoirs and giving the vegetation another deep drink, the rain has cleared the air. My sinuses, throat and lungs have been calmer this week. This past Saturday, while attending a workshop at Gardens of the Future (an urban community garden) we got hit with a torrential downpour so intense that the participants at one end of the table could barely hear those at the other end the noise of water hitting the corrugated metal roof was so deafening. For a couple of hours the narrow streets of the old city of Nicosia turned into miniature rivers.

Since getting back to Cyprus I’ve attended a number of wonderful community events. A few days after I arrived I attended the walking music festival in the village of Vavla. This is one of my favourite festivals because for one night only the inhabitants of the village of Vavla open their gardens and courtyards to the public for an evening of intimate concerts. Vavla is perched on the hills between Nicosia and Limassol with an incredible view of the Troodos mountains to the west. This year’s festival was held on a mild late spring evening. The sun sinking behind the mountains was bathing everything in a warm glow.

I went to the festival with my friend Pola. Neither of us are late night people, so we left Nicosia early enough to watch the sun set from the courtyard outside the village church, where we watched our first performance, the four female vocalists in the group En Phyē. The group chanted Byzantine and European medieval hymns in the last golden rays of the sun. The quality of the light, the way the performers’ voices wove together, the forested mountain backdrop and the stone courtyard and church made the moment feel timeless.

There were many small concerts all over the village that night. We chose to just take in a few and really be present for what we did get to hear. After the chanting we walked up the hill through the centre of the village to get a birds-eye-view of Alexa Michael, whose dreamy soulful songs were filling the courtyard of a traditional Cypriot stone house. The entire yard was filled with spectators. Some sitting on chairs, many standing against the walls of the house, a handful sitting on exterior staircases and a few more sitting on the roof! Birds swooped and looped overhead. I let my line of vision follow the curve of the hills beyond the house as they sloped down toward Larnaca.

The last performance we took in that night was prize-winning pianist Christos Fountos, who was playing a hand-built grand piano that had been set up beneath a blooming pomegranate tree in the courtyard of another restored stone home.

We followed the flow of people pouring into the garden and managed to find a spot that gave us an excellent view of the pianist’s hands. I particularly loved the first piece he played, which was inspired by a mythological water nymph. The lightness and fluidity with which his fingers moved over the keyboard so perfectly reflected the way water flows. Getting to hear Christos perform by candlelight under the slowly darkening sky felt like we had been dropped down into the middle of a fairytale.

We walked down to the village square for some food and drink before heading back to the city. A large number of vendors had set up stalls selling everything from traditional grilled meats, pizza and falafel to gluten free and vegan baked goods and marmalade. A number of artisans had also set up stalls to sell Cypriot crafts like hollowed out carved gourds traditionally used to store and serve wine. Once we’d had a bite to eat we made our way through the crowds and followed the road out of the village until we located our car. Above us the velvet sky was strewn with shards of starlight.

Exactly one week later, back in Nicosia, I joined a morning workshop dedicated to grandmothers, or as we say in Greek, giagiades at an urban garden in the centre of the old city. Hosted by a cyanotype artist and writer, Eleni Philippou and an actress, Natalia Panagiotou, all the participants were asked to send the organizers a photograph of our grandmothers prior to the workshop. These photographs were turned into negatives that we used to make cyanotypes. Not knowing that I was going to be participating in this workshop, I searched through the images on my phone, managing to find a beautiful portrait of my dad’s mother as a young woman. After introductions, Eleni taught us how to apply the chemical mixture to the paper on which our images would later be developed using large, flat paintbrushes to make sure they were as streak-free as possible. Once the chemical mixture had been applied we lay our sheets of paper in a dark room as the chemicals are sensitive to light. Eleni explained to us that cyanotypes were an early form of photography initially used to capture images of plant specimens for the purposes of identification and study. Over time they were used for a wider-number of purposes until the camera was developed.

While the chemicals dried and the rain poured outside, we sat around a table and shared stories about our grandmothers. I didn’t know most of the women present before the workshop, but listening to them share tender and heartfelt stories about their grandmothers established a level of intimacy between us that would otherwise have taken months to develop. There were many differences between our grandmothers, but I was struck by how many similarities there were. Cooking and sharing good food was common to all of our grandmothers, as was a good work ethic and a solid dedication to family and faith. Most of the women described grandmothers who worked the land, tending vegetable gardens in the arid climate of the eastern Mediterranean and wrestling field cucumbers and tomatoes from the dry soil. Many of the women associated the smell of jasmine flowers which grow in the gardens of many houses in Cyprus with their grandmothers. A couple of the women talked about their grandmothers enduring spousal abuse. A number shared funny stories about things their grandmothers did or said. There was laughter, and at the same time a box of tissues was passed around the circle, as many had lost their grandmothers more recently, the loss still tender.

The plan had been to develop our cyanotypes as a group outside in the sun, but the torrential rain meant that we had to switch to the backup plan. Eleni had brought a lightbox with her, so we took turns placing our negatives on our treated paper, covering them with glass, and placing them in the lightbox for one and a half minutes. Once the time was up we removed our images from the lightbox, rinsed them in water to remove any excess chemical residue, and hung them up to dry. There was a mysterious kind of magic in watching the blue cyanotype images of our beloved grandmothers slowly appear and then gradually darken on the paper. Hung up to dry on a makeshift clothesline that had been strung up across the room, it felt like the cyanotypes were giving our grandmothers the chance to meet each other from across time and space.

We each returned home with a large and small cyanotype of our grandmothers. I have the small one in a frame beside my bed. Waking up and going to sleep beside the image of my grandmother as a young woman is making me reflect more about her life and the ways in which we are both similar and different. I’ve been feeling thankful for the visual reminder to reflect on my family history and the ways that it has shaped who I am today.

Last night I attended the screening of a short (20-minute) documentary called With my own two hands directed by Elena Alonefti and starring Christaki Klitou, the last traditional candle-maker in Nicosia. The film was screened in the back garden of the Hambis Printmaking Museum in Nicosia’s old city—a beautifully restored former bakery. It was a clear night, a refreshing breeze blowing over the rooftops and down into the courtyard. Christaki was at the screening, and his presence made the gathering even more special to all of us who were present.

The documentary shares Christaki’s story, first as a casket craftsman, and more recently as a candle maker. Christaki makes traditional beeswax candles of all sizes, from the small candles that churches usually stock for visitors to light, to giant almost 2 metre tall candles. He also makes votive candles in the shapes of various body parts like ears, hearts, legs, feet, hands, heads, and even babies. Traditionally people would buy these votive candles when they or someone they loved was dealing with a health challenge. A candle in the shape of the part of the body that was ailing was purchased and left on the altar at the church along with heartfelt prayers in the hope that the offering might help heal the person who was suffering. Christaki told us that he has had a number of people who purchased votive candles from him return to thank him when the sick family member or friend got better, and one woman who had been trying to conceive for eight years returned to introduce him to her newborn child!

A number of times in the film Christaki’s emotions overtook him and he had to pause to collect himself. He shared that being a candle maker takes a special kind of person as you deal with the hopes, dreams, losses and griefs of people every day. He explained that to do the work well you have to have the capacity to hold space for pain alongside hope and healing. In this culture it is a rare thing for men to show tender emotions publicly. Watching Christaki talk about his work with such vulnerability and tender-heartedness moved many of us in the audience to tears.

Christaki shared in the film how in addition to sourcing beeswax from local beekeepers, he also collects candles that are being disposed of by churches, melts them down and reuses the wax to make his own candles. He explained that it means a lot to him to be working with recycled materials, and to know that nothing goes to waste. Most churches discard candles left by visitors within a week. On hearing this, one of the audience members asked “does God have time to answer their prayers?”

In the documentary, Christaki explains that he also recycles the wicks, giving them to bee-keepers to burn when they need to smoke out a hive to interrupt the natural defence mechanism of the bees so that the beekeepers can collect the honey. His comment made me curious, so I did some research. I’d heard that smoke is used by beekeepers to help them collect honey without getting stung, but I had never understood how something that seems to me like it should cause panic could possibly calm the bees down. Apparently, when bees are disturbed they release an alert pheromone to signal to the guard bees to attack the aggressor. Smoke overpowers these chemical signals, preventing or lessening the aggressiveness of the response. Smoke also mimics what happens in a forest fire, which triggers bees to eat as much honey as they can as a survival tactic, storing up energy in case they have to leave their hive and set up another one elsewhere. Eating such a large quantity of honey makes the bees sluggish and distends their abdomens, which makes it difficult for them to either fly or position their bodies at the angle they would need to in order to sting.

Christaki shared with us that to make a set of medium-sized candles it takes him around three hours, and that he may dip the candles into the wax up to 200 times! Watching him do the work I was impressed by the stamina needed to dip a row of candles that are getting progressively heavier into the vat of wax that many times. He also explained that most of the churches in Cyprus now source their candles from factories that use paraffin wax to make their candles, which is much cheaper (but unhealthier to work with and inhale the smoke from). He sells his larger candles for around 20 euro (which seemed inexpensive to me given how long each one takes to make). He shared that when he does sell to the church, he his smaller candles go for less than a euro each, but he has noticed that the church is often charging the public 2-3 euro per candle, and companies that organise baptisms regularly double or triple the price before selling to the public.

Christaki explained that the art of both traditional and votive candles will likely die with his generation, as there seems to be no real interest by the younger generation in continuing the craft. The art of votive candle-making is one that he is particularly sad to see lost, as it requires greater skill, so it is helpful to learn the art from someone more experienced (he himself learned from observing and helping a family member). He uses wooden moulds that he has created himself for many of the votive candles, but some he shapes by hand. Christaki is the last candle maker in Nicosia, and he says there are fewer than fifteen of his kind left in Cyprus. After the question period I went to ask him if he would consider offering workshops so that young people could learn. At first he shook his head and told me that he didn’t have the stamina to offer workshops on top of his work, but eventually he said that he didn’t think anyone would come—that in all the years he has been doing the work only two young women had ever expressed an interest in learning from him, and even they had never followed up. I found myself wishing that I lived closer so that I could help him organise a workshop. I’m hoping that as more people watch Elena’s documentary and share Christaki’s story, it helps to connect him with some young people with an interest in continuing the art form so that some formal workshops could be organised.

I walked back to my accommodation last night appreciating the city being all lit up. I find the night is one of the best times to appreciate the architecture of the city. It isn’t too hot, and with the arrival of the warmer weather people are out enjoying food and music late into the night every night of the week. This week the Muslim community is celebrating Kurban Bayram, a four-day feast of sacrifice that is commemorated with prayer, charitable giving and gatherings with friends and family. As I walked home the cafes and restaurants were filled and overflowing with the joyful, celebratory energy of the festival. An open house for the attendees of a culture and antiquities conference was being held in the city’s old town hall (now a cultural and event space, which sits on one of the city’s eleven Venetian bastions). The live music drifted across Eleftheria square as I passed by. Below me people strolled through the gardens in the moat that encircles the old city. It seemed like everyone was out enjoying the beauty of the night. I soaked up the buzz of the festivities as I walked, ever so thankful to be home.

As a result of the whirlwind of preparations before my summer tenant arrived on PEI, last week’s blog post didn’t go out. I apologize for the delay! I promise this one will be worth the wait!

I landed in London early last Sunday morning. I’m a lover of peace and quiet, but there is something thrilling about landing at London’s Heathrow airport and suddenly being thrust into the surge of humans from all over the world flowing full-force toward immigration, through baggage claim, and then hauling bags down into the belly of the earth to access the miraculous world of the London underground system. At one time I found the London underground so intimidating that I would only ever navigate it with the help of a dear friend who lived in the city for many years, and who I would visit when I passed through. But she and her family moved to Toronto a few years ago, so it was either stop visiting London, or come up with a way to navigate around the city on my own with greater ease. In 2024 one of my Airbnb hostesses turned me on to the lifechanging app Citymapper. It is similar to Google Maps, but I find it easier and more intuitive to use for tube and bus travel in London. You enter where you are and where you want to go, and it gives you all your options for getting there, tells you how much each one costs, and then tracks your progress as you go so you know how many more stops you have before you reach your destination. It also provides you with live updates, so if there is a delay or cancelation it will suggest alternate routes. Knowing where I am and how to get everywhere I want to go in the city completely changed my relationship with London. It has become one of my favourite cities in the world.

A couple of years ago I came across an Airbnb right in the heart of central London that has become my home when I’m in the city. The bedroom is tiny, and the bed is a single, but honestly when I am in London the only time I am at my accommodation is when I need to sleep or bathe, and my hosts Marco and Roberto are from the south of Italy and are the most wonderful human beings. Marco is an avid gardener, and he has transformed the back patio of his apartment, which would otherwise be bare stone and cement, into a little Eden bursting with flowers and foliage. Every time I visit there is a sea of things in bloom. His favourites are the Dahlias, of which he grows an endless and ever-changing variety every summer, but he also has a wide diversity of other plants. I so enjoy waking up in the morning and wandering straight out onto the back patio to take in the light of the day and admire the vibrant colours of his garden!

One of the other things I love about staying at this particular spot is that it allows me to walk to most of the central places I want to visit without having to get on the Tube if I don’t want to. London is an enormous, sprawling city. If you stay further out walking everywhere would take so long you would spend the entire day getting there. But from my little spot I can get to the Tate Modern, The National Gallery, the main shopping areas and the theatre district within 40 minutes by foot. I love to walk, and over time I have found a scenic route that takes me past Saint Paul’s Cathedral, over the Millenium Bridge, along Southbank, and then back over the Thames on the Golden Jubilee Bridge. It would be faster to just stay north of the Thames, but it isn’t nearly as beautiful a walk.

I’m a lover of art galleries, and last year I decided to become a member at the Tate, which gives me access to the exhibits at all the Tate galleries. On every trip through London I have gone to see at least one, and usually two or three exhibits at the Tate Modern and Tate Britain. This time most of the larger galleries in London were between exhibits—a number having just come down and the next big ones not having gone up yet. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Frida Kahlo exhibit in September when I pass back through London. It opens this June.

I browsed what is showing at the Tate Modern right now, which is an exhibit of contemporary art called A Second Life, by Tracey Emin (whose father was Turkish Cypriot) and had lunch in the members only café, which has a birds-eye view of the city and the Thames. The café was packed, so I ended up sharing a table with two former principals of very alternative creative elementary schools—one in the British countryside and the other in Denmark. Over the hour we spent together we talked about transforming the education system, and what is possible with early childhood education when you throw out the old systems of thinking and doing things and dream something entirely new into existence. As they talked I found myself envious of the children that had had the good luck of attending elementary schools overseen by these two creative thinkers.

London has my favourite bookstores in the world. A couple of years ago I made a list of all the bookstores I wanted to visit in the city, and then went all over the city visiting one after another. I may need to do a post about that one of these days! This time, since my stopover was short, I stuck to one of my favourites: Hatchards. I spent most of my time browsing the new fiction. My other favourite sections are poetry, travel, nature and food writing. I left with Maggie O’Farrell’s I am. I am. Iam, Melissa Harrison’s The Given World, and Florence Knapp’s The Names. Sometimes I wish I could take a sleeping bag with me and spend the night reading at Hatchards. It is the kind of bookstore I have a very hard time leaving!

As I walked past the Southbank Centre, I noticed that there was a concert being put on that night called Orbiting Spheres and Northern Stars: an evening of sonic marvels with conductor Anna-Maria Helsing and the BBC Concert Orchestra, so I bought a ticket. A few hours later I was in a packed theatre listening to the planets spin and getting to hear a new cello concerto written by composer Tebogo Monnakgotla and performed by cellist Senja Rummukainen about the drama of the lives of bees in the hive. I was struck by how the vibrations of the wings of the bees seemed to echo the vibrations of the orbiting spheres in space. Every time I come to London if there is something I am interested in at the Southbank Centre I try to get a ticket. I have seen Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová perform there as well as Abel Selaocoe and the Manchester Collective, which was one of the most magical concerts I’ve ever seen. I highly recommend trying to catch at least one show there when/if you find yourself in London.

I love to be out during the day, but I enjoy walking through London just as much late at night after the event I have attended has ended. There are fewer people out on the streets, and there is a peacefulness to the city that you just can’t experience during the day when the city is flooded with people. I also find it a superb time of day to enjoy the architecture.

I began my second and last full day in the city by taking a yoga class taught by Em at Yoga with Em in Hampstead. I came across Em a year ago. She teaches yoga classes in several historic buildings in Hampstead so that attendees can practice yoga while also celebrating the architectural beauty of the area. I loved this idea, so I signed up for two classes with her in the fall: one at Christ Church, a historic church in Hampstead, and one at Burgh House—a beautiful old house that is used as an art gallery/museum now and has a wonderful café in the basement—a superb place for brunch after yoga! This time she was teaching at Quaker House. I savoured the scent of the roses in bloom in the garden while I waited for her to arrive for class.

Previous classes I’ve taken with her have been more vigorous. This class was restorative—a combination of Tai chi and yoga. The slow, breath-based class while bathed in warm morning sunshine pouring in the eastern windows was soothing and grounding. The perfect way to begin my final day in London.

After yoga I walked down the hill to Ginger and White for porridge with fresh berries and a hot cup of their house blend tea (hot water with fresh mint, a cinnamon stick and a slice of orange). From there I stopped at Marley’s Bakery to pick up a gluten free pastry. The bakery is on a tiny alley next to Dijon, a wonderful gluten-free pizza place that I discovered last fall. Both are must-do’s if you are a gluten-free visitor to London.

One thing I had been wanting to do while in Hampstead in the fall that I never got around to because of the weather was visit Kenwood House—a historic house on Hampstead Heath. Of the 2.5 days I was in London, my last day was the first time the sun came out, so I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and walk across the Heath and for tea in the garden café at Kenwood House. The walk was gorgeous. The sky was bright, the trees full of birdsong. I settled at the café with a book and had a cup of tea in the afternoon sun.

I walked back to the tube station the long way, putting my phone away, and meandering along pathways across the heath, allowing myself to get a little lost along the way. The roses and lilacs sweetened the air, but it was the rhododendrons that stole the show with their flamboyant vibrantly hued blossoms.

I walked back through Hampstead, taking in the beautifully tended homes and gardens along the way before catching the tube back to my Airbnb to pack up and prepare for a very early morning departure for Cyprus the next day.

I have now visited London in late fall, early winter, spring and summer, and there is always something interesting going on—some particular kind of beauty flourishing, some incredible cultural event to get immersed in. I’m looking forward to summer in Cyprus and Greece, but I will enjoy being back in London for another visit in September!

Have you been to London? Do you have favourite spots you revisit every time you go? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below this post so I can add them to my itinerary in the fall!

I. There is a tradition in Cyprus (and I believe in Greece also) that when you receive a plate filled with food you return it filled with some other kind of food. Last night my neighbours Chrysa and Giorgos brought me a plate filled with watermelon—juicy and sweet. Belly full, I washed the plate, and the following morning while on the roof picking figs for breakfast I picked some for my neighbours also. I piled the plate with figs and left it outside their house.

A few days later I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, Chrysa was standing on my front steps holding the same plate, this time filled with roasted tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and zucchinis stuffed with rice, onions, spices and tuna. The vegetables had been baked until they were golden. I had never had vegetables stuffed with rice and tuna before. In Cyprus we make a similar dish, but it is stuffed with rice and ground beef. I feasted on her offering over the next few days, dividing it up into portions to make it last as long as possible. Food prepared by Greek women is the closest I’ve ever come to having an out of body experience. The skill with which they combine ingredients, the beautiful presentation and the sublime flavours of the finished dishes—all of it is an art form carefully passed down through generations of women.

Three days later the plate was clean and staring at me accusingly from the kitchen counter. I tried to come up with something else to fill it with, but quickly realized that there was literally nothing that I knew how to prepare that would rival Chrysa’s stuffed vegetables, so I apologetically returned the empty plate, thanking her for her generosity.

That evening while I was out watering the garden I heard odd noises coming from the front yard of the little stone house I was renting. I climbed up on the wall and peered down through the bougainvillea to see what was going on. My neighbour Giorgos was out front harvesting the papoutsosika (prickly pear) from the enormous and very spiny cactus out front. He had built a homemade tool for harvesting the fruit without getting spines stuck in his fingers: a plastic cup attached to the end of a broomstick. He pressed the papoutsosika into the end of the cup until it was wedged there, and then loosened the fruit from the branch. I complimented him on the effectiveness of his approach. He smiled good naturedly and replied “I found it on YouTube!”

II. Every morning on Tilos the first thing I do when I wake up is slip on my flip flops and climb the ladder to the roof to watch the sun rise over the bay and pick fresh figs from the giant tree in the neighbour’s yard. Every day a few more have ripened enough that they are starting to crack open and are ready to be picked and enjoyed. In the heat of the summer the oozing figs attract hornets, the tree vibrating with their feeding frenzy. I take a bowl up with me and fill it with fruit, choosing my figs carefully so that I make sure to leave a few for the hornets.

Once my bowl is full and the sun has fully risen, I climb down and prepare breakfast: a bowl of creamy goat’s milk yoghurt with fresh figs, walnuts I get from Zafiris at the convenience store just down the hill, and honey harvested from local hives. I savour it on the patio in the shade of the exuberant bougainvillea vine that I wired up to the metal trellis earlier in the summer. The light spilling over the table, my breakfast, my hands, arms and shoulders, even Kevin the cat asleep on the low wall beside me and the cement patio beneath my feet all have a warm pink glow from the collage of hot pink flowers floating over me like clouds.

III. The local fish seller’s arrival in his pickup truck on Tilos is announced every day with a piercing “PSARI!” (“FISH!”). If you are standing nearby you jump out of your skin he says it with such force, and at a pitch that reverberates across the entire village and up the stone pathways and stairs that climb the hill between the houses. I am sitting in the village square having a coffe with a friend when he arrives, and we are both craving fresh fish, so she heads over to see what he has. I watch from a distance while my friend inspects what he has and deliberates over what to get. A minute later she and the fisherman cross the street and disappear into the local Kafenieion (coffee shop), she carrying a plastic bag that appears to contain fish. A few minutes later, expecting her to re-emerge with a cup of coffee in one hand and fish in the other, I see her cross the street holding nothing but the bag of fish. “What happened?” I ask. She shrugs. “The seals ate almost all of his fish today, so all he had were a few tiny fish. When I tried to pay him for them he said I could just take two for free. When I insisted, he said I could buy him a coffee in exchange for the fish.”

Later that day my friend prepared a feast for us of roasted vegetables along with the delicious fish she had gotten us—all in exchange for a morning cup of coffee!

IV. My friend Rionagh lets me harvest handfuls of almonds from her tree in the village of Lasa in the fall. I have known Rionagh since I was a child, and her almond tree has always seemed like a magical tree to me because it grows straight out of the rock in her tiny back garden, and it seems to yield a plentiful harvest of nuts year after year without fail. I fill a bag with nuts and she loans me a nutcracker that I take back to my campsite with me. Perched barefoot on a handmade village chair that I found, I crack and eat almonds straight from the shell while I read in the shade of the olive tree that I have come to claim as my own—not because I feel I own it, but because it feels like home. Rionagh’s almonds are my favourites. Their meat is sweet and crunchy. I take in the view while I snack. In front of me is the shimmering turquoise water of Polis Bay, and beyond that the Kyrenia mountains, crisp against the clear blue sky.

V. Aphrodite’s Eco-Campsite in Akamas, Cyprus has a plentiful number of carob trees that yield some of the largest, most flavourful carob pods I have ever seen. In the late fall the owners hire a crew that comes in, harvests the carob and hauls it away to be made into carob syrup and flour. But before the official harvest there are a few weeks where the carob on the trees is up for grabs, and my only competitors are the goats that rumble through the campsite every morning and evening in a cloud of dust looking for sweet treats. Watching the goats eat carob pods from the trees is a daily source of amusement. To reach the pods they have to rear up on their back legs so that their front legs and heads completely disappear into the leafy branches of the trees. All you can see is their hind legs teetering around beneath the trees trying to hold their bodies up vertically. Carob pods are dark brown and hard on the outside, but if you chew the pod until it cracks open you can suck the sweet juice and flesh from inside it. It is similar to chocolate in many ways, but naturally sweet, so you don’t have to add artificial sweeteners. It is one of my absolute favourite fall treats.

VI. In November while house-sitting in Lasa I begin to take breakfast foraging walks. This morning I walk down the hill in the direction of the village of Fyti and the stand of oak trees that stretches across the hills, turn right along a smaller lane that skirts the hillside, and then take a footpath that angles downward into the valley. Along the way I pass vines laden with clusters of purple grapes hanging over a collapsing stone wall. A number of the vineyards in the valley look abandoned—maybe because the owners are too elderly to tend them, or maybe because they are living abroad. I pause to harvest handfuls of grapes that I carry with me, popping one after another into my mouth, the juice sweet and refreshing.

A little further along is a pomegranate tree, its branches almost touching the ground they are so heavy with fruit. I pick a pomegranate that has cracked open in the sun, exposing its vibrant ruby red seeds, and break it open to snack on as I continue walking. At the lowest point of the path I pass beneath a stand of giant oaks. I pause to appreciate the elegant twist of their trunks, gracefulness of their limbs, and the gift of shade that they lend to the path.

On my way back up the hill the aroma of mandarins fills the air. When I finally locate the tree, the fruit is just barely ripe. I peel a tiny mandarin, tossing its peel into a field, and pull apart the translucent sections that glow in the morning sunlight. The tartness of the juice makes my eyes water. I arrive back at the house fully satiated, ready for the start of another day.

VII. This morning I walk down the hill toward Drymou. It is a sunny morning, the pomegranate trees still fully laden with fruit, the foliage on the vines in the vineyards undulating across the hills various shades of gold and plum.

The mosfilo (hawthorn berry) trees are covered in hundreds of tiny golden suns which I stop to pick and snack on as I walk. They are fully ripe now—the perfect balance of sour and sweet—a real treat as I proceed down the hill, soaking up the warm sunlight.

I stop at a little chapel to light candles in honour of loved ones who have passed away and whisper a prayer.

Beyond the chapel light streams through the grape leaves reminding me of stained glass in a cathedral. Every plant is haloed and the anise bushes are setting seed. I pluck bunches of them from the plants and crush them between my fingers, the smell instantly taking me back to my childhood and the endless hours of playing outdoors with my friends, nobody knowing where we were or when we would be home. I walk to the bottom of the hill and then turn around and climb it again, enjoying the burning sensation in my legs as they propel me upwards.

Back in the village of Lasa I notice an enormous fig tree whose upper branches are full of fat purple figs. They are too high for me to reach, but I stop to admire them nonetheless. The pomegranate trees leaning over walls and fences in the village are likewise covered in vibrant crimson fruit, swollen and cracking.

I pause along the way to take photos and find myself wishing I could purchase one of one of the abandoned stone houses and move in full time. Many of those born in Lasa ended up emigrating to Australia and South Africa, the United Kingdom and the Unites States over the years for work, but recently a few of their descendants have started returning to begin fixing up their ancestral homes with the intention of moving back to the island permanently once they retire.

When I get back to my friend’s house I water the garden. Everything is parched and in desperate need of moisture. Once it has had a deep drink the rose geranium fills the air with the overpowering scent of roses. The garden shimmers in the late morning sunshine. Back inside I fill a pot with water and boil fresh black eyes peas with a bunch of chard given to me by a neighbour who has an impressive vegetable garden. The aroma of beans, olive oil and lemon juice fills the kitchen.

VIII. In February my friend Katerina and I go on a road trip along the Karpasia peninsula to enjoy the wildflowers and forage for wild asparagus, one of the bounties that the peninsula yields in what we would consider the middle of winter in Canada, but what in Cyprus is actually the beginning of spring. I have no experience with asparagus foraging, but Katerina is an expert. We move across the rocky, shrub-studded landscape slowly—careful not to crush the narcissus and anemones whose pastel flowers dot the ground, our eyes searching for the foliage of the asparagus plant. It is incredibly well camouflaged, its ability to blend in with the plants around it its primary form of defense. When we find a plant we crouch down low to harvest the tender spears. Wild asparagus is far more bitter than the cultivated variety you find at the supermarket, but cooked properly it has become one of my favourite winter treats. My friend Katerina stir-fries the asparagus spears with olive oil and a little lemon which takes the bitterness out of it, and sprinkles it with sea salt. She likes to eat it with scrambled eggs. When we sit down to enjoy the feast she has prepared for us the air is sweet—she has placed a bouquet of wild narcissus that she collected on our adventure in a vase on her kitchen table.

Over the last few years I have been on the other side of the world for a portion of my year. This year is going to be no exception. I leave in early May to head back to Cyprus and Greece for the summer, and am looking for opportunities for house and pet-sitting in London in September on my way back to Canada. It is a little bit of a jolt to the system navigating through the seasons the way I have been lately. There is very tiny taste of the savouring of the slow shift from spring into summer. Spring in Cyprus began in February, and after a much wetter winter than the island has had in years, my friends have been sending me magical photos of fields teeming with poppies and tulips for weeks now. By the time I get there in mid-May most of the wildflowers will already be done with their flamboyant show for the year, and the merciless sun will already be starting to bleach out the landscape. I may have missed wildflower season, but I will arrive just as the coastal waters are warming for the season, and as an avid sea swimmer I cannot wait for lots of good long swims, hopefully at least one sea turtle sighting, and some quality time with dear friends whose company I’ve missed this winter.

The last few weeks on Prince Edward Island have been cold and icy—a combination of freezing rain, snow and sleet. Three days ago the sun finally made an appearance, and I have been savouring the different quality of the light in my home as the season begins to shift gears. The light seems to be giving my house a warm glow. It feels much warmer even though the temperature hasn’t risen significantly. As I was writing this I saw a skunk out for a stroll in my back yard…not my favourite animal by any stretch of the imagination, but it is good to see wildlife out and about as the temperature rises.

This winter and early spring I’ve been working on a mosaic of index cards that is now spread across my living room floor. It is intended to help me edit my novel. I have summarized the storyline on cards, giving each character their own colour. My story is set mostly in Cyprus, and the island itself is an important character. I have assigned it the colour blue because I find the light in Cyprus always has a slightly blue tinge to it, the Mediterranean sea has taught me that there are millions of hues of blue for which we do not have names, and the Troodos mountains always look like someone has swept a paintbrush saturated with blue watercolour over them. Spreading my cards out across the carpet has helped me to see which sections of the story are place-heavy, and which might perhaps benefit from a little more place woven in, where certain characters appear a lot, and how each character meanders through the story. I am a very visual person, and so while I will very shortly dive into actual line-editing on my computer, colour-mapping the story on cards has helped me to get a better sense of how the story is flowing, where I need to cut and consolidate sections of text, and where I might want to expand and elaborate.

Read more

In a world where beauty was narrowly defined by models who looked absolutely nothing like me, my mother somehow succeeded in teaching me that there was beauty in being strong, healthy and fit. Thankfully neither peer pressure, nor the criticism and attempts to get me to lose weight by some of my gymnastics coaches ever resulted in my wanting to undereat or diet obsessively. I have always felt entirely at home in my body—thankful for its strength and grace, its power and resiliency, and its ability to allow me to farm, travel, volunteer, hike, swim and run long distances. I am at home in my body when I am resting or reading a good book…but I am most at home when I’m moving—particularly in nature.

I think one of the reasons that I love Cyprus and the Greek islands so much is that there are easily accessible opportunities for movement out in the natural world year-round without the need for extended travel to access them. I have written about the Greek island of Tilos in my last two posts. This week I want to share a little about one of my favourite hikes on Tilos, which connects the port town of Livadia with Lethra. The walk, which I did more than any other last summer, brought me so much joy (and was short enough that I could hike out and back before the heat of the day made hiking unbearable). Summer hiking in both Greece and Cyprus—particularly if you are navigating through terrain that is lacking in trees—means finding routes that are long enough that you feel like you got a real walk in, but short enough that you can fit them in early in the morning or in the hours of the evening when it is slightly cooler, but before it gets dark. If you are a mover like me, and Tilos makes it onto your itinerary, I highly recommend lacing up your hiking boots and taking the walk to Lethra! Below is a description of one of my hikes to Lethra, along with some photos, as it is hard to do the views and light justice without them.

Lethra & the red beach

This morning I set my alarm for 5.50 am and was climbing the hill between Livadia and the start of the trail by 6.30 am, pausing to savour the radiant colour of the dawn to the east, and the refreshing early morning breeze that faded with the sunrise. By the time I reached the trailhead the sun was already blazing a shimmering, honey-hued pathway across the calm surface of the sea. The trail began at the top of a paved road that dead ends just above Ilidi Rock Hotel—one of the more luxurious hotels in Livadia that is built into the steep cliffside. In order to reach the gate that keeps the wild goats from wandering off the trail and into Livadia, I walked past a number of hotel apartments with spectacular views of the bay, a broken down VW Bug that has an assortment of flowering plants growing out of it (my kind of car!), and passed beneath a tunnel of blooming bougainvillea vines that were streaming with sunlight, which made me feel like I was inside a chapel on a sunny day.

Once I had secured the trailhead gate behind me, I continued down a steep gravel pathway, the rock and earth of the cliff face to my left warm against my palms. To my right it was a sheer drop all the way down to the sea—which on this particular day was mesmerizing crystal-clear swirls of every blue imaginable. I stopped a couple of times to turn and appreciate Livadia bay behind me, the whitewashed houses still relatively quiet. The town had not yet begun to stir.

The humidity on this particular morning was high. I could tell from the low-lying haze on the horizon, and the way that the wild thyme covering the hills was haloed—light illuminating the thick layer of morning dew that had settled on them overnight. I apologized to a family of pheasants whose peace I disturbed—they took off quickly, calling out indignantly as they flapped away. In the distance I could see goats grazing on the steep hillsides. I walked fairly quickly, appreciating the breeze on my bare legs.

I skirted the hills, winding my way along the narrow trail cut into the landscape. Not too far along the trail I saw two bays side by side, one of the which is known as red beach because of its distinctive red sand. The other has the most brilliant turquoise waters I have ever seen. I decided to take a detour and hike down to red beach on my way back to town if I made good time getting out to Lethra and back. The hike to red beach didn’t look too hard, but I could tell that the climb back up was going to be arduous because there’s no shade of any kind.

I continued along the footpath, following the contours of the hills. Donkey island appeared to my right, and beyond that the washed-out coast of Turkey in the distance. Blurred by the moisture-laden morning air, it looked like a mirage.

Before the trail curves northward I passed a plaque set into a rock on the edge of the hill that is dedicated to a woman named Ruth, who apparently loved this spot. Looking out, I can see why. (Two months after my first hike to Lethra this rock acquires personal significance when a dear friend also named Ruth who ran one of Cyprus’s best known independent bookstores, passes away. Every time I pass Ruth’s rock in the month of August I pause to remember my friend Ruth—a true book lover, and my first ever employer when I was a teenager with a growing love for reading and writing. I also say a quiet blessing for the Ruth who the plaque was originally placed for. I have a feeling that she and I would have been kindred spirits).

The trail gradually began to descend toward Lethra. The water on this side of the island was so still that it looked like glass. I savoured the peace of such absolute stillness, and the reddish-brown rock that juts out of the water off the coast, mirroring the hues of the gorse and shrubs sprawling across the hillsides. I made it to the bottom of the hill and into the river valley, stopping to watch a baby goat forage for its breakfast. I didn’t want to scare him. He stopped eating and fixed me with a curious gaze. For a moment we both remained completely still—me appreciating his beauty and how well adapted he is to this environment, and him attempting to decide if I was a threat or not. When I finally moved, he bounded off, leaping over stones and shrubs until he disappeared under a carob tree. A little further down the path I ran into two older goats, one with an impressive set of horns. They acknowledged my presence before continuing with their day, clearly far less perturbed by my presence. As I traversed the last bit of path to the beach, I noticed how the sunlight was illuminating every single blade of dry grass, turning it golden. It quivered in the morning breeze.

Down on the pebbled shore I dropped my backpack under my favourite tree and sat to have a drink of water and enjoy the view. Donkey Island was to my right—so close it felt like I could reach out and touch it…a friend told me that she has swum all the way around it from this very beach, a fact I find impressive given the island’s size. In front of me Lethra Bay shimmered in the morning sun, and beyond that was the coast of Turkey. To my left the hill climbed steeply from the beach, the headland embroidered with hand-built stone walls. The love and tenderness with which those who once lived here and farmed this land cared for their tiny fields astounds me. We have similar walls in Cyprus, but not many in such rugged, inhospitable areas. Here every inch of ground—even hills so steep that they look more like cliffs—is walled off. Someone farmed this land, harvested their crops, and then painstakingly hauled their produce by donkey and on foot along the narrow footpaths like the one I had just walked along all the way to Micro Chorio, Megalo Chorio and Livadia. The level of hardship that the permanent inhabitants of Tilos lived with leaves me in awe. As much as all the abandoned farmland on Tilos saddens me, I completely understand why people chose to give up farming to pursue an income from tourism. I love farming, but I can imagine how hard it must have been to tease sellable crops out of this stony, arid soil in a place with so little rain. As I admired what remains of all their hard work, I found myself wishing I could meet the people who tended these particular fields and built these walls by hand. Instead I appreciated the love they traced across the island with stone and seed.

It was starting to warm up so I stripped down, put on my goggles and slid into the water. It was a treat to swim this coast on a calm day. The other times I’d been here the waves were churned up, water visibility limited. I swam across the bay, parallel to the shore. The water was teeming with clouds of tiny silver fish. They congregated in clouds that slowly drifted through the water, flicking this way and that, sparkling in the underwater light as if someone has just tapped the water with a magic wand, leaving a trail of stardust in their wake. I swam through a few groups of smaller brown fish with pronged tails and a few groups of yellow and white fish with long dark lines running the length of their bodies. Skimming the bottom I saw two stick fish about a foot long each. They looked like they could do serious damage if they set their minds to it—resembling javelins. They never seem to get aggressive, but I kept a safe distance just in case.

Seeing a fish with giant wings that resemble an underwater silk butterfly near the pebbled sea floor, I dove deeper to investigate. A lionfish hung in the water just beneath the lip of a large boulder, its wings rippling in slow motion. I floated above it for a while appreciating its beauty…I’ve heard this is an invasive species, and I believe it. It looks like an exotic underwater peacock strutting its stuff.

I swam along to a smaller beach, and beyond that to examine the cliffs. From the sea level down the rocks were dark brown. Above water level they were white marbled with terracotta. They looked like they may have once been lava that solidified. Ancient rock that is stable now, but whose undulating lines tell the story of heat and motion. I floated in the water taking in all the layers before returning to the beach. It was getting hotter—time for me to head back if I wanted to stop at the red beach without getting heat stroke.

As I emerged from the water a black snake slithered across the stones of the beach and under some larger boulders. Black snakes like this one are not dangerous to humans. I watched as it raised its alert head and turned back to watch me, its tail curled around a rock. It vanished beneath the stones as I settled down for more water and a banana. I rested and dried off.

The sun was quickly climbing higher in the sky. Fortunately the wind also picked up—the surface of the water becoming patterned with thousands of tiny divots. I thanked Lethra bay for having me and found my way back to the pathway that heads back up the river valley. I passed more goats along the path, pausing to wish them a good morning before continuing on up the hill. A few minutes later I was at the top again, looking down on the fields dotted with carob and olive trees, trails of stone walls and low-lying herbaceous shrubs. Goats slowly meandered across the land, continuing to enjoy their morning munch.

I took a detour on my way back to Livadia to make my way down to the red beach that I had seen from the trail. It was even more vibrant up close. I was amused that I had gone out of my way just to swim in the one bay with red sand when I live on Prince Edward Island in Canada—an island that is famous for its red soil and sandy beaches! It felt like a little bit of PEI had popped up on Tilos. I went for another swim, taking in the contrast between the vibrant red sand and the sharp clear blue of the water, which was teeming with fish. I crouched where the waves were breaking on the beach to look at pebbles while I dried off in the sun.

I was glad that I’d made the effort to get down to the red beach, but the steep, shadeless climb back up to the trail turned out to be just as unforgiving as I thought it might be. By the time I made it back to the trail I was dripping with sweat. As soon as I got back to the little stone house I was renting I stripped down and took a cold shower. The cool water felt like a little piece of heaven. I rinsed out my swimming costume and clothes, and hung them on the line outside to dry with my towel. My phone told me that the humidity level was 98%. By the time I was settled at my writing desk with a cold drink my entire body was wet with sweat again. I turned the fan on. Outside the cicadas throbbed.

There is an excitement to visiting a place for the first time. At every turn there is a new view you have never seen before, and the constant awareness that you aren’t quite sure where you are going makes you pay closer attention to the trail and instructions than you otherwise might. But there is a precious gift in staying somewhere long enough that you get to visit the same place multiple times. You know the way, so you are less concerned with getting lost, and you begin to notice things that you simply couldn’t the first time because so much of your attention was on the trail, the map and the direction you are headed in. The subtleties of place reveal themselves to you slowly, a little more every time you visit. Altogether I visited Lethra a total of 8 times over three months. It isn’t a long hike, and I found doing it first thing in the morning made the rest of the day feel so much more expansive. Every time I visited was a little different, and when I think of Lethra now the image that comes to mind is a composite of all of my memories.

I will share more about some other Tilos walks in future posts, but for now I encourage you to get off your devices and get outside to explore a new or well-beloved trail near you this weekend. Have a beautiful weekend, friends!

The first time I visited the abandoned village of Micro Chorio was on my birthday in mid-June. Up at dawn to beat the sun, I climbed the hill to the trailhead—a gate in a fence at the top edge of the town of Livadia, and then took the old, hand-built stone footpath that connects Livadia to Micro Chorio, which in English means small village. …

Read more

Yesterday I called a man on the Greek island of Tilos about an apartment that I hope to rent for a couple of weeks this summer because the owner of the little stone house that I called home last year will be staying there herself this year when I am there. My conversation with Mr. Antonis was entirely about the accommodation, the daily rate, the fact that it doesn’t have AC (it will be August—the hottest month of the year in Greece). He assured me that the part of the island where the apartment is always has a breeze, and that I won’t need AC—I’m having to trust that he is right because I cannot afford any of the island’s AC-equipped accommodations for two full weeks during peak tourism season when I will be on the road for multiple months at a time. We also discussed whether there was stable internet in the apartment (he assured me that there is. Again, I’m taking a leap of faith here, and hoping for the best). When the phone call ended there was a giant smile spread across my face simply because the entire conversation had been in Greek, and speaking and listening to this language, no matter what is being discussed, brings my heart so much joy.

I’ve never been able to explain it, but there are different parts of me that come alive when I am back in Cyprus and Greece. Perhaps speaking Greek stimulates a different part of my brain. Or maybe the quality of the light and how it saturates the land and seascape just wake my spirit up in different ways. The why remains a bit of a mystery to me. I just notice that there is a different quality to my presence and attentiveness—an energy that infuses everything I see or do. It feels like I am shedding an outer layer of skin that has perhaps become desensitized to its environment over time to reveal the tender skin that is just waking up—delighting in the warmth of spring sunshine.

I wrote a poem many moons ago when I was 20 and doing my B.A. in northern Arizona about the internal compass that pulled me back to Cyprus every year. Back then my parents were still living on the island, so it was not just a return to the place that was calling me—it was also a return to the refuge of quality time with family. A gift and a privilege, the annual return has also always felt essential to my survival in a similar way to how saltwater creatures cannot live for long in fresh water.

I went looking for the poem this week and I thought I would share it with you here. My writing has changed a lot since then, but I think this poem captures an essential truth that remains with me today. It is written as two monologues side by side that can be read separately as two separate voices (my voice on one side, and Persephone’s on the other), and then as a conversation that can be read all the way across both columns as a back and forth between me and Persephone. I suggest reading each column separately before you read the piece as a single whole. My mother, an artist and sewing ninja, suggested that we print the poem on fabric and make a quilt with fabrics that were the colours of the Cypriot landscape. Gathering the fabrics and bringing together my words with her handiwork was a fun project that we completed when I was 20 years old. The photo below is a picture of the finished quilt with Conversation with Persephone printed on it.

One of the things that I want to share in this blog is glimpses into the vast beauty of the islands that I love so deeply. Since I’ve been thinking a lot about my three months on the Greek island of Tilos last summer, I thought I would start by opening some windows into the land, sea, light, colours and people of Tilos that moved me so much that I hope to be going back again this year for a shorter time. There are more windows that I would like to open than I can share in a single post, so I will share a few here, and a few in my next post, which I will share in March.

Window 1: Noticing a warm square of morning sunlight and rustling shadow of bougainvillea on the whitewashed kitchen wall upon waking. The cool stone floor against my bare feet as I make breakfast.

Window 2: Sitting on the rooftop watching the cherry red sun rise from a clear horizon into another scorching day. The air is still this morning. I hear the faint vibration of mournful music. I wonder, again, if it is the call to prayer from the coast of Turkey. What else could it be? It has a heft to it—a bone-level vibration that carries power- as if the earth is issuing forth a summons. My eyes watch the sunrise. My body feels the relief of the early morning breeze. But my ears remained tuned into this undercurrent of mournful early morning summons—a melody so faint I keep wondering if I am imagining it. I have heard it on a number of occasions now though, so surely I can’t be imagining it, can I? Is it an auditory fata morgana? Is hearing the call to prayer vibrate across Nicosia in Cyprus five times a day for so many years filling in the gaps for a sound my brain otherwise has no explanation for? Can you hear the call to prayer in Turkey from the coast of Tilos?

Window 3: Every day in the garden I see tiny flashes of blue disappearing under flowerpots and into cracks in the stone. It took me days to finally see all of this creature it was moving so quickly. But today I finally caught sight of it sunbathing against the white wall of the house: an intricately patterned black and white lizard with a shockingly bright blue tail. Google tells me it is a blue tailed skink, but my identification may be wrong. My search teaches me that there are many blue-tailed lizards. Apparently their tail is only this bright blue while they are young—a built-in protection to keep them safe by directing the attention of predators away from the core of their body. Their tiny bodies are essential for survival. They can survive without their brilliant tails. I seem to have two in my garden: one slightly larger, and the other one very tiny. Every time I catch one scurrying down a wall or across the patio outside, I stop to watch in awe. The blue is so bright it doesn’t seem like it could possibly be natural, and yet there it is. I’ve developed quite a fondness for my two resident lizards. Looking for them while I water the garden has become one of my favourite morning activities.

Window 4: This morning I woke before sunrise and sat on the roof next to the fig tree getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes in order to enjoy the sunrise. The horizon a grey violet transitioning into pastel rose/red and then orange, then yellow the higher up I looked until it faded into a washed out blue. A pale watercolour sky. Too faded for oils or acrylics. The water was a collage of gunpowder grey interrupted by silver bands where light met stillness. Eight boats are anchored in the bay this morning, and one just pulling out—making the most of the relative calm before storm. They say strong winds are on the way, so many of the tourists are leaving today—earlier than intended because they are worried about missing flights. You cannot just make a plan here—it is always dependent on wind and water. You have to have a contingency plan, and be willing to adjust your course to accommodate mother nature’s whims. While it makes it more challenging to come and go, there is something about it that I like. It reminds me of Prince Edward Island in winter when every event identifies an alternate date just in case it has to be cancelled due to a snowstorm. In Canada the element that shapes movement is ice. Here it is the wind in dialogue with the sea.

Just before the sun peaked up over Turkey I climbed up to the neighbour’s rooftop—there is a less interrupted view of the horizon to the east from there as it is above the electrical wires. Kevin, my resident cat followed me up—a steady reminder me that I had not yet given him his breakfast. I watched the sun rise over the Turkish peninsula—it looks like a distant island – mountains rising out of the sea veiled in early morning light. The sunrise is fiery and hot, blazing a warm pathway across the sea. Birds swoop overhead in morning play. The throbbing vibration of cicadas is already loud—a sign that it will be another very hot day. I inhale the early morning air. Somewhere a rooster crows. It is time for tea.

Window 5: I have no internet in my little stone house, and I get no data signal from the house or patio I am staying at unless I go up to the roof. I am actually loving not having a way to get online—I write far more, have started painting, and feel far more present without it, but sometimes I do have to respond to emails and texts from family and friends. I’ve learned that if I hold my phone up from the rooftop above the bathroom my phone eventually finds the signal, and once it has found it I can bring it back down to the patio and use it happily for a little while. If I carry my phone into the house to refill my glass of water however it loses the signal again, and I am clamoring back up the stairs to the roof to help it find its way again! With time I have started to find this guiding of the signal in order to connect with loved ones to be an amusing part of my day. I am thankful that I am not dependent upon reliable internet for work this summer.

Window 6: My neighbour, an older woman with a heart of gold named Matia, has the most beautiful Frangipani tree. It arches over the wall of her garden giving the blessed gift of shade to the cement stairs that climb up the hill to my little house. Every time I pass beneath the tree I stop to gather any flowers that have fallen. I gingerly carry them home to put into little bowls of water that I keep on the table outside on the patio, and on my writing desk. The sweet perfume reminds me of my childhood in Cyprus. Gathering shed flowers has become an almost daily ritual as I hike back up the hill from my early morning swims. The activity lends a sweet, celebratory quality to almost having reached the top, because I am usually completely out of breath at that point, and dripping with sweat. I pause momentarily, savour the slightly cooler air, and then proceed on up to the house to carry on with my day.

Window 7: Like most days, I started today with a long, vigorous swim. It always feels so good to be in the water in the morning. When I arrive early enough the sea is usually calm—almost no ripples on surface and completely clear all the way down. Light dances across the underwater seascape, illuminating every fish, pebble and streaming clump of seagrass. I startle a cloud of miniature silver fish upon entering, and they disperse suddenly as if my body sliding into the water has electrified it and given them a shock. I always feel badly for disturbing their peace. I kick and pull my way away from the shore, swimming under water, taking in the cluster of small brown flecked fish with the two-pronged tails. Further out the beds of seagrasses wave in the current and open patches of pure white sand glimmer in the sunlight. Why do sea grasses grow in some areas and not in others?

A little further down I am suddenly floating through another cloud, this time of violet blue fish that have become my favourites. I need to take a course in the fish of the Dodecanese so that I can identify them by name. Deep beneath me I see a stick fish—much larger than the ones in Cyprus. They always look so menacing—as if they might shoot themselves at you, full-speed. But so far they never seem terribly interested in me as I swim past. As the sun climbs higher the blue of the water deepens. The surface sends ribbons of light over the grasses, my body, the fish, sand and stones. In some sections vertical beams of light comb the water from the top down, and in others it seems the depths are beaming strobes of light upwards to the surface.

I look up and suddenly the water is no longer clear or various shades of blue, but undulating deeper greens and blues – a reflection, I think, of the colour of the sea grass below me combined with the colour of the sky. As I swim I have a sense of being able to zoom further and further out until I can see the arrow of my body pulling itself through the blue waters as if I am sailing through a sky filled with puffy clouds of fish drifting in the currents, sometimes engulfing me in their cloud, and sometimes parting to let me pass through. There is a clarity in being able to pull back and zoom out to take in the bigger picture. It helps me to more fully appreciate the vastness and beauty of my surroundings.

Back on the pebbled beach I sit and let the waves break over my golden legs and feet. I study the stones rolling over each other as the waves push and pull. A ferry comes in to deliver a fresh batch of visitors to the island and carry just as many away. I shift further up the beach so that my head is in the shade of a tree. Gradually, more and more people arrive and settle on the beach. I sit and listen to chatter in Greek and English, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. My quiet solo time on the beach is over. I pack up and walk back up the hill to the house, shower and hang my bikini and towel out to drip dry on the line I have strung up in the garden. It will be bone dry in half an hour.

Settled at my writing desk, I appreciate the cheerful yellow and cream flowers posy of my neighbour Mrs. Matia’s frangipani flowers in the mason jar on the windowsill. The flowers give off a honeyed perfume in the heat of the day. I wade back into my writing.

See you in March for more views through windows (and possibly a few doors)!

Some people write at desks, in rooms dedicated to the act of writing: an office, study, reading room or creative studio. I’ve always written at my kitchen table. It is the room where my family gathered to enjoy meals together, and I grew up on the island of Cyprus, where life gravitates around the kitchen because there is an abundance of fresh, local food available all year long, and cooking and sharing food with loved ones is a universally understood love language.

I was back in Cyprus during the fall harvest months last year. In September one of my friends regularly brought me handfuls of almonds that she had picked from the tree in the garden of her village house. In October I helped friends to harvest their grapes and prepare the traditional Cypriot sousouko and palouze (more on this later in this post!). In November we were out in the fields with a truck full of nets to harvest olives, bumping past pomegranate trees whose branches were heavy with that ruby-hued fruit. As I was preparing to leave to return to Canada the very first, still-tart mandarins were coming ripe. Even now, as I sit here at my kitchen table on Prince Edward Island appreciating the beauty of the blue vase filled with bright red and yellow tulips that is sitting in front of my window, the first glorious sunshine I’ve seen in a week illuminating the ocean of snow that has filled my back garden, my friends in Cyprus have been sending me photos of fields awash with wild narcissus, hillsides teeming with violet, fuchsia and white anemones, and orange trees whose festive branches are adorned with a multitude of tiny orange suns. Two days ago I received an excited message from a dear friend who told me that she had just finished harvesting 100kg of lemons from her twenty-year-old tree. From that she had made 5 bottles of lemonade and multiple bottles of pure lemon juice, was able to gift bags of lemons to her neighbours, and STILL had a refrigerator overflowing with fruit for her family to enjoy!

While winter on Prince Edward Island (PEI) is more the season for rest, creative work and endless cups of strong tea around the wood stove than a time of abundant harvesting, this other island that has claimed part of my heart is also rich in flavourful local produce. Most famous for its potatoes, PEI also boasts an abundance of other agricultural crops including blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and black currants. It is famous around the world for its oysters and mussels, and I often see tourists heading home with fresh lobster on ice. Our local farmers’ market is a bustling community hub year-round.

Regardless of where I am, the kitchen has remained the heart-centre of my home. The table I am writing at today may not look all that interesting to anyone else, but it has special significance to me: it belonged to my grandmother, who left it to my mother, and it has now been passed on to me. It is where I enjoy meals, host friends, watch the birds congregating in the giant maple tree out back, and write. When I sit down to write, it makes a difference to me that the surface upon which I’m working holds so many good memories of time spent with family. It is a place of connection, celebration, gratitude, love and belonging.

This winter I’m working on editing my first novel. It is a beast of a document, and I am neck deep in the humble process of learning how to wrestle a book that will be the engaging and enjoyable read that I want for my readers from the book that I needed to write for myself, also known as the first draft. They say that you become the person who is capable of completing a book through the act of writing it. I’m hoping that they are right!

When I take breaks from editing, I’m working on planning my spring and summer back in the Mediterranean. I don’t know about you, but as someone with heart roots in multiple places, every present moment, wherever I am, always has little reminders of all the other places I love in it. Right now I am wholeheartedly here, appreciating the late afternoon sunlight, the brilliant blue sky, and the heating pad on my lap keeping me warm until I can install the wood stove of my dreams. Beside my vase of Tulips is a pebble with birds drawn on it and TILOS written across it with a permanent marker in a child’s wonky script. The children on the island of Tilos, where I spent all of last summer, regularly collected pebbles from the beach, drew on them, and then set up little stands along the seafront promenade where they would proudly sell their creations. I purchased a number of these from the island’s youngest creative entrepreneurs over the three months that I was there. Beside my Tilos pebble is a seashell I found after one of my daily swims, and next to that is a tiny shard of what once was a ceramic plate. I found the fragment on my birthday last year when I hiked from Livadia to the abandoned village of Micro Chorio. When I look at these tiny reminders of my time on Tilos, it takes me right back to the sensation of being wildly alive and in constant awe of the tremendous natural beauty of the Dodecanese. I also have a larger, more colourfully painted stone in my collection with hearts and the word love painted on it. It was given to me by a dear family friend who I visited over Christmas. It makes me smile every time I glance up from my writing.

Today is Valentine’s Day. While I’m not a fan of how commercialised this day has become, I welcome any holiday that gives us another excuse to give ourselves and others a little extra love. One of my love languages is farming. I have worked on farms in Arizona, California, Italy and Canada, and ran my own flower farm on PEI for six years. But the seeds of my love for farming were planted in Cyprus. I grew up helping my friends harvest their grapes and load them into baskets that hung from the sides of donkeys. Later we would crush the grapes with our bare feet, and they would make wine with the juice. Their donkeys have now been replaced by pickup trucks, and modern crushing and distilling machinery has taken the place of our barefoot grape juicing, but the tradition of tending the land year after year still exists. It is one way that my friends and I express our love for the island we call home.

I mentioned earlier in this post that I helped my friends, Costas and Ifigenia, harvest their grapes this past October. It was a very dry summer. Cyprus has been navigating through extreme and very serious drought conditions since I can remember, and every year we have larger and larger fires that destroy enormous swaths of forest, agricultural land, and even inhabited areas. My friends Costas and Ifigenia live in one of the villages that has been impacted by wildfires. They lost many of their grape vines the year before last. Fortunately, some of their vineyards escaped the flames. Despite surviving the fire, their remaining vineyards are on terraces in an area where there is no access to water for drip irrigation. The impact of the extended drought on the crops is often painful to witness, but my friends will continue to cultivate their vineyards and collect whatever the vines are able to offer up for as long as they are able to do the work, because the annual cycle of pruning, tending and harvesting is an essential part of who they are.

One day this past fall I set off for their village in the early hours of the morning to help them with the harvest. We loaded into the truck at first light to beat the heat of the day, and bounced off down the potholed road to their vineyards. It was the last day of the harvest. Most of the plants had already been picked clean, and the few clumps of oozing grapes that had been missed on previous visits were providing late season sustenance to the wasps. We identified where we had left off, and got to work filling our buckets. We crouched down low, moving in circles around each vine to try to avoid missing any grapes that were hiding. When I looked up through the leaves the morning light shone through the green collage, illuminating every vein and making the grapes glow. Costas and Ifigenia grow a number of different varieties, but they are all combined to make wine, zivania (a strong spirit), and the traditional Cypriot desserts for which grapes are the core ingredient. I used clippers to separate the small bunches of green and red-tinged grapes from the plants, but my friends, who are now in their late 70s and have been doing this work since they were children can pick three times as much fruit as I can in the same amount of time with their bare hands. We worked steadily for a couple of hours before loading the last of the crop into the back of the truck and heading back to the village. Normally the grapes are crushed right away, some of the juice being used to make the traditional Cypriot sweets palouze and sousouko, and the rest being turned into wine and zivania. On this particular day, one of the neighbours had made off with the grape crushing machine, and it seemed that it wouldn’t be back in time for us to do the crushing. Always practical and efficient, and wanting to take full advantage of an extra set of hands while they had me there to help, my friends decided that we would do one of the other tasks that needed to be accomplished before we returned to the house to work on turning the grape juice that had been generated the day before into sweets.

The task they turned to was butchering the chickens! I’m not a vegetarian, but I had never butchered a chicken before. This was a first for me, and a huge leap from the agreed upon activity of harvesting and processing grapes! Before I knew what was happening, Ifigenia had let herself into the chicken run, grabbed a chicken, turned it upside down, forced its head through a metal funnel that left the poor creature’s kicking feet sticking up and its head hanging out the bottom. The chicken’s throat was promptly cut, it was plunged into boiling water to loosen its feathers, and I was handed a still-warm bird over the fence while Ifigenia turned to start working on the next one. I stood there for one shocked moment processing how our romantic day of harvesting grapes had changed direction so abruptly, and trying to decide whether I wanted to participate in this new activity. Ifigenia noticed me standing motionless holding the chicken by its feet and returned to the fence to ask me what I was doing.

“Are you going to help or not?” she asked.

I was the only person there under 70. My friends had asked for my help, and this was what they needed my help with: preparing the meat that the entire family would eat for the following few weeks. I pulled it together long enough to do what needed doing. We butchered and plucked six chickens that day. I won’t lie—I couldn’t eat chicken for over a month afterwards—and I’ve eaten far less since. My farming mentor Raymond Loo used to tell me that if we can’t handle watching an animal get butchered, we shouldn’t be eating it. I always agreed with his idea in theory, but it was only this past October that I really understood what it meant. I’m still reflecting on whether I should be eating meat at all anymore given how I felt that day, and for weeks afterwards. I haven’t reached any definite conclusions yet, but I have been adding more non-meat protein sources to my diet ever since.

Back in Ifigenia’s kitchen, she lit a low fire under the giant pot that contained the slowly thickening grape juice that they had collected the previous day. She added flour, some aniseed tea, and a handful of rose geranium leaves, and we stirred and stirred until the palouze reached exactly the right consistency. When it was ready we filled a handful of plates with the thick, cloudy mixture that was the colour of beeswax candles, sprinkled the plates with crushed almonds, and left them out to cool. Once it had gelled it was ready to be eaten. Everyone grabbed a spoon and dug in. There is nothing better than palouze that is still warm!

Ifigenia had spent hours preparing for what we did next. To make sousouko, you thread a chain of almonds onto a long piece of string like a strand of beads. One end of the string is then tied to the hook of a coat hanger (or a v-shaped twig), and the other end is knotted off. Wire or thicker string are strung across various parts of the room or yard, and newspaper or plastic bags are laid out beneath them to catch anything that drips. Each string is dipped into the thick palouze until all the almonds are coated. The strands are then hung up to drip dry. Once the first layer is dry, the string is again dipped into the mixture. This process is repeated 6 or 7 times over a number of days until the strands resemble long, lumpy candles. When the desired thickness has been achieved, they are left hanging until the outermost layer solidifies. The resulting treat is called sousouko, and it is one of the most delicious fall snacks in Cyprus. I’m including some photos and videos of the process. I discovered in my 20s that I am allergic to gluten, and although she had previously insisted that it simply could not be done, Ifigenia indulged me this year, and we tried making one strand of sousouko and one plate of palouze with corn starch instead of the regular flour-thickened mixture. Final verdict: it was a little more transparent in colour than the regular sousouko, but even Ifigenia agreed that it tasted delicious!

It is dark here now—a cold, crisp, starry winter’s night on Prince Edward Island. It is time to light some candles and enjoy a belly-warming meal at my family’s kitchen table. Do you have any seasonal land/food traditions that are an expression of love for and connection to the places and people you call home? If you do, I’d love it if you shared one in the comments section beneath this post. Better yet—I hope you engage in one of them today! Wishing you all a joy-filled love day!

Xox

Ariana

I am writing this from the kitchen table in my little house in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on a snowy winter afternoon. The last of the pearly grey light is quickly fading. Despite living just five-minutes by foot from the heart of downtown the only sounds are the refrigerator motor, the heat pump chugging away, and the ragged caw of crows flying above the bare-branched maple trees as they head from their daytime hangout to their evening perch in the tops of the trees in a nearby park.

I’ve been back on this island since early January, but I haven’t entirely been here, if you know what I mean. Present in body, but sliding through my days like a surface glider when I know in my heart that I am a full body immersion kind of girl.

I spent my summer working on finishing the first draft of the novel I am working on on the Greek island of Tilos, just off the coast of Turkey. I rented a little stone house (from a fellow Canadian writer and adventurous soul) that was smothered in fuchsia bougainvillea and had a fig tree that leaned over the house that I picked fresh fruit from for breakfast every day while I watched the sun rise from the roof. It was a summer of writing, swimming, hiking, making new friends and dancing under the stars—one of the most unforgettable summers I’ve had in years. Tilos took root in my heart. I hope to spend more time there going forward.

In September I headed to Cyprus—my other island home, and the country I grew up in. Altogether, I had my feet planted on Mediterranean island soil for seven of the twelve months of 2025. There was a lot I could have shared about the experiences at the time, but I chose to channel all my creative energy last year into my novel. I was ready for a finished first draft. The little house I rented on Tilos had no internet, and cell phone reception only from the roof. I woke with the sun, went for long early morning swims in the clear turquoise water surrounded by dancing seagrass and an endless array of multicoloured fish, and took some incredible hikes along trails with astounding views of the sea and the coast of Turkey in the distance. Truth be told, while it took a little while to adjust, I did not miss not having internet or phone reception—I actually grew to love it. I had so much more time to create: to write, paint, and join in the summer festivals commemorating a variety of Saints that all ended with dancing shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand with those who call the island home under skies brilliant with starlight. I felt, for the three three solid months that I was there, like the most authentic and truest version of myself that I’ve been in years. My fall back in Cyprus was full of long walks alone and with friends, a magical swim with a sea turtle (more about that another time), lots of writing, grape and olive harvesting, and quality time with beloved friends. Did I write about the experiences? I did. Did I think of sharing them? Again, yes. At some point, I thought to myself, I need to sit down and put all of this into some form that can be shared with others.

So here I am. Yes, it took me a while. But in this overly digital age sometimes we just need time to be fully and completely immersed in the experience of living in the present moment, having experiences that are entirely our own.

That said, now that I’m back on Prince Edward Island working on editing my novel, I’ve been thinking about how I might be able to share my writing with you a little more often (less surface glide, more full immersion). Here’s my thought: a narrative piece twice a month in which I share that alive, completely present sensation from wherever I happen to be in the hope that it encourages you to get off your devices, get more present, and feel more alive wherever you happen to be. Initially I considered every week, but I’d like the focus to be on getting OFF devices and OUT into the world, so I think twice a month is enough to give you (my readers) little burst of inspiration and colour, while at the same time being something that you look forward to rather than feel you have to click on every week simply because you have paid for it. I will do an occasional free post so that those who don’t know me get a taste of what I’m doing here, but the majority of my posts would be for monthly, annual and founding members….and for those who sign up as founding members, I am dreaming of putting together an annual set of greeting cards that I send out in either December or January featuring some of my favourite images from the places I’ve been that year. I used to make greeting cards featuring photos I took of my floral arrangements when I still had a flower farm, and I miss sharing my photography with others in a more tactile way. I also hope providing beautiful cards to those who decide to sign up as founding members will inspire you to set aside a little time to connect with loved ones by writing them hand-written notes—an art form that Rebecca and Karl at are making massive headway with rejuvenating from their little shop in the UK (I highly recommend checking their growing initiative out). This this is a work-in-progress, and I will likely have additional ideas once I get underway, but I wanted to share my thoughts and see what you think. Shall we give it a try? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Consider this an invitation to join me. I can promise there will be islands involved because my ancestors were Sicilian, I was raised in Cyprus, I have a Master’s degree in Island Studies (yes, you can actually get an academic degree in islands!), I have a little house on Prince Edward Island off the east coast of Canada, and ultimately because islands are where my heart is most at home. There will also likely be posts from other places, like London—one of my favourite cities in the world, and my stopover on my way back and forth from Canada to the Mediterranean, and perhaps Rome, because I lived there in my 20s and have been wanting to get back for a visit. With time I also hope to make it to some of my bucket list places like Iceland and the Azores (back to islands…there is a definite theme here), but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. The natural world will be in the spotlight, because that is where I feel most alive. And there will definitely be mention of books I’ve read recently and loved, diverse cultures and languages, agriculture and visual art. I can also guarantee plenty of beautiful photos. I imagine there will be lots of surprises, even for me, because I find inspiration in not having a plan. I’m just going to stay present in the here and now, and see what comes.

The world is experiencing a lot of hardship, suffering and heartbreak right now, and I, like so many other creatives, have questioned the value of writing about presence, travel, curiosity, adventure and beauty at a time like this. Suffice it to say that I am very clear-eyed about the gravity of what is happening around me. I was in Cyprus when Iran launched missiles at Israel. We watched them arc through the sky, clear as day. I have seen the flood of refugees leaving the Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa in search of safety. Like many of you, I have been watching with horror what has been happening in Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, and so many other places in the world, and have participated in fundraisers, marches and demonstrations, always feeling that I’m not doing enough. As someone who was born in the United States and raised in Cyprus, I am not only disturbed by what is happening within the US—I am deeply troubled by the impact that the new US policies have had and continue to have on our global community. I am listening, watching and offering support in any way I can. And at the same time I feel that it is important to continue being curious and celebrating the beauty of this world and its people while we keep speaking up about injustice, and lending support to all the global efforts aimed building a more just and peaceful world for us all. My aim is to hold space for as much of it as I can. All of this wild, joyful and often heartbreaking experience that we call life. I may not always succeed (there is plenty of room for growth here), but that is my goal.

My first official post will go out next Saturday, February 14th. Think of it as a little love note from me to you. It will be free and readable by everyone, since it will be my first one. As a person who considers many time zones home, I hope you will also be from a variety of time zones. I have faith that my notes will reach you exactly when they are supposed to, no matter where you are. Just know that if you choose to subscribe you can expect a message from me in your inbox two Saturdays a month for the time-being. I hope you will join me.

Have a beautiful weekend!

“It’s too late for sweet peas,” my friend informed me, her tone certain, leaving no space for possibility. One of the things I love most about growing plants is that nothing is ever certain. You can grow plants successfully for five years in a row, and the sixth year have complete crop failure because it rains too little, and the plants get stressed and then attacked by aphids; or it rains too much, and the excessive moisture gives powdery mildew the perfect environment to thrive in. You can try to grow something year after year with no luck, and then have a year where the conditions are just right, and the plants thrive. The only certainty with growing plants is that I always have to be prepared to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Every year is a humbling lesson in which I will always be the pupil, and the natural world will always be the often-unforgiving teacher.

I’ve grown sweet peas successfully for many years thanks to the growing advice of Erin Benzakein at Floret. It took a lot of care and attention, but the vines grew tall and healthy, and, year after year, produced a profusion of sweet-smelling flowers through which sunlight would fall, illuminating the salmon pink, aubergine, lilac, periwinkle, rose, pastel pink, violet and cream petals. My wall of sweet peas always reminded me of an intricately detailed stained-glass window.

I sold all my flower farming gear and moved across the world to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus last spring. New chapter. New landscape. New climate. When friends suggested that I might miss my flowers, I dismissed their concerns with a wave of the hand. “There’s a time for everything. Maybe my flower chapter is coming to a close,” I said. They nodded, their faces unconvinced.

This past year I met a new friend who loves to paint flowers. Seeing the beauty of flowers flow from her brush sparked in me the body memory of how much I enjoy growing flowers, so while I was back in North America at Christmas I ordered some sweet pea seeds which I carried back to Cyprus with me in January. I went out and invested in some deep planters, carried giant bags of potting soil and compost, bamboo posts and netting back to my apartment, and set to work germinating my seeds. They germinated happily, and grew steadily through the winter, so I pinched the central stem and transplanted them at the end of March in the hope that they would begin to climb the trellis I’d built. And climb they did. Up and up, branching out, seemingly very happy in their new home.

While my sweet peas grew in their planters, the Cypriot landscape around me was being transformed by a sea of wildflowers washing across the contours of the land. In January my flower-loving friend and I spent time in the Karpasia peninsula, taking in fields of wild narcissus and the first of the purple and white anemones popping their heads up through the wild grasses. In February I hiked trails in Akamas, stunned by the fuchsia, pale pink and white cyclamen spinning themselves from every crack and crevice, crinkled crepe-paper poppies—crimson and pastel yellow—waving in the breeze; pale pink asphodels keeping watch over the flowerscape; wild orchids of all shapes and sizes pressing upwards quietly in the shade of other vegetation, like well-kept secrets. In March it looked like a late snow had fallen across the hills of Akamas as the rock rose took over—rosy pink and white petals softening the prickly, low-lying shrubs that hug the earth—leaving me breathless in astonishment at the versatility and diversity of the island’s flora. Deep red wild tulips swayed in quiet clusters if you knew where to look; olive trees began to bloom, sending a flurry of hay fever across the island, and in the city my friend’s gardens grew sweet with the scent of lemon blossoms—a personal favourite.

April was announced by the graceful necks and frilly heads of Daucus carota dancing in the breeze, and the vibrant lavender of blossoming thistles. It also brought a premature blazing heat, which was too much for my tender sweet peas. Powdery mildew took hold; the aphids arrived in droves, and my vines started to wither and die. My friend had been right. I had planted them too late. To stand a fighting chance I would have had to plant them in October or November, so they were blooming with the wild narcissus and cyclamen. Like the sweet peas, I too am learning to adjust to this new environment—being reminded that it is nature that dictates the timing and expression of growth, not me. I’m still getting attuned to the ways that heat governs this land just as cold delineates choice and behaviour in Canada.

For a couple of weeks now I’ve been bypassing my sweet pea vines, stubbornly hoping that maybe—just maybe—they would give me a few flowers. This week I finally accepted that this wasn’t going to happen. The vines had become shrivelled and dry—surrendering completely to the ever-intensifying heat. Yesterday I cut the netting from the bamboo and pulled all the plants from the soil. Their roots were deep and healthy, which told me that beneath the soil the plants had been strong. As I cleared the planters I wondered if I will be here long enough to try again in the fall, or if I should gift the soil and containers to friends I know will use them. In a month I head back to Canada for two months to explore whether I will move back to North America or keep trying to establish myself here. It has been a roller-coaster of a year. After finally purchasing a ticket and giving myself the time and space this summer to try to figure out what feels right going forward, May arrived and surprised me with the first intimations of stability. Beneath the surface, my roots may be sturdier than I had thought. They seem to be saying “nothing is certain,” which I know in the language of plants also means “anything is possible.”  

I’m currently housesitting for a friend who owns a beautiful house in the middle of Nicosia’s old city. Her back garden, invisible from the street, is an oasis hidden in a labyrinth of stone. Every morning this week has begun with the seemingly futile gathering of bougainvillea blossoms that the wind has strewn across the garden and wedged into every nook and cranny. The poet in me questions the wisdom of this activity; the fuchsia bougainvillea is an unruly vibrant medusa hammocked between the branches of trees—streaming festive from the giant cactuses that tower over the garden. Sunlight filters down through the canopy of flowers. When I sit outside to read or write in the afternoon there’s a rosy collage covering the pebbled ground beneath my feet. The garden glows with warm light. But the gardener in me knows that the vibrant carpet of today will be a brown mess of decaying organic matter tomorrow—no longer inspiring poet or painter—and requiring a massive amount of effort to scrape away from the pathways and paving stones. So every morning I enjoy the soft pink shower of wind-blown blossoms twirling weighless through the air, getting tangled in my hair and skipping across my yoga mat while I flow through my vinyasa. I lie in savasana afterwards and delight in the tickle of flowers against my cheeks, legs and arms. I lounge in a temple of light. And then I roll up my mat and circle the garden—bending earthward to gather fistfuls of papery flowers which I dutifully deposit into the compost bin before returning to the spot I’m clearing to gather more. The wind continues to blow—the flowers on the ground tumble playfully away—daring me to chase them. I’m aware as I clear one small blossom-free island that the satisfaction of a job well done will be short-lived—almost instantly erased by the wind.

This morning I noticed that my daily flower gathering has become a walking meditation. I bend, gather, deposit. I bend, gather, deposit. My skin, the garden walls, the pebbles, the steppingstones all glow pink. The falling blossoms whisper their secrets into my ears as they float past. My flower gathering feels like a prayer. Rumi’s words “there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground” return to me. As I bend and gather it feels like I’m prostrating before something much larger than myself; acknowledging impermanence; savouring the beauty of the process, however futile it seems; bearing witness to the dialogue happening every morning between my eyes, heart and hands, and the blossoms, wind and light. Becoming ever-more conscious of the ways that I inhabit this place and that this place, in turn, lives in me.

Tomorrow morning I’ll wake, pad my way downstairs, walk out into the garden barefoot, feel the carpet of blossoms beneath my feet and bathe in the pink light. It might appear, to someone who doesn’t know better, as though my five previous mornings of gathering never happened. But I know otherwise. The overflowing compost bin knows too, as do the pebbles and the bougainvillea and the laughing wind. We’re having a daily conversation. I gather. I rest. Nature sheds more flowers. It’s a playful dialogue—one that guarantees that a smile will linger on my lips every morning. It makes me reflect on the value of presence; of engagement over results; of daily attention. I see it in its fullness. It sees me. We converse quietly as the sun gets comfortable in the cloudless blue sky.

As I write this I glance toward the back of the garden where my reading chair rests upon a sea of blossoms, a pile of petals cupped in its seat. The garden is beckoning me. “It’s time to make a cup of tea,” it says. “Go find your book and come soak in my radiance.” I get up and put the kettle on. Tomorrow morning I’ll gather more blossoms, but this afternoon I carry my steaming cup of tea and my book into the cathedral of the garden, sink my feet into the petaled nest of light, and allow myself to be held by the palette of place—in the palm of impermanence.

Subscribe now