Earth, wind and fire...

this summer was supposed to be something different from what it turned out to be.

I hoped for cool waters and summer breeze and I saw too much of dry earth and burning wood. I was longing for the smell of the salty sea but got dust and ashes instead. I was hoping for fun and laughter but got blue mood and grey faces.

Life is like this. It does not always give us the expected. And the four weeks I spent in Greece were at a large part a sad reminder. Not that there were no nice moments. During my stay I witnessed the wedding of a very good friend, (and maybe danced too badly while celebrating it, so badly that people had to throw water on me to make me stop). I had the chance to visit the south of Crete for the second time in my life (to be once more reassured of the special beauty of the place and the kindness of its people) and did not miss the opportunity to revisit familiar, favourite places in Sifnos, meet with old friends and make some new ones. I had the chance to spend some time with someone I love, verify what keeps us together, realize what stands between us and stick to the first.

But the good moments end there...

At that point this weird August, filled with flames, hot winds and bad news, started its charge. As the phone kept ringing with an absurd frequency bringing news of sickness and loss, the screens started their own bombardment of televised catastrophes, villages in flames, people perishing and ...finally Ancient Olympia caught in the midst of this burning hell.

It was then that we all find it hard not to crack. Because one may handle the destruction of objects and the decline of moral, one can even suffer lightly the human loss, but he cannot stand the destruction of the symbols, the decay of the living memory and the loss of his identity.

They say general Makriyannis, one of Greece's heroes of independence once stopped some local chieftain trying to sell antiquities to the British in exchange for guns. And when the chieftain told him that the guns were needed to keep up the fight for a free country, Makriyannis told him that these same antiquities were what they were fighting for, these ancient pieces of marble, that cannot be reborn or sprang out of the earth, were the free Greece they were dreaming of. And that without them there was no need for struggle or fighting.

The marbles of Olympia were saved, although only at the last moment. Thus there is still reason for battle and struggle.

A day like today, Makriyannis forced the King of the young, independent Greece to grant constitution to its people. The brave, stubborn general kept fighting until the end for a better place for his children. Let us follow his example.