They Walk Amongst Us --Even Now

Written for

SURVEY

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Athens, Greece – 1969

It was my last morning in Greece and I was wandering the ruins at sunrise. I’d been on an extended vacation for four months and this, this was the last stop before returning home to a delayed start of my senior year of high school. I wanted to go home and yet, I really wasn’t looking forward to being back in the little sister, baby of the family role that would hit the moment my folks picked me up at the airport. All summer and half the fall I’d been on my own. At sixteen, I’d been totally responsible for me, had survived it all quite nicely and (to my parent’s awe) I was as innocent as when I’d left.

Leaning back against an ancient marble pillar, my feet propped on a fallen Corinthian column with spidery cracks webbing out, I watched the sun turn the two thousand year old ruins into blushing youth. I could see, really see, albeit in my mind’s eye, the temple as it once was: Aphrodite’s sanctorum to all things love and beauty. Tour guides insisted that this was the place to give an offering and speak one’s innermost desire. I’d gathered wild flowers on my meandering wander this morning and now I had only to frame in words what I was seeking.
It was a glorious sunrise, the pinks and golds washing the ruins with an other-worldly glow. I felt inexplicably happy and refreshed. What was it I truly wanted? This was a ‘once in a life time’ opportunity, and not one to be taken lightly or without considerable forethought. I wanted … to be loved, or in love or to have the ubiquitous boyfriend all my friends had. Me, the overweight, mousy-haired nerd with coke-bottle glasses and a mouthful of braces wanted to feel beautiful and special and … something that escaped my current vocabulary. Even I knew it would take more than flowers left at a Grecian temple to accomplish that miracle, but that mystical part of me knew I had to try.

I didn’t want my wish to be too specific, I didn’t want there to be a time-frame attached it: I just wanted it to happen. With every fiber of my being I longed for those feelings that my friends spoke of, for that sense of knowing and even that sheer giddiness that infected their every moment. Was it too much to ask? I hoped not. Gathering up my bouquet of blue and purple blossoms, I stood and walked over to the cracked stone altar.

Dried and dead flowers littered both the top and the foot of it. Were they but expired dreams, unfulfilled wishes or unworthy desires? Were they just the remnants of someone’s fantasy or pantheons to loves lost or neglected? Had the life leeched out of the wilted petals to fuel a dream come true?

I wanted a him to be mine. I wanted to belong to that man who would see me. Not the glasses or the acne, but the ‘deep inside of me’ me. The me that had the need to write as much as the need to breathe. The me who loved sunrises across open fields, who sang the country songs without caring who sang them, who didn’t lie because her eyes always gave her away and who couldn’t care less about what was in fashion or who the latest heart throb was. I wanted that man who worked with his hands, had blue eyes as pale as the blue flowers I carried and who was intrinsically good, clear through. Did he even exist? Could he exist for me? Was there that man who could see into the me that I let no one see?

I laid the flowers on the weathered stone and let my mind pour forth my hopes. A breeze ruffled the pale green leaves, pushed one of the blue flowers away from my gathered offering. I sighed and turned away.

“American, yes?” came a voice from in front of me. I looked up into the face of a man who was impossibly old and wrinkled. His shoulders were hunched and his skin was as brown as a piece of worn out leather.

I smiled. Must have been obvious.

“When you cease to seek that for which you desire, when you’ve walked away from that which never was your wish, when you look only inside your very self and see that which you’ve never looked for, then, and only then, your dreams will become reality.” With those few words, he turned and walked away. I called after him, but he simply kept walking.

Was that my answer then? I gave my offering and got some old man spouting platitudes and riddles? So much for falling for the lure of the tour guides and Grecian ambiance. It was time to go home.

~~~*~~~

Athens, Tennessee – 2005

I took a wrong turn in driving through Knoxville on a roundabout trek towards Michigan. I had no timetable, I wasn’t expected and I was simply enjoying the sheer, unmitigated freedom of having escaped a six-year relationship that was pure poison and threatening to kill me. The wrong turn didn’t bother me much. I was driving (on a crisp, wanting a glass of apple cider sort of sunrise) through the Blue Ridge Mountains. I knew I was way south of Michigan, but I truly didn’t care and I was just enjoying the day for whatever it was.

I saw the sign for Athens, Tennessee. My mind flipped back through thirty-six years of failed relationships, unrealized dreams and some horrendous abuse to a day when an innocent, optimistic and naïve teenager had made a wish. I’d never really given that old man’s words much thought after than long ago morning, but now they came back full force. I took the turnoff for Athens.

Curving off onto a back road that spiraled through rolling hills, I came across a worn billboard for a place called ‘The Lost Sea,’ billed as the world’s largest underground lake. I shivered. Me and caves are mutually exclusive! In the small town of Athens, TN, I wandered through a general store and found myself looking at a postcard rack. One of the pictures was for Aphrodite’s Bay in the Underground Sea. I was intrigued, but far too claustrophobic to even think about going on their ‘underground adventure through miles of caverns.

A few minutes later, seated at a small Mom ‘n Pop restaurant, enjoying something called a ‘Hot Brown’ which was a cheese sauce burying turkey, bacon, tomatoes and toast, an older woman scooted behind my chair and bumped into me.

I turned and she apologized. I heard the words she was speaking, but my attention was drawn far more to this clearly Native American woman, Cherokee as it turned out, who was easily as old as the mountains I’d just driven through. Her eyes, deep, fathomless brown, seemed huge in her finely lined face. Long grey and brown hair hung free with beads woven through it. Long, graceful fingers tumbled nervously around each other and her words began to sink in.

“I am terribly sorry. My eyes are not as good as they once were.”

“It’s no problem,” I smiled.

“You are from away, then.”

“Away,” I murmured.

“Not from here.”

“I’m not really from anywhere at the moment.”

She smiled. “Ah, but you are on your way to where you need to be.”

“Need to be?” I questioned. I wasn’t needing to be anywhere any more. I had no one to clock me in, rail if I were a few moments or hours late. I had no one to answer to who could say I needed to be anywhere at all.

“Even the wanderer must wend his way home,” she said quietly. “The free spirit needs roots to dig deep.”

Motioning her to join me, I answered her. “I don’t even have roots any longer.”

“We all have roots. Some barely buried in dry, dusty soil, others digging down into the loam. Most important is our tap root. As in the trees of the forest, it sinks deeply; not only seeking nourishment, but becoming the anchor that gives balance and strength. Your journey will end soon, at your destination will you find that which you’ve always been seeking.”

Okay. Athens all over again, I thought, mentally rolling my eyes.

“Gifts of flowers given freely, yet sown on stone fall harsh. Time has been your garden, and now it is time to harvest.” She stopped for a moment before continuing. “I can’t help it. Sometimes I see things. Your circle is almost complete. You will return to what you thought you lost, Find what you never knew you had.”

“You remind me of someone I met briefly, many years ago,” I began.

“It’s very possible. You may think me a crazy old woman, but I know things. I know you journey on many levels. You are so near your destination.” She paused, her eyes blank, those long, graceful fingers finally still. “You will receive a gift you asked for once. You are now, finally, ready. You have walked through the fire and you have learned.” Her eyes met mine. Held mine.

I shook my head. This was just too weird, too strange. I stood and gathered my things, the check.

“They were blue flowers, the same as his eyes. Go to him, and this time, do not walk away, walk forwards.” She stood up, smiled at me, turned and walked out of the restaurant.

Back in the car, taking highways now, wending my way towards Michigan, I thought over what she’d said. How could anyone know about blue flowers I’d left on an altar .I shivered. All that was in Michigan were the grandkids I was to see for a couple of days. Nothing else. Not any longer.

Once I’d thought there was. He of the strong hands. But he’d gone a different direction, one that hadn’t included me. I had no idea where he was, hadn’t talked to him, even casually, in years. Last I knew he was, he was … I didn’t even remember. Ancient history. Water under that creaky bridge.

Chalking it up to the strange and impossible, I let my mind drift to other things. I was excited to see the newest granddaughter, the other grands and my eldest. Then I was there, getting out of the car and enfolded in three sets of sticky fingers, grins and wriggly hugs. A week later when the fun had worn off and I was antsy to be on my way somewhere, anywhere. I had vague plans to head further west as Michigan was, once again, threatening to suffocate me. I was in the way at my daughter’s place—they barely had room for them, let along one more, even if it was a grandmother.

“Grand? Can you help me with my school report?”

“Sure, honey. What’s it about?”

I have to write a report on Athens. It’s a bunch of ruins halfway across the world.”

“I know where it is. I was there many years ago.”

“You were? Did you see any of the gods and goddesses the book said were there? Did you see Apollo or Afro-diety?”

“Aphrodite,” I corrected. I wonder if I did, I thought.

“No, I’m not that old,” I laughed. “Show me what you’ve got so far.


“Hey Mom,” my daughter said the next morning. “Remember Ken? I saw him in town last night. He’s older by bunches, but really, looks just the same. He lives a town or so over from here now. I told him you were here. He asked, so I gave him your cell phone number, that was okay, wasn’t it? I know he’s ancient history and all, but I thought it was kind of cool, running into him like that. Haven’t seen him in almost twenty years, but it felt like yesterday!””





1998 words