Morning Journal #1

Ermoupoli, Greece. Jan 22nd, 2025.

From our covered rooftop tower, which we have named ‘the turret,’ I look east towards Mykonos. Beyond Mykonos, through the blue of the Aegean, is Turkey. I am on the little island of Syros, the center of the Cyclades islands in Greece. We have moved here for three months so that our children can attend a world school, and it’s in the turret, at dawn, that I am beginning to write some morning pages.

I’m watching a mourning dove land on the balcony. It is creamy grey with a sharp black tail tipped with white. I always love an encounter with a bird, the messengers, which seems especially poignant in the town of Ermoupoli, translated as the town of Hermes, the messenger god.

My eyes navigate a 180-degree sweep of the town to the horizon, which is magnificently on view from this height. The sun makes its way through the clouds at a brisk pace, and I track the ascent of the orange beam as it comes closer. It touches the buildings, the rim of the window sill, the edge of my computer, finally resting on my eyelashes, making sun diamonds as I blink. It's a stunning morning in Ermoupoli, as it always seems to be.

We have been here since Jan 7th, landing just after the Greek Orthodox Church celebrated Epiphany. I’ve been getting up early, and every dawn is different, of course, but similar in that the hilly town is doused in blue, pink, yellow, and grey light variations. The sensual rounded blue domes of the churches, whose bells trill a 3-3-7 formation every morning at 7.30am, are scattered amongst the oblong, cake-like houses. Today, when out on the balcony on the first floor, I could smell someone's freshly baked bread. The sweet scent reminds me of last night, waking up with a tummy ache after gorging on a piece of the boys' desert, a sponge cake saturated with local honey and infused with orange. It was just a taster, I’d said.

At 1.06 am I had also woken up to the noise of a high-pitched strangle, which turned out to be the downstairs neighbours having sex. The sound was eerie and volatile and made your hair stand on end. At first, my mind registered it as a catfight, then as a woman being attacked, and in my half sleep, I flung open the living room window to call for help, only to hear Zach’s voice explaining I had got the wrong end of the stick. I suppose the French translation for orgasm is ‘little death’, and this was most literal. After I’d woken up entirely to the prognosis, I had a mind to bang around, write them a note, or knock on their door to “keep it down!” but on second thoughts, I had my senses enough to realise my annoyance of their copulation, which, in fact, was quite natural, but in this instance oddly disturbing.

I downloaded a white noise machine app and returned to bed. Finally drowsy again, I remembered a phrase in a book I’d been reading on Greece that referred to how Greek children learned about sex. This incident reminded me of it. My father-in-law gave me the book for Christmas; it's called ‘Portrait of Greece’ by Nicholas Gage, published in 1971. I’m curious if he ever read it. The chapter I was thinking of is called ‘Love, Marriage and a Woman’s Place,’ which made me gag, but I read on.

In that chapter, the author explains, “ [children] never have to have the facts of life explained to them. From an early age, they see it demonstrated by farm animals. Furthermore, in villages and cities, children, parents, and guests often sleep in the same room, so curious youngsters learn a lot merely by forsaking a little sleep”. When I read that, my eyes searched for heaven. I’m glad we’ve come a bit further with our kids today, where ‘the facts’ are now variations of healthy conversational preparation and knowledge around boundaries. Well, there I was, undoubtedly forsaking a little sleep.

There was an uneasy feeling in my body when I woke in the dark morning this morning —a traumatic level of tension inside my chest from listening to people having sex. I remember my mother and my ex-stepfather banging and moaning away in our teeny tiny cardboard-of-a-house in my pre-teens. Their and my bed heads were against the same paper-thin wall. I found a pair of headphones (not comfy ones in those days, but the sort that now gets delegated to the cheap seats on the airplane) linked them to my CD player and listened to soothing sea scapes with dolphin calls to block out any potential noise and help me fall asleep. This went on for months, possibly years; I’ve completely blocked out the time span. The anxiety-making piece for me was not knowing when it was all going to happen. I’d often sleep many nights with the headphones on and get a sore neck and sore ears. Then I would risk it and take them off, only to have one night of nothing pressing against my ears, but all the noise would start again. I wasn’t so good with unpredictability in this circumstance. With time and perspective, I can wholeheartedly say I do not blame my parents in any way; nonetheless, it helps me move some feelings through writing about this on such a fine morning.

Funnily enough, I have just started a book called The Great Chimera, written by a notable Greek author in the 1930’s. The first chapter begins with the tale of a young girl and her mother who turned to prostitution to survive at the turn of the century. The young girl recounts the trauma of listening to her mother’s comings and goings, and the book continues to confront her sexuality as an adult because of this. Synchronicities? It's time for some more unpacking around this subject, no doubt.

All this in one morning.

At the other end of the day today, a sky finale showcases swirls of neon pink clouds, like candy floss, circling the little island with the lighthouse. And as I type, the floodlights illuminate the great towers and pillars of the Greek Orthodox Church in my view. 5 pm, the bell rings, ending quiet time, and some of the shops will open for evening trade.