Dull July

July is the least exciting of months. When I lived in the eastern part of North Carolina, I hated it. It was unbearably hot, muggy and humid, and I spent almost all of it hybernating in order to be in an air-conditioned room. In the mountains, where I live now, it is lovely: cool, pleasant, with birdsong as an accompaniment to my days. This month has been a kind of passage--from the excitement of June when I was in Greece with all my family, both the American and the Greek members of it, to August.

I keep hoping that August will hold some good things. One is definite: my youngest grandchildren are coming to spend time with us and there is no great delight than their presence in our home. I long for Miles' pitter-patter, the sound of his little feet that never walk but always run or jump; and for Jeremy's sweet quiet--slipping into my bed early each morning for a cuddle and his ruminations that come out of nowhere. His early morning conversations are continuations of his night musings; his mind never stops.

The second expectation is my new book, Light to the Darkness. It is scheduled for August 1, but I know that the deadline is not possible. My big concern is: How do I market it before Advent?

And the third is that someone will come to see my house, fall in love with it, as I did--with its stunning views, its light, its openness, its livability, its great kitchen -- and will buy it so I can move near my little ones in Louisville.

So July passes. It gave me a chance to recover from the trip to Greece, to get over my sadness at leaving my birthplace again, and to start hoping for good things. Not a bad month after all. Thank you, July.

First thoughts

I have been avoiding blogging for quite some time now, but as in all things, the fullness of time arrived, and this is it.

It is July but thoroughly bearable up here on the mountains of North Carolina; I live on top of a hill with open vistas before me--the mountains of Tennessee clear in the north, Grandfather in the south. Today the horizon is almost hidden by haze. Just three weeks ago I was walking by the gorge at the foot of Mt Olympus in my native Greece. It was a very hot June day, but even the heat could not remove the prevailing awe that met us and covered us for the hour it took to walk the path that overlooks the gorge. The two high crags, so familiar from a past visit, above us, the sound of the water hidden and suddenly visible, the feeling that this view has filled ancients and moderns for untold centuries with awe, the question in my mind: What was it really that the ancient Greeks imagined on this mountain? persisting. Did any of them climb to the peak to see if the gods lived there? Was imagination enough for those remarkable people?

I will be examining some of these themes in this space--thoughts about the Greeks, about the ancients, and about the people in that old and beautiful country today.

For today, this is enough.