In his collection “A Year With Emerson” Richard Grossman envisions the poet and essayist discussing the merits of the simplicity of life with his close friend Henry David Thoreau. Emerson wrote, “To find the unity in diversity is the role of the seeker of laws. When we find the unity behind the complex array of nature, we find the inherent simplicity of nature and are at home in it. We can never be at peace while we exist in a myriad of facts.”
I wrote this entry a few days ago and saved it in ‘drafts’. I am glad I did. I had little else to say on that day and surprisingly, not much else to say today. My energy is stable, not over-the-top. Tomorrow most of the students are heading out to a week off from the Aegean Center. Exotic locales, travel plans, etc…Turkey, Copenhagen, islands in Greece, islands of thought and distance. I think we all need a break. I am off to the quiet island of Andiparos, adjacent to my current locale and only a 10 minute ferry ride from Paros. I will have 5 or 6 days there. I hope to do some reading, take some pictures of stone walls, maybe a little swimming (weather permitting) and generally just hang about. I’ll be back well before the break ends.
It is very quiet here on Paros. Tourists are few, visitors to the school are fewer and this weekend we set our clocks back for daylight savings time. We are a week ahead of America, I think. Clouds have rolled in and the welcoming rains have been washing the streets clean, rinsing dust from the trees and filling the sky with richly contoured thunderheads. The rains have been mostly at night, with mixed sunshine during the day. The lightning and thunder has been dramatic, waking me at 3AM, reminding me to check the open windows in my small flat. So far no floods. Tonight I will develop some film and be available for the other students should they need any advice. It seems a simple, quiet life I have stumbled upon, a veneer for a complex interior. Too complex to actually comment upon. I wouldn’t know what to say. I will take David Byrne’s advice, “When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.”
JDCM
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