From Crete: The reading rock

From the notebook, written October 7th 2022

I’m in Paleochora, a small town on the south coast of Crete. I’ve been here before, once at four or five, and once at seventeen. I don’t remember much, though. Not the short but lively stretch of main street that is lined with restaurants and bars. Not the headland the town lies on, not the 13th century fort ruin that lies on top of it. Not the mountains that surround it, not the peaks that clouds cling to, making the town sunny even when inland Crete is rainy. Not the strong sea winds.

And then, on the second day, I walk down to the other beach, the sandy one, and it hits me: This is where we were. Seventeen years ago, during that trip that was supposed to be the last one we did together, all of us – until my grandma Lilian died unexpectedly, a month before the trip. The vacation that turned into a way to be together in our grief, grandpa, dad and stepmom, my aunt, cousins, brother and I, in the place that grandma had come to with grandpa every September for the past 20 or so years. I remember it as beautiful, and I remember spending days on end in this side of the beach, reading, swimming, having lunch at the taverna under the trees overlooking the sea.

I remember the perfect reading stone. I have a knack for finding them. I already have one, on top of Sandviksfjellet in Bergen. A stone or stretch of bedrock with the perfect angle and inundation to fit my back while reading. There is one on this beach. I remember leaning against this (what I think is) red basalt. Reading or writing. Occasionally watching my dad and then 3-year-old brother bathing in the shallows. (I don’t remember what I read. I could look it up. I keep a journal. They’re in my basement in Bagarmossen, though. I’m not due in Stockholm again until Christmas. Digging into my reading journal will have to wait.)

I find the stone. It fits me perfectly, still. Much has happened to my body since seventeen, but apparently the dimensions of my back are still the same.

I read ”The Anthropocene Reviewed” by John Green. It’s a collection of essays about living on a human-centered planet. It is beautiful, and sad. Funny, heart-breaking, and hopeful. Almost every essay makes me cry.

I dedicated my thesis to my two grandmothers. As a postscript in the thesis, I wrote a short essay about them, and about the linden tree they paid to have planted in a park in Stockholm for me when I was born. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as connected to my grandma Lilian, and grandpa Larsen, as I feel here, now.

Maybe it is the beautiful book. Maybe it is the perfect reading stone, with the sand between my toes. Maybe it is Paleochora. Maybe it is feeling open, after so many years of running after academic targets, surviving a pandemic, finding my footing again. I don’t know. I just take it in.