4/21/98: I was the first one up today, went for an early foraging expedition into town. Managed to take the very long way back. That’s just a nice way of saying I got lost. Haha! Anyway, I snagged some fresh eggs and bread, a tomato, some milk and juice, then headed back to make omelets for breakfast. Ruth and I did some more walking after doing our laundry and hanging it out on our patio.
4/21/23: We had read that Naxos is one of those islands that is overrun by young 20-nothings who are looking to get their crazy on at nightclubs. Ruth and I had anticipated a wild atmosphere, and were not looking forward to that. But actually, there was a very slow pace on all of the islands we visited because we were visiting out of season. We actually love dancing, but a wild night-life scene was never our thing even when we were single.
We simply enjoyed the peace and calm of temporarily sleepy seaside towns and villages with open-air markets to shop for our daily bread. Getting lost in the twists and turns of a non-grid-like streets system was more of a bonus than an inconvenience. The experience reminded me of a Chesterton quote that considered the relationship and balance between the poet and the rationalist when it comes to faith in God.
“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein.1 To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” —G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, chapter 2 “The Maniac.”
1 Montague Holbein, British cyclist, runner-up of the first Bordeaux–Paris cycle race in 1891.
Both reason and poetry are needed and related, of course, and so are both grids and curves. But the benefit of getting lost in a Greek island village was this: I realized that thinking exclusively in linear and hyper-organized ways (like hurrying through the grid-system of modern American cities) tends to lead me toward a restless sense of stress and anxiety, doubting and second-guessing everything. But wandering here and there in my mind and imagination (like strolling the winding streets in a Greek island village) tends to lead my soul toward a restful and restorative sense of freedom and wonder.
