buildings | feathers

The buildings of small towns seem, to me, like feathers stuck in a barbed wire fence.

Driving on road trips from Chicago to our respective childhood homes, JD and I often pass through small towns. Very often, these small towns have one or two buildings originally erected, years before, to meet a specific purpose and have, since then, spent decades in slow deterioration; the paint blistering away to infinite tones of gray.

Seeing them prompts me to wonder about their story. I wonder how they got there, how long they’ll hang on like that, clinging. There’s no apparent ecosystem of infrastructure to validate or support their presence. They merely are, with little reason to be; as such, they could cease to exist altogether one day, and nobody would be the wiser.

Buildings in cities, however, are the feathers of a bird. One doesn’t have to wonder about their existence; for the most part, their story is immediately apparent. You don’t have to agonize over a building’s longevity, either: should it ever cease to be where it is, another will quickly take its place.

Feeding Strays

Most of the dogs on Santorini are not entirely stray - a sharp contrast to many of the town's we've seen. The residents put collars on the dogs, let them lie inside the doorway of their shops, and offer them food. The exception is one little black dog we nicknamed "Little Girl." She has a small frame, maybe 25 or 30 pounds, and is all but skin and bones, which, under a short coat, would be revealed to every passerby. As it is, her weight is disguised by long silky fur - like that of a border collie - all over her body.

The first night we see her, we pause to pet her sleeping figure. We both run our fingertips over the small ribs; press our palms gently against her side, her back. We feel the definition of a protruding spine. And a hollow place where a belly should be. She is warm to the touch but gives no response to our hands or our gentle words.

Never have I seen a dog refrain from so much as single tail twitch in response to human affection.
She was virtually lifeless - a dog form of sharp, small angles rather than curves.

The second night, we planned ahead, and collected a small baggie of dog food from a dispenser we'd spotted. We find "Little Girl" curled up in the same tiny ball form, this time hunkered down away from the crowd, in the shadows against a wall. We approach her, and I pour a small pile of food out in front of her I feel skeptical, given her demeanor the night before, and prepare myself for the possibility that she might refuse it.

She lifts her head, though - slowly - and sniffs at the food. She leans and takes just one piece into her mouth. She chews it slowly.
One more piece, and chews slowly.
Over and over, first only one piece at a time and gradually several together. I pour more out as she eats, always scooping it closer to her muzzle so she doesn't have to stretch to eat it. Each time I put my palm to the ground, against the food, my hand only an inch or two from her mouth, she pauses and waits for me. Not once does she growl or snip; never does she give any indication of fear that I may take the food back. If it crosses her mind, it doesn't show. If she fears it, she's already acquiesced to the possibility.

She's quiet and patient.
Each time I put my hand down, however, I do so only to add more food. And push it closer.
She eats it, more quickly now - taking mouthfuls and chewing at the pace of a normal dog.

And its not until two-thirds of the way through our baggie, when perhaps she sense a filling belly, that she pauses after swallowing.
And then she looks directly at us.
Her expression is deliberate - neither cowering nor begging.
She instead simply looks at us and regards our figures, for the first time, in the shadows.
This is the first I've seen her eyes, and am startled that they are not the dark espresso of most dogs, but a light golden brown; a gentle, brilliant color.
When she looks at us, she is for a moment absolutely still, and I think all that matters in the entire world is communicated between our brown eyes.

My heart melts seeing her expression.
She likely knows we've never met.
I assure her that it's okay.

And then, just like that, she turns back to eating, still delicately.
I pour the rest of the food out for her.

We watch as she transforms back into a dog, re-adopting the typical mechanics and characteristics. She stretches a paw forward to braces herself as she eats. She thumps her tail once, tilts her head.

And, with a bit of kibble still left, she suddenly stands, chewing and swallowing her last bite, sniffs the ground and then approaches us - not to be pet, but rather, to our delight, to stretch, very doglike - first reaching her front paws forward while leaning back on her hind quarters, then repeating the motion the other way.

We coo at her like she's our dog - "good girl!" - and she sways her tail in response.
All this from a dog who didn't so much as twitch 24 hours ago.

She leaves those last few bites of kibble - as though to say, "I may be hungry, but I'm still a lady" - and jumps down onto the sidewalk, trotting across it to sit in front of a restaurant patio, at which one or two patrons have watched the whole thing, eyeing us with the same expression - the chin resting in the heel of the palm, eyes gentle, and mind in a different place - we had just given her for 15 minutes.

Her gait is dainty, her position poised, as she sits in front of the restaurant. I would like to imagine that, now that she's made herself known by emerging from the shadows, she will likely garner herself enough scraps to survive.

Indeed, the next night, we collect another bag of dog food, searching for her. We see her, for the first time, no longer curled tightly against the shadows of a wall, but trotting, gaily, along the sidewalk. And though she's happy to greet us, wagging her tail at our "Little Girl" calls though I doubt she actually recognizes them and diverging from her path to greet us, she is uninterested in the food this time around.

"Good." I observe. "Maybe she's done better for herself."
She doesn't linger long, but allows herself to be pet, briefly.
Then she leaps over a low wall, with the mannerisms of a fox, pausing just a moment on the other side before trotting off into the dark.

I think, for a moment, that perhaps we fabricated an image from the two nights before. I know, however, that the ribs, still sharply defined beneath her coat, don't lie. As she regards us, wagging her tail, I feel satisfied with my effort, confident that it made a difference, however small, to her.

I wish, suddenly, there was a way to make her know it was mutual. 

An Artist's Paradise

Oia is an artist's paradise - the stuff of dreams for sculptors, photographers and architects. The town is a sculpture - with walls meeting the edges of streets, boosting them up through narrow staircases or down along others; everything - a surface space, a line - washed white and loudly honest in the sunlight, at all times of the day. It yields new forms, new masses, new rhythm. The plants, even, are of the utmost architectural characteristics - neither cactus nor flower, they are succulent, confident, understated - potted as a single statement, a presence along a line, an articulation on which to give pause in an otherwise fluid sentence.

The homes are carved neither out of nor into the stone face of the cliff, but hang suspended while simultaneously nestled somewhere between the two - such a brilliant and efficient use of its environment, one can't help but to infer that all architects were meant to include this place in their formal study of the discipline. Without it, they fail to fully experience the pleasure of being embedded in places so balanced, so pure in their details, very few are needed to hurl the individual into a new understanding of place.

It's a symphony of balance - the use of white space versus color is almost witty; the wash of crisp solids and the tiny spurs of a potted plan set against it; the angles, seeming both measured and accidental - poised yet relaxed - that cast shadows with such proportion it can scarcely be improved upon, should we ever try. Intricate texture showcased against smooth walls; wood grains highlighted in sunlight; every color, brilliant in the sun - an artist's paradise.

You scarcely have to do anything but hold your camera out in front of you and click - much like the technique employed in firing muskets during the Civil War - and you've captured something flawless. With the right eye of a ready mindset, this is precisely how one feels with every moment the continue to look. 

The Sensation of Your Heart's Shape

I loved Istanbul.

From the first morning there, I knew. More than love at first sight, based not on superficiality or chemical reactions or coincidental timing, it was a place that the human psyche knows without knowing - the manifestation of your best dreams, things you never knew you never knew; things you always wanted. And here they are, in a place. And you're there too.

There are a handful of moments in Istanbul that will forever define my perception - or, more specifically, serve to transcribe the experience into words.

One of those happened on the ferry from the Prince's Islands to the Asian side.

J and I were riding side by side. We'd been lucky enough to get a seat on an increasingly-crowded ferry, and after a long day of bicycling up and down the gentle hills of car-less island roads, alongside the horse drawn carriages and underneath the trees that hung low in the humidity, we were quiet together, lulled by our exhaustion, our buzz, and the sound, the sensation of the boat.

I was people watching.
(The people in Turkey are some of the most watch-worthy.)

Near us, another couple was sitting. He had his arm around her; two adolescents who were suspended, for the moment, somewhere timeless in their own lives. He was utterly invested in her; he leaned in as he spoke to her, politely, his head against hers. I eyed them as one does a mirror - I felt that the four of us were riding together, and I felt their affection as our own.

Two old men got on and made their way to the area where the four of us were sitting.
The first one sat between us two couples, scooting toward J and I to leave space for his companion to do the same.
The second man, moving hesitantly, bracing against his cane between steps, reached the bench and began turning to sit down.

And then came the moment when my whole world - my entire perception of the human spirit - changed forever.
The boy, who just moments before was so completely absorbed by his existence and that of his companion, suddenly glanced up at the man next to him and, reacting by instinct rather than analysis, stood quickly and, with obvious care, took the man by his shoulders, one in each hand, and helped him sit down on the bench.

The man, once seated, thanked the boy.
And the boy, it was plain to see, nodded back with the utmost genuine expression.
It read such sincere compassion for his fellow human that, had I been his mother, I would've cried over what a beautiful person I'd manage to raise.

My heart absolutely melted that day. For a moment, it turned to liquid inside my chest and hung heavy between my ribs, pulling on the base of my throat. And then it gradually re-assembled itself into its shape. 

El Salvador

There's a group of seven us arriving on the same flight for the wedding that weekend. One of the individuals in the group is returning to El Salvador for the first time in a decade after living there for a few years during their civil war.

Seeing her eye the countryside outside the window while we're en route to the hotel, I ask, "does it look the same to you or different?"
"Both," she says. "It's more developed, but it's also so much dirtier than I remembered."

So much dirtier, presumably, than many of us prefer.

"Dirtiness" is a fascinating concept - a subjective evaluation we cast over places that are not our own while traveling. The word - and the environment to which it is assigned - is held at arm's length, like something we will endure in the short term and not something by which we want ourselves associated.

We cast the "dirty" judgement on places that contradict the "standard" we have established as the default (that which is "dirty" is the opposite of that which is "clean" - and therefore that which is "good.") The perplexing thing about "clean" is that, in the American mindset, it often belongs to images of suburbia: the white picket fence, the bright green grass, the freshly waxed SUV.

And while these elements are certainly "clean" (that is, largely free of litter, graffiti, homelessness or grime), they are also so resolute in the pursuit of "flawlessness" that they tend to border "sterile." So while they may not be "dirty," they also aren't fully alive.

Humans aren't perfect; to be fully human is to be a little bit gritty - even "dirty." Places that maintain their grittiness seem, to me, a more honest extension of the people living there and, as such, more real. In the same sense that we assert that we feel more comfortable around genuine people, it seems we should, by extension, feel comfortable in genuine surroundings.

I know I myself will choose an honest environment over a fake one in any circumstance, and it prevailed even on this trip, when J and I left the luxuries of our hotel to spend an afternoon in Centro - an area densely populated with wooden fruit stands and coconut water, porn videos and electronics - an area so sharply contrasting the plushness of our accommodations, we were informed to stay inside the taxi and lock the doors.

"If you do get out," the concierge said, "you will have to take your watch off."
"Done." I thought. "A few hours of an experience as rich as this or a few hours wearing my watch and talking about celebrities with everyone else out by the pool? That's an easy one."

In the end, we did convince the driver to let us walk around.
And, yes, it was dirty. And impoverished. But it was also energized. And full of life.
We came back smelling of body odor, frier oil and city grime.
And we were all the richer and more fortunate for it.

Tan skin

Pink bodies in the sun, soft along their ribcages and across their chests. They rub oil all over themselves and lay motionless; surrender their skin to the sun. 
Still they are pink. They will not tan. 


Tan, instead, are the locals, whose skin maintains a rich brown year-round, built deep through the layers over years of being in the sun. 


"Time for another beer!" The pink ones yell.
Lots of beer, but just one brand, so they booze themselves the same way day after day. 
They're happy to do it.
It's holiday, after all. 


The locals bring it, smiling back, in a different way. 
Is there anything else?
Not right now. Cheers. 


The pink ones eye the tan shoulders as they walk away.
They slather on more oil. 


It is the benchmark against which they measure the success of their hours beside the pool.
And it is simultaneously the identifier of who to call at, when it comes time for another beer.  

Turkish coast

Off the Turkish coast, the water is warm; almost too warm. And it is like nothing I've ever been in before, with the calmness of a lake, but the salinity of the ocean. Diving in, I momentarily forget that this is the Mediterranean Sea and not the freshwater my intuition knows; as my body breaks the water and I taste salt along the inside of my lips, for a second, my instincts feel deceived, and I suspect there's something wrong with the water.


By the time I surface, however, rationale - always the slower companion to our instincts - has reminded me that it is only a nook of the Mediterranean, which in turn is only a nook of the world's oceans and is, as such, salt water.


I wipe the water from my face, pressing the flat underside of my knuckles to my brow. The water clings to the skin, latching to the body even where it is submerged below the surface, and after several separate efforts across my face, I can feel that the salt molecules remain. I acquiesce.


The body floats easily in salt water, rendering swim and play more enjoyable; leisurely. The entire boat - over a dozen of us - dives into the water from the railing. 


The water, however, though it is welcoming, also corrals us away from the sloping, rocky shores; though nearly dead in sea life, one creature prospers here. 


"Sea urchin," we decipher through the charades of one of our boat companions, whose English, much to our amusement, offers the initial translation of "sea eagle."
Sea urchins, all along the shore, with needles that cannot be pulled out, she warns us - as attempting to do so leaves broken fragments buried beneath the skin - and must instead be doctored with olive oil.
"You cannot go onto the shore."


I nod, but am skeptical, sensing that the warning is not a real danger but rather the precautionary result of one or two accidents shared between boat captains after tours like ours. 
I wager that the shore could feasibly be conquered around the sea urchins.


However, our next anchoring, pulled closer to the shoreline, reveals, just under the surface of strikingly clear water that occasionally rivals the Caribbean, dozens of black mounds the size of tennis balls tucked between rocks only a little larger. The ratio of urchin to rock is roughly 2:3.


I quickly calculate the logistics: urchin density, foot size versus footing size, likelihood of accurate foot placing.
I decide that they're probably right. 

Turkish coffee

"It's perfect," we assure him.

The table is no more than a piece of laminate wood - reminiscent of desktops from school days, but with no more surface space than a pizza box - braced unevenly on four long legs; shafts of cast aluminum.
It wobbles. It is the cobblestone sidewalk and it is the table.

The café owner, an older man who just moments before was deep in conversation with the only other patron in the restaurant, is holding the table with both hands, one on either side, trying to reposition it evenly.

"It's perfect," we say.

We wish we understood the Turkish word for "perfect."

They probably have one even better than ours – a word that serves the purpose of expressing not only evaluation, but gratitude.

Such diction would suit them.

He steps back from the table, only mildly satisfied.
We order two coffees.

"Şeker?" He asks.

It's close enough, when spoken aloud and in this context, that we understand.
"No." Simply, without thanking him for asking.
Here, we grant one another the courtesy of simplicity.

He stares at us.

He thinks it's him - you can see immediately, there in his eyes: a flash of concern.
He wants us to be happy with our coffee, and he knows coffee takes "şeker."
Especially when ordered by the tourists.
But he's nervous to ask again, so doesn't. And leaves.

Moments later, however, he returns to our table, with two teeny empty coffee cups, two teeny saucers.

And the şeker cubes.

He gestures as though to drop a cube into one of the delicately painted cups, repeating: "şeker?"

He urges us to understand the question; to understand that our proper answer is "yes."

"No," we try again, as gently as we can, so as not to bruise his efforts in hospitality.

He looks down at the tray, bewildered, and retreats back inside.

A few minutes later, he brings the coffees - no şeker - leaves them on the laminate, and goes back inside.

I brace my knee gently against the table to steady it, so that the coffees are not inadvertently capsized.

We each take our teeny cup between two fingertips, and bring them to our lips.

I am sure he watches us from inside the cafe, and, as we drink, likely experiences a wash of relief and surprise; a sentiment of pride.

We drink slowly, to savor his efforts.
We maintain that at least that should be done "right."

The coffee is good, as they all are.
It hangs in temperature, warm from first sip to last - a balm to the senses.
And it is marked by the same gentle-gritty charm of the table, of the neighborhood itself.
It is vibrant but understated - a comfort without pretension or showmanship.
In that sense, the coffee is a true extension of the people.

It's perfect.