waiting for movement

This is the view I am looking across to right now. The sea is actually a lot closer than it looks as there is a bay which curves round the side of the hill and is quite easy to walk to. I was told if I swam out immediately in front I would reach Troy in Turkey. I have put it on my to-do list but my list is rather full right now with other tasks such as: 

1. Bowel evacuation (no luck since I got here) 

2. Washing my food-dribbled shirt from yesterday's lunch 

3. Trying to write something other than my blog before I leave here.  Each day my desire to write seems to be dwindling a little more. Not my desire to write in general – just here.  If I am honest I feel a little bit like the odd one out because everyone else seems to be gunning for bestsellers, mysteries, romances or some other melodrama. Somehow stories about walking dogs, mystic ex-lawyers and rogue elephants seem to belong in another place. This is not to say that everyone is not welcoming or enthusiastic but today I was told that my writing was very lyrical and rhythmic (and it sounded as if they felt that this was something I should change.) Of course I won’t change this –this is how I write but it's hard not to take everything to heart – its hard to learn how to sift through what you find constructive and what you don’t.

But I do love it here. I love the sounds and smells. I love the food and the wonderful communal area we meet for lunch and dinner. I love that in the morning I wake up to do yoga on the terrace outside my room and I can hear the roosters crowing and old Greek men shouting as they begin their day.

Last night we went to the local museum which hangs on a cliff on the top of the village. We were given a sample of wine and were asked to guess what it was made from. I guessed it was rose wine which I hope was because of my love of rose petals and not some sort of alcoholic intuition. They then asked how it was made and I gave them a blow-by-blow account of how they would make it ( I modelled it on limoncello.) It turned out I was right which made the local creator look almost a little miffed. Like I had outed his most precious secret and revealed it to be rarver simple. Anyway I added by way of appeasement what a difficult task it was to perfect the rose wine the way he clearly had.  (Obviously I am a graduate of smarm school.)