athens: i climb filappappou hill everyday
I climb filappappou hill everyday and remember the first time I climbed up this hill, when I told myself — that when I return to this city, I will climb this hill everyday. now, nearly two years and a pandemic later, I climb up the same hill carrying a different person inside this body. I look inside and find a wearier traveler, my heart held by a darker chamber — its old, violent longings faded into something more subdued, more simple. I only seek stillness. stillness, like a salve for everything.
so I climb up this hill everyday to sit alone on the rocky cliffs, and listen to the sounds of the city. I watch the black winged birds flying, I note the weather changing, I hear the tourists, coming and going, each speaking their own languages. I notice how my way of traveling, now, is not centered around doing new things, but in finding the things I want to repeat over and over again; rituals of solitude...
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