Tag: grapevines

I trekked up those steep stone steps, to visit Saint George of the Mountain, a one-room church and monastery, built on a basilica’s ruins. Those four hundred fifty stone steps, carved switchback into the hillside, above the road circling Megisti, the isle where my grandfather was born. Grateful that strenuous exercise was still mine at age sixty-five, three days in a row, I did it. First day by myself, next with the Sydney-born Greek, and last with my new Turkish friends. The stone steps trailed behind me, red-tile roofs rested below. The harbor with water transparent, arriving ferries from Turkey, the Greek Navy ship departing, diners at seaside tavernas, island families with children at play, I saw it all, nine hundred feet straight down.

The hilltop lay sprawling ahead.

Each time I surveyed the hilltop, with its scrap of hand-built walls, I felt a push-pull between the now and the days no more. I thought of so many others, on this hilltop for thousands of years. Carving cisterns out of the rock, building stone fences and huts, herding their sheep and goats, growing olives and grapevines, worshipping pagan sites, converting to Orthodox churches, fleeing invaders and pirates—living and dying here. I trekked up those steep stone steps, three days in a row I did it, those four hundred fifty stone steps, leading to the hilltop above. I trekked up those steep stone steps, on the hills of my grandfather’s birthplace. I trekked up those steep stone steps, then returned to my life down below.