Dark in the sky

We stood on the southern tip of Attica looking North.  The sky ahead was clouding over, replacing the blue skies that had been with us for the week of our holiday. Temperatures had been steadily rising by a couple of degrees every day.  By Monday we were facing 40 plus in the shade. The air was thick with haze. I could almost see all of the available moisture being evaporated into the sky. The clouds were dirty. “That’s pollution from Athens” she ventured.  I wasn’t so sure. The discolouration was faint. I thought Athens was too far away and maybe it was a nearby fire. Something small.

We played the tourist game. Strolling around a 2500 year old world heritage site, looking at yachts passing by on blue seas, sitting at a cafe lamenting the existence of ready salted crisps, drifting through gift shops idly gazing at reproduction artefacts. We moved on, driving up the coast looking for a good spot for a late lunch, arriving at a seaside town filled with large hotels ringing a beach.  One side formed an isthmus. A hotel’s wall ran down the divide but it contained a window to advertise what you could pay to enter. Today was different. Beyond the wall was on the windward side and it was a completely contrasting scene from ours. The wind was very strong with waves crashing with repetitive fury. People were streaming out through the gate to get off the beach. Meanwhile our view from the restaurant verander was significantly calmer, with only a duckling chain of dinghy's tippling over further to suggest any strength in the wind out of the shelter of the shoreline.  As the evening approached we headed to the airport for our flight home. The wind continued to grow. Navigating through Athens’ suburbs, gusts moved the hire car across the lane. With each shudder I reapplied my grip ever more firmly on the wheel. Crossing east from the undulating topology next to the sea the landscape opened up as we approached the airport. A smoke cloud was streaming down the eastern coastline, filling the sky. Landing airplanes had to fly through it, their eddies making only the briefest of swathes on the churning smokestack . The decks of the airport compressed the wind, pushing metal benches down the walkways.  We dragged ourselves and our luggage against the wind and on entering the departure gate crossed into the artificial reality of airports, all delayed passengers, duty free shops and near infinite opportunities for queuing. Joining in the standard ceremonies we drank coffee, played cards and waiting for our late departing flight. Fires were burning across the hillsides as we took off that night. There were no other details, just the bright flames in the darkness.

We arrived home, slept and woke to learn that Greece has suffered its worst wildfires for a decade, with 85 people dying at one site alone.  So far so goulish observation. The hotel we’d checked out of on Monday was in Mati, the village at the heart of the fires on the east of Attica.  After leaving the hotel we driven up to Marathonas to do some more sightseeing. We’d driven through Mati again around 13:30 before heading south. The roads in the area had always been busy.  The main roads the steady concertina between junctions of any built up area. The side roads were very “Greek”, all double parking and negotiated weaving to get from one end to the other. Maps drawn up in the days that followed showed that our hotel had survived but the fire line was only metres away. A charred landscape ringed it. Further south on the coastal back road to Rafina lines of burned out cars filled our news screens. We’d driven that road to have dinner in the port at Rafina on Sunday night. The hotel we’d left had been standard holiday fayre, canned music, poolside sunbathing and a walkway out to the beach.  It’s hard to reconcile these memories with testaments of the survivors, some who had fled into the sea from the flames and the smoke, guilty at being unable to protect those that drowned.

We were fine.  Unscathed but struggling to reconcile that we’d been close by at best a couple of hours from being involved in something devastating.  Life is filled with the calamities that don’t happen. The blown tyre on the drive home. The faulty gas boiler. The drunk driver in the other car…..  These remain hypothetical. Monday was all too real….meaning nothing and everything. Greece, never universally affluent has endured years of financial hardship since its debt crisis.  Our travels across the country highlighted both its inherent beauty but also the poverty that has impacted on the population as a whole. Not that any county does but Greece didn’t deserve this. Not my Greece. A country of family, of kindness, of not worrying about locking your doors, of friendship.

Crops will be sown in the fields and grow again. Houses will be rebuilt. The people will mourn. They will remember. We carry on. πάθει μάθος.

Because I listened to Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa. These are the words that damn me. Invoking mockery and derision. Because I’ve listened to Dua Lipa. Because I’ve watched a Rita Ora & Charli XCX video on YouTube. Because I own a couple of Taylor Swift songs. Because I know who Raye is.

The user centric algorithm based search results of a music streaming service are but an echo of activity spliced with some marketing AI. It’s aims are simple, to keep you using the service, remain monetising. The agenda is transparent. But what of those around me? My “friends”. The sources of mockery. The intervention. The flurry of value judgements. “This isn’t your music”. “This is pop”. “I remember when you had taste”. “You introduced me to some of the music I love but now all I see is a broken man having a mid life crisis investing his energy into young lovelies in a vaguely concerning manner.”

Communication. Not my forte. People. Not my bag. At work it sort of is but it’s all focused on computer systems and there’s a base logic at the heart of each debate, a pattern, a model we can all support. I never have to look a colleague in the eyes and ask them how they’re feeling. Unless it’s a joke, or a device to unsettle them as my logic isn’t winning the day. What I’m doing leading a large team when I have the interpersonal skills of a faulty dot matrix printer is perhaps a ripe subject for another blog but let me acknowledge I at least pick and choose how and when I communicate with people.

Or do I? Can we ever stop communicating. How is my body poised in relation to the other person. Where are my feet pointing? Am I slumped? Upright? Am I looking into their eyes or anywhere else? Is this somewhere polite society tells me I shouldn’t be staring at. And smacking my lips exclaiming “oh boy!”. Do my responses chime with theirs, a forward narrative that shows we’re listening and responding to each other? Or am I on broadcast mode, simply conveying my message and discounting theirs?

And what about when it’s a group? What about when I don’t know them well and we have no common ground to back reference. Do I have small talk? Or do I think of it as a precursor to the Java programming language? What is small talk? The weather? Brexit? Donald Trump? Tax deadlines? I sit at dinner tables with friends of friends and flounder. No one talks about work - too gauche, bar to say we’re all awfully busy. No one does politics….although the right wing people like us tone rings strong. Religion - I don’t think so. The arts? No. Society? Too much like politics. Move on. Where are you going skiing this year? I’m left with nothing. Or at least nothing I care about. Whether blah blah blah’s house is or isn’t selling. How hard it is to find a decent gardner or cleaner. What house improvements we should contemplate next. Yeah, let’s replace some guttering but let’s never speak of it more than we have to and never, ever over starters.

Are we a caring society or are we wilfully looking the other way as people fall by the wayside. What does this manifestation mean to us as individuals and as a collective? What is brexit? A rejection of central european bankers or a return turn the a world of zero rights and the Victorian ruling class. Do we live in a democracy? Should we accept the status quo? Who is actually happy? And is this an unobtainable myth? Are we just animals, circling each other working out the next death strike? What does art say to us as people? Do we question ourselves? What does history tell us of today? Should we accept science’s only truism, that whatever we currently view as an accepted position will be challenged and improved in perpetuity?

This is too hard. We’re scared of each other. Let’s talk about the new models of BMWs instead. The latest crime series on tv. The new super food in the stores. Let’s smile and wave. Get through the day. Let’s skim. Let’s play Dua Lipa.