Mid-afternoon in
Athens during a heatwave. Temperatures have been as high as 105 Fahrenheit
during the past week. The heat is oppressive and my neighborhood resembles a
ghost town. As I make the short walk from my apartment to the car, dragging my
suitcase along the sidewalk, the sun sears my shoulders as sweat gathers at the
small of my back. The only other person on the street is a dark-skinned
immigrant, pushing a supermarket cart filled with bits of metal and other
scraps. He stops at the trash bin and lifts the lid, rummages around but he
doesn’t find anything and continues on to the next set of bins, pushing his
cart down the street while the scorching sun beats down on us. Before I
drive off, I check my bag one last time. I have everything I need. Money,
passports, e-ticket number.
The past week has
been filled with mixed emotions – melancholy and excitement. As the plane
soared over the azure waters of the Aegean - Greece sparkling before my eyes
like a gem - I felt a strange sadness and longing for what should have been… As
we ascended through wispy clouds and flew high above the Adriatic Sea I watched
the coastline below… The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and everything
seemed perfect as I observed the changing colors of the scenery – blues and
browns changed to varying shades of green as the plane flew past Dubrovnik,
then Venice, and over northern Italy and Switzerland. As we neared Zurich the
skies turned to grey and the clouds darkened as a thunderstorm rained over the
airport… I walked through the jet bridge towards passport control shivering in
my sleeveless shirt as the cold air rushed in.
I show both
passports to avoid the usual confusion if I just offer one (if I show only the
US passport, they ask ‘when did you enter the EU?’ and ‘where is your entry
stamp?’ or ‘do you have a work permit?’… if I only show the Greek passport they
ask ‘you are in transit to the US, do you have a US passport?’)…. So I rifle
through my bag and find the blue one and slide it under the window, and as the
official thumbs through the pages of my US passport, he says something to his
colleague in the next booth and they both glance at me and chuckle (perhaps a snarky
comment about the ‘dumb American tourist’?)… In the meantime I’ve found the maroon
passport and I slide it under the window too and their faces become serious
again. Did they realize that I am also an EU citizen, I am also ‘one of them’
and perhaps I understood their amusing comment? The official quietly scans my
Greek passport and then I am on my way to gate E53 with my two identities in my
purse and the dichotomy in my head: am I Greek? am I European? am I American? I
decide that I am all three…
The next flight passes
over Western Europe and crosses the Atlantic Ocean. I settle into
my seat with a novel about a journalist in the 1980’s – he travels to divided
Germany and settles in Berlin. As a foreigner he is able to cross the Berlin
Wall and he easily travels in and out of East Berlin. He writes about the
differences between East and West Germany and how the people in East Berlin
treat him differently because of what he represents: the outside world and
freedoms they do not have… Some East Berliners treat him with suspicion; some
are indifferent, while others are resentful. The journalist struggles with this
duality and the guilt he feels because he is able to leave while others cannot.
I watch the monitor
in front of my seat, which shows a map of the route. The plane has crossed the
Atlantic and is nearing the East Coast. It flies past Nova Scotia in Canada and
goes south, descending towards New England. I don’t need to look at the monitor
anymore, I look out of the window to the land below and I know exactly where we
are.
When I exit the
airport, rolling my luggage cart through the parking lot, the air is warm and
everything is familiar. Even though I have been living in Greece for over 15
years, I feel like I never left my birthplace – the city of Boston. My much-needed
time here will be brief, but just enough to recharge my depleted batteries.
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