Sunday, June 14, 2026

"with a friend"

We took a boat trip across the Saronic Gulf to Aegina and Agistri today. I'll be looking at pictures and videos of the sea and skies for a long time... the blues are fairly incredible. Even in the moment, they seemed unreal. 

Hunting for the perfect pistachio ice cream as one does on Aegina, Nu and I stopped at a beautiful Byzantine church. (I light candles for Scout and my mama everywhere I go.) 

The elderly woman who had been cleaning some pictures stopped and marched up to me, and I got a bit nervous wondering if I'd forgotten to take off my hat or was sitting in the wrong chair... but it turned out that she just wanted to confirm that I was Indian and give me compliments and appear thoroughly devastated that we were there only for the day. (My conversations with Greek people are in the 100th percentile for sweetness, I swear.) 

She kept referring Nu as "my friend" although we both explained how we were related a couple of times, so I kept reminding Nu to be a good friend for the rest of the day. 

Pic: Big A's candid of my "friend" Nu and me on the boat. #Greece

8 comments:

Jeanie said...

You and your friend Nu look smashing! I love your church story -- the lady sounds very sweet. How lovely to be so welcomed.

Nance said...

What a beautiful scene of the water and the sky. It's idyllic.

"My friend Nu" reminds me of Theo calling me My Friend Nana!

StephLove said...

Lovely picture of you and your friend. Was there a language barrier?

J said...

Beautiful photo! I love pistachio ice cream, I hope you found some.

I’m atheist, and I also light candles in church for my parents (and now Mulder). It helps (well, not really, but kind of?)

maya said...

Thanks, Jeanie. She seemed so severe, but was the sweetest!

maya said...

Aw! And in the animal world, "My Friend Flicka."

maya said...

Everyone seemed to speak English... but then we were in places frequented by tourists.

maya said...

J, I remember we talked about lighting candles... did you originally give me the idea?! It does help <3

The pistachio ice cream was good... a bit salty with bits of pink pistachios... I'm glad I tried it (a few tastes from Nu), but it's not something I will crave.

crossing

in that room I have never left this body drifts away from me I've  mislaid an empty  head crowds have taken its words lines  shudder unp...