Rebellion (or, Cape Sounion)

“This is what I imagined when I thought about Greece,” I say, gazing at the clear waters of the Aegean, my face pressed against the glass of the coach treading along to Cape Sounion. The bright magenta exterior of our bus is exactly the shade of printer ink. We are a giant, traveling ink cartridge.

Mountains—some the shade of okra, others more like stale cilantro leaves—burgeon from every side. To their probable dismay, they found it difficult to hold my attention. My eyes scan the pristine mountains as quickly as when I search for something specific through stacks of old papers. I search for the prize, the temple where one of the most famous ancient statues of Poseidon once stood, and no more than acknowledge the presence of natural beauty around me.

I could hear her sigh from Phoenix. My dear friend, a connoisseur of biology, would have spent more time analyzing the invasive plants in the ruins than the stones themselves. “There is so much intrigue in what’s living,” she always says, “there’s nothing quite like it”.

My brief knowledge of geology allows me to notice the folding layers of sedimentary rocks on the cliffs and off the shore. As we hike up to the temple itself, I’m a little disheartened when I notice it’s built on top of folding layers as well. “This is just waiting to sink into the water,” I think to myself, unwittingly reminding myself that, despite the endurance of all the monuments I’ve seen over the past week, they will eventually erase into nothingness, and no will be able to know of their majestic history outside of books. It was like noticing a loose strand around the hem of a dress, the trivial thread steals all attention away from the other fibers.

“Everything is temporary,” she told me as we sat outside her lab that winter afternoon. She was shaken up and upset, but her wisdom was unclouded. “You really have to embrace the present. You don’t know how long you have it. You have to enjoy it while you can,” she said. She was right in more ways than I realized.

The strand of melancholy breaks away, letting my eyes focus on the bigger picture. There is a thrill in this moment. In knowing that the temple standing before me, in its suburban-house-beige glory, is only here for a limited time. And I am lucky enough to experience looking at it before it erodes completely, or before the Greek government becomes so poor that they began selling these away to the highest bidder.

“Hey Cassie, you wanna get in trouble?” I say, approaching my roommate. I already knew we weren’t allowed to pose in front of monuments or statues because it was considered offensive (the screaming woman in the National Archaeological Museum made that extremely clear). But we were only here for an hour, and I had recently learned that Greece doesn’t deport anyone. So I figured… the most that could happen is that we’d get kicked out of the temple. 

This temple is only here for a limited time, I’m only here for a limited time. So with a big, metaphorical raise of my middle finger to the Greeks’ policy on posing, I stood in front of the temple, outstretched my arms, and took the stance of the famous statue of Poseidon that previously graced this Cliffside. 

The shutter clicks. 

The moment is captured. 

I am victor.