There is a country all too rarely visited where nothing ever happens. It is a place as calm as a tomb, and with the same bleak hope as a tomb. Its citizens take this for granted, wishing above all to preserve the sanctity of their isolation, a fact as strange as it is intriguing. They know this, too; they are not a stupid people. In fact, it is what makes the silence that surrounds them, in contrast to what they never do, there never being anything out of the ordinary to do, so unique. You can see it in the way they smile, the simplicity of their lips parting just wide enough to show the stems of their teeth.
Industrious, yes, but not in a competitive way. They would rather restrict their routines to the necessary functions without embellishment. Their work as farmers, shepherds, weavers, fishermen and the like is accepted, a matter of survival. Their pleasures, their festivities, follow suit. It is not that moderation is an ethic. I do not believe that they would ever consider daily life in terms of a moral concept.
So it’s not strange at all that boredom isn’t important. When they feel it, they know it. Then it passes. They say that boredom is their “little child,” one of the few metaphors their language possesses. For while it returns to them the sensation of being a child, they don’t dwell on it. Now love, which we seem to judge cultures by — its depth, passion, ubiquity, longevity and refinements — is an event. But whether in a lifetime it appears, disappears or reappears once or numerous times is not worth discussing. It’s a private matter. Thus jealousy, while it does now and then wreak havoc, is endured. At the same time I have never met any citizen who would seek to repress their desire for love for any reason.
Marriage and childbirth are celebrated with a similar balance, as is sickness and death. The one compliments the other to such a degree of intimacy that differences vanish. There is no belief in the cyclical nature of time and the intervention of rituals to sustain the tempo either. Nor is there any fear that by not considering the effects of time anything less will happen than has already happened and will continue to happen from one generation to another.
Perhaps here is the secret that draws me back to this country, no matter what I might think of it when I first pull in by boat to the small harbor that gives way to the main town.
For my experience, mine and the very few other tourists who, by skill or luck, have found their way here, is usually the same: a sudden vertiginous letting go, a sensation of having arrived on a perfectly bare stage in an empty theater that has always been empty. Well, not so empty, for when the excitement dies off, and with it each vestige of our need to find what we couldn’t back home, the elements take over: this place, that lagoon, the old monastery on top of the mountain, the tiny stream in the valley, the olive grove, the taverna, the school bus in the morning, the quick rains, the burning sun, the sharp scent of thyme, the deep low flight of lavender, the fishing boats pulling in and out. And in the spirit of things here, they do so neither more nor less.
There are no revelations that this country can offer.
But each year we return and for longer stays.
In this country where nothing happens.
Without bothering to find out why.
–Allan Graubard
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