Greece 2022

If you’re on the look for a mamma mia, manifesting the summer of my dreams kind of read, welcome. Sit back, relax, grab a bowl of your favorite snack and enjoy my loves.

I would be lying to you if I said I was hard to please.

A good cup of coffee right when I roll out of bed, watching the sunset, being cuddled up on the couch in my favorite blanket, turning the pages of my book with my eyes squinted from the sun on the beach, devouring a bag of boom chicka pop with dark chocolate chips as a reward for any kind of day (that is good day, bad day, long day, productive day, you know the drill).

It is the little things in life that bring me the most joy. It is the moments and things that aren’t even trying to make me happy that, in and of them themselves, make me the happiest. But, this isn’t about the things that make me happy, or at least not directly about that. Rather, it is about where in the world I happen to be today, Greece.

Before coming here, I thought I understood what kind of beauty I was going to encounter.

Yet, now that I'm here, I have realized that there are two types of beauty: created and effortless.

Created beauty is all over the world: the hand painted ceilings in St. Peter’s bastilla, Kendall Jenner's Vogue cover, the million-dollar NYC studio apartment that overlooks Central Park, I could go on forever. These things are beautiful because of the work that was put into them. Michelangelo's years of commitment and ungodly amount of paint to create one of the worlds most adored paintings, created. Kendall Jenner’s full and intense team of makeup artists who cover her face in best contours money can buy, style her hair to fall just the right way, the photographer who positions her perfectly, and the editor that fixes the leftover “imperfections” they missed, created. The apartment that you have to sell a kidney to afford for that NYC view, created.

Yet, it is things, places, people, and moments that are effortlessly beautiful that truly amaze me, that make my heart sing.

In Greece, this is an undeniable truth. The way the old, “sugar cube” houses seamlessly tie together every picture you take with a bow, the small hand-made jewelry store you find tucked into the streets of Chora in Naxos, the woman at dinner who goes out of her way to ask where you are from and make sure you are having the best trip, the quiet of the morning because, unlike the US, people actually sleep in here, and the sunsets.

As I watch these sunsets, I have thought incessantly about how to describe them on this page, but nothing will ever do them justice. At the end of the day, there is something so special, so indescribable about a sunset. The way your phone can never capture the vivid colors, the sparkle in the water that is so much better in person, and the way that everyone in the world will willingly stop from everything they are doing, find the best view, and admire the sun falling back into the night. Nothing I can ever write could truly do them justice, but this is me trying:

The sunsets here are inexplicably gorgeous. That goes without saying. And, after much internal debate, I’ve decided that they aren't real. Story over, description finished, good night.

No, but I'm not even joking. The best way I can describe them to you is if you were to be looking at the largest watercolor painting ever created. The pinks look a deeper color of coral I didn’t think existed, the sun a perfect circle that glows beyond belief, the way the water takes on a new life with the sparkles and the sun, the way it transforms into a deep blue as the colors fade, and most amazingly in my opinion, the mountains. The mountains are far away enough that they appear slightly, transparently blue. The way the ones closer become a stronger, more known blue. Yet all of this beauty is wrapped in sheer cover that makes it all look, well, fake.

Before my last stop, I thought that the world couldn’t get any more beautiful. Then I went to Santorini and my world turned upside down. People really weren’t kidding, this island is the closest thing to heaven you can find. Maybe that is because the villages rest at the top of the caldera bringing you, literally, closer to heaven. Or, to me, maybe it is the way that, as you look out into the distance, sometimes all you see is sky. You don’t see the crystal clear, blue waters, the islands in the distance, the vineyards that line the sides crawling down the cliff side. Instead, you see bright blue skies that fade into the sunsets I have already geeked over. There is no better way of putting it that feeling as though you are on a cloud. It is the best description I can come up with.

This feeling takes you over. This idea of being on a cloud carries over into everything else you see and do. Being at a place this gorgeous, everything feels lighter. Your troubles seem to stay somewhere on the port as you float up.

For a person who is easily happy, it’s safe to say I am beaming with joy.