From Athens to Tsangkarada to Amsterdam: What Traveling Teaches Me About Staying Wild, Sacred, and Sane

Athens is raw, sensual, gritty and hard. I stick out in Athens walking my dog. My energy, my fair skin and green eyes are unusual and not always welcome.
I learned in Athens to find the neuroarchitecture that soothed my nervous system and to ignore the ruins, the graffiti, the garbage and the noise. I learned to assert my place when a man tries to take it, to use my voice even though it was in a different language.

I learned that while growing up in the US, volume was rude but in Athens volume is a pressure release. Welcome, even respected.

I found bliss in the bitter orange blossoms, the smell of meat cooking, and the impossibility of blending in.
The city stripped away my tentative approach and my habit of waiting my turn. My game of patriarchy chicken extended to anyone able-bodied. No reason for me to get out of the way first.
Services are cheap in Athens. I learned the power of long red gel nails, twice weekly blowouts, weekly massage, wax. Under the hands of strangers my body learned to expect touch, expect care, expect to be looked at like a prize.
There is always time for a coffee even if we don’t talk about much. Sit, take a load off. Have a coffee and a sweet.   Long dinners edged past midnight in the city or along the beach.   Little is more important than the art of long, conversations, of good fresh food.  

Generations of unhealed trauma in the area feed the melodrama. Cultural differences made friendships slippery. I ended up mostly relating to expats and those my dog had charmed into daily cookies.
I never really fit in like a puzzle piece. I more haunted the city with my favorite spots, my places to try, my quiet corners. My body held the smog and car horns as tight as it held the sweetness of blossoms and cigarettes. I felt perceived and invisible at the same time.
Living directly on my Venus line brought me clients, writing, friends, lovers and just like the decadent piece of cake you can’t finish, it brought the desire to leave.

From Athens I went to Tsangkarada. A magical village on the eastern side of central Greece. The mountain, Pelion, where centaurs lived, where Jason and the Argonauts launched their boat into the sea, where Chiron had a cave and taught and healed.

The village felt mythical and alive. I slept harder than I had in ages, falling asleep to the songs of night birds and waking to their gossip at dawn. The jasmine growing wild was intoxicating, curling through the cobbled paths connecting village to village. I picked wild apricots every day. Cherries fell off the tree overnight. 
Everything slowed down on the mountain. My internal chatter softened. I released the smog, the car horns, the invisible armor Athens required.

I dreamt of caves and centaurs, nymphs and fireflies. I felt guided by the blossoms and the fruit, by the nymphs and the past.   There were times i felt I had jumped timelines to watch the gathering at the water fountains or people walking the mule paths at dawn.

The geckos greeted us every day on the paths and I imagined walking these same stones hundreds of years ago, climbing to the peak to watch the moon carve its secrets into the sea.
My body changed on the mountain. My need for seven cups of coffee faded to one, then none. My steps slowed to fit the rocks and cobblestones. My bare feet learned their edges.  Every morning we watched a new blossom open, new growth on a vine wrapping itself around a pergola.   I touched and smelled everything I could.   The nightingales started before dawn and finished long after dark.

 I found myself guided by my senses through the woods, smelling mint, hearing goat bells, tracing moss with my fingertips. Fascinated, charmed, seduced by the mountain and its magic.

Next, Amsterdam, one of my favorite cities. There is a chaos in Amsterdam that calms me. The colors, the shapes, the ease with which everyone lives.

What’s honest are the glances, the small ways strangers connect without needing to know your name. In three weeks here not one person has asked what I do for a living.  No one cares. 
There is a structure and order to the chaos of the city streets that soothes my nervous system. I see intention in people’s eyes, direct, neutral, unbothered. There is a seamlessness here about race, gender, language. The whole melting pot hums. I hear more English spoken in Amsterdam than any other city in Europe and I find life here easier.
 

I come during the summer, Pride flags, trans flags, rainbows draped over canals, and I feel at ease. If a city is LGBTQIA-friendly it is usually neurodiverse-friendly too. The Dutch seem to allow everything as long as you are not in each other’s way. Take care of yourself. Stay out of each other’s business. They are friendly, matter of fact, efficient.
 

The city is gorgeous with its shifting colors, old bricks, crisp green parks, sudden sweetness of waffles in the air. Everything feels different, unexpected. The part of me that gets musical goosebumps loves Amsterdam’s unpredictability.
I can disappear and reappear here. I can walk through Vondelpark and be noticed as a foreigner or drift along a canal unseen.

 Amsterdam holds my contradictions and none of them are too much or even interesting enough to bother anyone. The priestess, the retreat leader, the sacred slut, the foreigner walking her pitbull through hidden gardens. None of it needs explaining. The city whispers, “it’s okay.”  Greece’s melodrama replaced with Holland’s casual ease. On warm days everyone cancels plans to sit outside, bike, sprawl on the grass. Just be. Outside.

The Thread — What stays when you move

When I pack up my things, my supplements, eye mask, the dog leash, the notebooks, the silk slip I pretend is for sleeping, I always notice what does not fit in the suitcase.

It is the part of me that does not change zip codes. The way I watch people, the way I press my bare feet to stone floors, the way I carry my own rules for touch and silence. My little rituals come with me, a small rock on a new windowsill, the small bottle of oil that turns any bed into an altar. My tantra goes with me. I do not leave my body behind at the border. I do not pretend I am tamer just because the street signs change.

What changes is the story. What stays is the ritual of being fully here. Fully alive. Fully capable of burning my life down and starting over if the ground I am standing on feels dishonest.

You do not have to move countries to feel what I mean. Maybe you just need to leave the room you have been in too long. Maybe you need to close the door, lie on the floor, and remember how your own skin tastes when you stop apologizing for it.
Place changes us. But you choose what parts of you get to stay wild or stay hidden.
I keep moving because I want to keep meeting the parts of me that refuse to be domesticated.  I love the thrill of a new city, and the return to old friends.

 I write because maybe you need to remember your own wild part too.

So tonight, wherever you are, press your feet to the floor. Light a candle. Touch your wrist. Whisper your real name into the dark.
Ask yourself, what have I stayed too long for?
And what might happen if you packed nothing but your body, your truth, and your own secret permission slip to be ungoverned, just for a while?