30. and 31. Crete and Danielle Steel

A beach and a read and an ancient curse.

There have been two times that I have opened a fortune cookie and received the message, “Beware the Lost city of Knossos, Doom Awaits You There.” 

Receiving the same message twice in a fortune cookie isn’t that unusual, but this was so very specific. Knossos isn’t a lost city. People know exactly where it is: Crete. It is the oldest known settlement on the island and remains a pretty popular tourist destination on the outskirts of Heraklion. You may have never heard of it or thought you knew about it, but you do. It’s where King Minos lived and where Daedalus built his maze for the Minotaur to roam and eat youths. So it’s not lost, but it’s not really a place where people live, and the people who did live there have left behind ancient stories that absolutely fill the area with doom-like vibes. 

When I planned a trip to Crete, I noticed the location of Knossos and remembered the funny fortune cookie coincidence. I am horribly superstitious. It is a part of being spiritual without religion. So I decided not to fly into Heraklion and bought a ticket to Chania instead. It is the other major city in Crete and as the budget ticket plane touched down on the ground at an impossible angle and speed I wondered if I was still playing it too close to the line. Once the door was open and I could get away from the tube of terror, my fears felt silly. I passed by a man crouched on the ground sobbing from a panic attack caused by the landing, his girlfriend patting him across his shoulders like a dog. 

The airline had insisted I check my giant backpack. When I retrieved it, the thick waist belt was gone. Into the ether. Every year when I travel I bring a smaller and smaller bag and this was my attempt at going without a proper suitcase. Yes, I’d reinvented backpacking through Europe. Without the belt, this became much harder from a purely physical standpoint. No matter how small the bag is, it’s too heavy. I’m not a snail and I have not evolved to carry all my things on my back. Even in that first human habitation on Crete, a group of 25 people perhaps, they built themselves mud shacks to put all of their nets and bowls and trinkets into. 

The weight is a challenge I enjoy meeting. Traveling forces me to constantly reassess the line between comfort and necessity. As a recovering pack rat, this kind of introspection helps when I’m back home again. I get sick satisfaction from using everything I have until it’s down to the nub or a collection of embarrassing threads once called underwear. I aspire to Spartan discipline (aesthetically only), but inevitably the joyful explosion of stuff happens; the window sills are lined with plants with leaves curling out in exploring tendrils, cups overflow with loose change, notes, pens, earrings, bandaids, chapstick, pretty stones, fabric butterflies, gym gloves, keys, beads, gum, whatever. On the floor, belongings just pile up: the portable hammocks, macrame that needs to be returned to the hardware store, ceramics everywhere, things I’ve made or intend to make any day now, 15 pounds of red clay molding in a bag, an at-home laser hair remover from five years ago, a rug cut in half with the intention of hanging it on the couch to protect the couch from the cat, but of course that doesn’t work. In the kitchen are bags of spice and beans and grains all waiting to become food and getting lost under one another, hibernating. Before oats become oatmeal they are asleep. 

The closet explodes with chic jackets it’s never a nice enough occasion to wear, suitcases I’ll never use again because of the whole packing drama but keep just in case I need to roll something somewhere, smaller gorgeous leather duffels I inherited from my late uncle who clearly was obsessed, high heels I don’t put on because I can’t run away from danger in them, and a pile of sheets and towels that have solidified into an impenetrable hunk of musty fabric. The dresser overflows, there are wax earplugs getting smooshed underfoot, I’ve knocked down the box fan again. Stuff stuff stuff!! 

The stasis of home, of habit, can be so suffocating, because it isn’t fixed at all. It’s growing all over you, a vital reality full of change, cultivated by your constant presence and attention. When I leave my home, it wilts in importance as do my things, which I scarcely recognize when I return to them. Who bought this? Who used this? Who am I? Things?

I meant to write about Crete, but I’ve been caught up in thinking about what we try to find through movement that we can’t find being still. I do know that when I arrived, it was the first time I’d been able to be in one place in a way that can be called “relaxing” in many weeks. All I wanted to do was sit in a beach chair and get absolutely loaded. My hotel room was owned by an older man who wandered from reception desk, to the tiny attached restaurant, back and forth all day. On the table by his desk were an assortment of books in different languages and I picked up one in English by Danielle Steel. I’d never read a Danielle Steel novel and it was not what I expected at all. The story started with a wildly age inappropriate relationship and ended with Nazi collaborators. Lots of twists and turns. 

I crossed the street, passing through a bar to the beach and sat on a lounger. The bartender brought me a glass of wine and I ignored Danielle to watch the sunset. There was a large island off the coast, which changed in texture and color all throughout the day according to how the light slanted across it or touched through the clouds. 

“Doom awaits you there,” I thought. I had all my things around me to make the moment: the chair, the wine, the steamy romance. The beach, above all else. The ocean sucked at the shore, drawing in material, shaking it and resetting it into a new form entirely. Nothing stays the same shape, here or there. 

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• Currently having a Fruit of the Looms Cornucopia moment because I would have sworn up and down that Danielle Steel’s name is spelled Steele. But the book I read is called Crossings, and if the rest of her work is even half as insane she totally earned her status in the romance genre.

• And this desk built to look like a stack of her own books:

“Dead or alive, rain or shine, I get to my desk and I do my work,” she said of her practice. “Sometimes I’ll finish a book in the morning, and by the end of the day, I’ve started another project.”

• I love interior design and seeing inside people’s homes even though mine is a disaster. Please tell me what has changed your space, either to make it feel more manageable or in a way that brings your joy. Or both??