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For almost 11 months, each time I went out at the balcony of my apartment I used to see a tree which didn’t let me enjoy the view. It looked like a sleeping tree and this is exactly what it had been doing: sleeping.
Until yesterday when I saw it bloomed. Where all those flowers had been? How much time did it take it to become a real beautiful tree? Hours, minutes, seconds… who knows?
I remember the poems, back when I used to go to school, all the poems about the silly almond trees which decide to bloom in the middle of the winter knowing that they couldn’t keep there flowers. The winds or even worse the snow will left them naked again.
For the people who want to believe that all things happen because there is a reason, almond trees could symbolize those heroes who decide to do crazy things knowing that they are not going to succeed.
I prefer to think almond trees bloom because they want to break the winter speechlessness. Or they do it without any reason at all. It’s just great.
People learn to treat everyday things as given. Our homes, our companions, our stuff, the air we breathe, the water we drink. It is difficult to realize that there are people who don’t have these things given. And it is even harder to think that we don’t face the same difficulties just by chance.
I can’t be more precise when it comes to so general issues. I can only have some random thoughts:
Al Gore never made it to become the big boss of the planet. Instead he was awarded with a Nobel prize for his efforts to save it. I wonder which is better.
I many times think of what would happen if instead of clean water we had to drink poisoned water like million people have to. How would we cope with that? Some people know and run for water.
This summer we burnedeverything in Greece. Many people died, other lost their animals, their home, everything. Do we still remember them? Do we realize it was a matter of luck we were not there? Are we going to do anything about them? Or have we totally forgotten?
For me nature represents innocence and wisdom. Even the most extreme natural phenomena don’t make me be afraid of it. I have learnt some good lessons though. We, people, must be too corrupted and too stupid not to respect nature.
I see the same innocence and the same wisdom in kids and animals. I don’t have kids. I grew up with animals and now I have Roxanne. All animals have helped me learn a lot about myself. I respect them and I believe they are just one of the numerous children of nature. We should be too. Sometimes I think we are not anymore.
...and we get burned. We count 59 dead people. Where is going to stop all this?
Half of Greece is on fire. When writing the 1st part I could never imagine such a catastrophe. How many more people will go down? How is gong to be the life of people who lost all their belongings? How are we going to carry on?
We spend each day watching TV and calling to our people who face the danger. “Is the fire near to you? Can you see it? Get in the car and go away. But please stay cool.”
I went out and saw our house burnt. I saw my grandpa building it. I saw everyone at the front yard gazing at the valley and listening to nightingales. The seemed so happy. Most of the people I saw are not here anymore. Our house remained intact. But we are not going to hear nightingales again. That’s for sure.
Then you come back. You think of others who suffer. You think of people who got burnt in their cars, in their houses, trying to escape the fire. Can you imagine it even for 10 seconds? Can you realize that you could be in their place?
How can you talk to those people? What to say? Void.
I know life is unfair. Try to live. You won’t have a second chance.
What I don’t know is how to punish people who provoke such a catastrophe. There are many of them. People who didn’t take precautions, people who were ignorant, people who put the fires on. Who should punish them? Would you? What ‘d you do? Destroy their belongings, kill them or kill their children?
What is yet to come? What if we need to leave our houses again? When is going to stop? How many more people are going to die?
The sky turns to black. At night burning mountains look like starry skies and trees like Christmas trees. This view could be beautiful. Pervert?
When you think of tomorrow something happens and you run for your life. When you forget present time you get overwhelmed by what you are going to see tomorrow. This is how time passes by. Back to the TV, back to the phone calls. Back to this burning ring around your neck.
In Greece we are cool guys. We laugh and sing, we enjoy our lives. When we are going up we burn. We burn everything, including our forests. We recently did it again. Now in Athens there is practically no forest around the city. Quite cool, no?
In Greece we are not like the others. We may cry today but we soon forget it and we laugh again tomorrow. And we forget. You need to have guts to forget. We prefer to heal our wounds instead of preventing them.
In Greece we prefer astrologists than astronomers. Scientists talk too much and about abstract things whereas astrologists can really help us in our every day life. We are practical people.
In Greece we are children of ancient Greeks. We cling to philosophy. We like talking seriously over some beers or glasses of wine. We accuse politicians who make our lives worse but it’s OK. We need them anyway because they can get bribed and help us in the future in a million ways.
In Greece we kill animals because their lives are not as important as ours. We look down on handicapped people because we don’t need them. We like cheap music because all other kinds of music bring us down. We trust our country, our religion and our family because there is nothing better to believe to. We learn new words and leave behind useless words as “dignity”.
In this country I don’t want to live.
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The original photo was taken from TannyTan’s photo album in Flickr
I nearly forgot all these greens. How much they match to each other and how much they do with the blue of the sky and the white of the flowers. People in cities we tend to look down on all these. I like cities. They do create nice palettes. But as you grow up you renegotiate things.
Time
You think time is a fact. Well not exactly time but the way you consider it. In a city you usually waste time. Time exists to be waisted. You try to catch it but most of the times you fail.
In the forest clocks work a different way. Hours, dates and numbers change. You can’t control them. It is not a fact anymore. After a while it is not important as well.
Animals
You spell the word “animal” and it sounds unimportant. As you grow up you despise animals as inferiors. In the forest things change once more.
The harmony of the nature is a matter of animals too. Harmony is not piece, it is equivalence.
I am glad I am growing up by respecting animals. Yesterday I made some new friends. A horse and two pigs. I saw them for a moment and I won’t probably see them again because they are negligible and consumable.
I prefer to show here a photo of the pig I met than the horse. Horses are proud and beautiful and everybody loves them. Who cares for a humble pig?
I don’t know where I belong to. It might be the city, the forest or something else. Why should I decide and why should select one of them? All I know is that I need more of these colors, more of these faulty clocks and more of these animals.
Half of Greece is on fire. When writing the 
Then you come back. You think of others who suffer. You think of people who got burnt in their cars, in their houses, trying to escape the fire. Can you imagine it even for 10 seconds? Can you realize that you could be in their place?
What is yet to come? What if we need to leave our houses again? When is going to stop? How many more people are going to die?
In Greece we are cool guys. We laugh and sing, we enjoy our lives. When we are going up we burn. We burn everything, including our forests. We recently did it again. Now in Athens there is practically no forest around the city. Quite cool, no?
I nearly forgot all these greens. How much they match to each other and how much they do with the blue of the sky and the white of the flowers. People in cities we tend to look down on all these. I like cities. They do create nice palettes. But as you grow up you renegotiate things.
The harmony of the nature is a matter of animals too. Harmony is not piece, it is equivalence.