Listening in Silence

When we finally reached the top of the dreadful staircase, which was carved into the mountain, we ambled through the monastery. From the rusted beams in the open roof, a chapel bell hung and touched the pristine blue sky that peered between each beam. I walked along the balcony of the monastery and saw the Greek countryside as very few had. I looked over the clay tiles on the roofs below me, and peered into the rolling mountainside. The sky was clear and the rocky hills were speckled with green shrubs. Farther back the peaks were topped with snow. I felt as if everything on the ground was placed there just for me. The land below may be rough and unpredictable, but the magic walls protected me in the middle of my mountain. This was how the gods on Olympus must have felt. The village of white houses and red clay roofs where my friend’s father had grown up lay in a tiny valley among the spotted mounds of land. I was grateful that the boulder was halted so miraculously.

I discovered a chapel filled with beautiful icons and burning candles. Despite the schism our churches underwent almost a millennium ago, I was awed by the holiness that could only be felt in a place with that history and altitude. Without uttering a word I felt my first real connection to this place and its people. Without my speaking, the room could hear me, and without my noise, it could feel me.

In the main room one of the three remaining nuns who cared for the sacred place greeted us. We were led into the sitting room where we would be served coffee and loukomi, a jelly-like candy covered in powdered sugar. The room smelled of incense and my grandfather’s carpet. Two nuns were here, and one was peeling onions. She was truly beautiful with the wrinkled prayers in her face. The perfect movement of her hand over the onion could only come with years of patience and practice. I raised my camera to take a picture, but my friend’s mother told me it would be disrespectful to photograph there. My memory would have to do.

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