A Thousand Shards of Glass

29 September 2003

Sounio, Greece

Kris and I have hiked up to the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon and the sea opens up before us. The breathtaking vista makes clear why the temple was built here. If Poseidon, the god of the sea, had lived anywhere he would have lived here. It is magnificent and we are gloriously alone with these ruins created some 440 years before Christ.

Kris is sitting on one of the massive overturned columns as she opens her rucksack and pulls out the small watercolor box I bought for her in Paris years before. She is turned sideways and with her large sunbonnet and skirt, in silhouette, she looks like a traveller from another century in one of those old books that you would find in London.

From the day I met her, I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. As a young anthropologist she had just returned from living in West Africa for some years.

Brains and beauty I had thought at our first meeting when I could not find the words, any words. She was kind as I stumbled. She has always been kind.

As I watched her painting, I could not help but think of all of the miles we had traveled together since that first meeting, thousands of miles. I have learned much from her for she is always engaged in the world, wanting to understand that which she does not understand. She is my center, my friend and my True North, always guiding and welcoming me home.