Acropolis
This is
probably my all-time favorite travel story—mostly, I think, because it has never
been explained, debunked or proven any less impossible or remarkable with the
passing of time. Just the memory of the experience still makes me giddy, puts an instant grin on my face and immediately
rekindles the childlike wonder of the magical time that surrounded the incident. The story also happens to be an excerpt from a forthcoming "philosophical novel" (yes, this is actually a legitimate category) that I am in the process of writing. Apolamváno!
* * * * *
It was
October of 2009 and it was my first time traveling outside the U.S. on my own.
I was forced to travel alone after a friend bailed on me at the last minute on
a rock climbing trip to the island of Kalymnos, Greece. I was adamant that I
wasn’t going to let the change of events affect me, but to be honest, I was slightly nervous
about traveling alone and secretly concerned that the trip would turn out to be
a disaster.
I spent the
first few days of my trip slogging around the city of Athens taking in historical
sites as I waited for the ferry to carry me off to the mystical, mountainous island
of Kalymnos where I was hopeful that I would meet others in need of climbing
partners.
By my third
day in Athens I began to feel nauseatingly sorry for myself as I watched happy
couples saunter-about arm-in-arm contently with non-bailing partners and reliable,
trustworthy companions while I collapsed into a childish, histrionic funk that
forced me to reconsider just about every decision that I’d made in my life up to
that point. At the epicenter of that funk, no doubt, were concerns over my long-time
single status and the lack of love and the scarcity of intimate friends and close
relationships that led to such a lonesome state of affairs.
To distract
myself from the pathetic hole of despair that I was falling deeper into by the
second, I decided to kill some time by wandering back onto the grounds of what
is arguably the most historic site in all of Greece: the Acropolis. Though I
had already spent significant hours exploring the legendary grounds, the hefty
admission price granted me several days’ access to the park. As the staggering cost
of European tourism was already beginning to eat into my modest travel budget, it seemed not only a practical financial decision, but an ideal setting for
wallowing in self-pity as well.
I hadn’t
gone very far into the park, in fact, I had barely gotten past the entrance
station, when I was compelled to sit down on a large patch of sporadically
maintained grass that grew in front of a small rocky field under the shade of a
short, stout olive tree.
From just
behind my seated position on the grass I could still hear muffled chit-chat and
relaxed, playful laughter coming from idle park workers in-between customers at
the entrance station. To my left, smiling couples and happy faces from all
parts of the globe ambled past intermittently on a paved path that ran through
the park. To my right, just a stone’s throw away, beyond a patchy tangle of
shrubs, bushes and trees was a tall, spiky wrought iron fence that circled the
entire perimeter of the site. Beyond that rusting, archaic fence sat the very
city of Athens itself where close to four million olive-skinned, chestnut-eyed
souls went about their ordinary city-dwelling lives: raising families, running
businesses, attending schools and so on.
I sat in
cross-legged position randomly staring at a short, rocky embankment that was
capped off with a flat, well-manicured grassy berm on which dozens of identical-sized
steel cages filled with seemingly random white stones—most too large to be
carried by a single person—had been padlocked shut, catalogued and placed in waiting
as part of a massive restoration project that had been going on for decades. Eventually
those caged stones would be removed from their temporary enclosures and placed
as pieces in a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that would manifest as a fully
restored historic relic.
Out of
habit, I closed my eyes softly and began to meditate as I’d been taught as a
student at the Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where I had earned a degree in psychology years earlier.
As I sat quietly focusing on my breath and observing
my wandering, chaotic thoughts as impartially as the moment would allow, it dawned
on me that I was missing out on a significant opportunity. It wasn’t often, I realized
with an unexpected spark of optimism, that I found myself in a location so
heavily soaked and infused with the collective wisdom of such a great number of
exceptional individuals—brilliant men and women who lived and died on these
sacred grounds, birthed philosophies, fought wars of ideals, perished for
causes (both just and unjust), produced artistic masterpieces in all disciplines, and unwittingly altered the very course of western civilization.
With this
realization, for some reason, came a desperate, inane request: Please send a sign, was the request. For God’s sake, please send me a sign . . .
Sign of what?
I have absolutely no idea. In retrospect, it was such a vague, ambitious appeal
that in truth, it should have been met with little more than blank, puzzled
stares and apathetic shoulder shrugs by any entity, dead, living or otherwise worth their existential salt. To complicate matters all the more, I added an
ultimatum: I will not leave until my wish
has been granted.
It is
important to note that other than the atypical setting, this scenario was not
entirely unfamiliar to me. Truth be told, I’d played out this same scene with
minor variations in numerous locales and at various times throughout my life. Typically, after sitting far longer than I’d intended, boredom would set in, a leaf would
flutter past or a bird would fly overhead and I’d consider it ‘sign enough', thank the universe for its lukewarm, prosaic offering, and proceed on with my
day.
What
happened next however, was by far the
most remarkable, most unexplained event that has ever occurred in my life.
Literally
within minutes of my frivolous appeal, I sat, mouth agape, eyes blinking erratically
in disbelief as a large . . . mountain
lion? . . . bobcat? . . .tiger? walked directly across my field of vision
on the grassy berm where the padlocked cages of ancient stones stood not thirty
feet away from where I sat under the shade of that olive tree.
I was alarmed
yet not frightened as the large, tannish-orange, unmistakably male feline with
the thick, faintly-striped ropy tail and the muscular hindquarters materialized
out of thin-air and made its way gracefully across the manicured lawn directly in my line of sight. Impulsively, absentmindedly,
I grabbed my camera—a last minute gift from a friend given to me just days
before I boarded my plane—and fired-off one quick photo, shot from the hip, as the
large animal disappeared behind the trees that obscured the iron fence that
separated the park from the city. The whole incident couldn’t have lasted more
than ten seconds.
I sat elated,
disoriented, and feeling as if I’d just walked into a dream, questioning what had just taken place. I looked around foolishly for answers, but none came. I scanned the
immediate area expectantly for other onlookers, but incredibly there were none.
Impossible as it may seem, on a site that hosts on average ten thousand
visitors each day, there was not a single person in the vicinity who happened
to be looking in that same direction at that same time.
Not knowing
what to do next, I made my way to my feet slowly, feeling euphoric, drunk and
dizzy and began walking in the same direction the large animal had been traveling
before he disappeared. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t going crazy,
you see, and the way I figured it, once the animal reached the border—not more than twenty or thirty feet farther—he would be forced to turn in one of
two directions: either left, deeper into the park along the fence line, or right,
toward the main entrance of the grounds. Either way, I figured, I’d have another
chance to re-see the creature that I was pretty-sure I had just seen.
Even shuffling
along awkwardly and unsure as I was, it didn’t take long to reach the outer fence.
I looked to the right. Nothing. I looked left. Nothing. There was absolutely no sign of any abnormally large, impossibly-placed feline in either direction. The large cat seemed to have disappeared just
as he had appeared: materializing into thin air. The thought dawned on me that
he could have doubled back toward me, but of course there was simply no way that I would not have seen him if he did. If
he had somehow managed to sneak past me—well,
I can’t even begin to imagine the chaos that would have ensued if the large
carnivorous creature had managed to wander right smack into the middle of the most
densely populated area in the most popular tourist attraction in all of Athens.
Imagine if you will, a mountain lion or tiger taking a leisurely stroll in the
center of Central Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon in June and
you will probably get the idea.
I stood
there stupidly for several minutes trying to figure out what my next move should be when I was
informed by one of the guards at the entrance station that visitors were not
permitted in the area that I had roamed into.
“But . . . but . . .” I blathered on like a drunken
idiot before realizing I had no real way to explain and simply gave up.
I wandered
back to my grassy seat under the olive tree and tried to wrap my mind around what had just taken place when I suddenly remembered the photo I had taken. I wasn’t
sure if I had focused the camera or even pointed the lens in the right
direction.
I held my
breath while I rifled through my 'recent photo file', hoping, praying for tangible proof of the
impossible and—lo and behold, there it
was, plain as day: a clear, auto-focused, digitally captured image of the
very creature I had recalled seeing: a large jungle cat of some sort—an animal
that would certainly be considered out of place in any metropolitan city anywhere in the world—disappearing behind the
mint-green, sunlit trees, the bulk of its enigmatic face obscured by an
especially large, leafy branch. (It is worthy to note that most mentions of large cats found anywhere in Greece
are typically only in mythological stories).
I sat there
for quite some time staring at the illogical but undeniable image that was captured
on my camera’s remarkably tiny screen before eventually returning to my
guesthouse, clearly in a much different state of mind than I had been when I
left. During the short walk back I struggled to find a way to rationalize what I
had seen. Could it have been some kind of
zoo-escapee, I wondered? A park
mascot of some sort? Perhaps, I
even considered for a moment, these
creatures are somehow . . . common in Athens? Any way that I tried to
rationalize it, it made no sense. I needed the opinion of a local.
The woman
that ran my guesthouse was the first person I felt comfortable asking.
Her face lit
up instantly: part horror, part delight, part shocked disbelief as
she raised her voice to a near-shout in lilted, broken English: “You have seen .
. . THIS? . . . AT ACROPOLIS!”
* * * * *
In the days,
weeks, months and years that followed, people often asked: "Was 'that' (the large cat, I presume) the sign that you had asked for?"
To this I say: Umm . . . no? Not exactly.
Don't misunderstand.
Seeing that incredible animal appear at that particular moment was far more than I could have ever hoped for or expected, but honestly, I would have gladly accepted anything that was as equally 'obvious' as a sign. The implausible nature of seeing that particular creature in that particular setting did, I admit, make it considerably more difficult to rationalize as an ordinary event 'imagined' as extraordinary, yet I can think of an infinite number of other possible events that could have taken place that I would have welcomed with equal enthusiasm.
More important than the event itself, I believe, was the change in attitude that overcame me. It was immediate and it was palpable and it seemed to imbue my trip with a certain magic that felt as if it seeped its way into every interaction, every event, and every activity throughout the stay; it gave me a story to share with locals and foreigners alike, and the mysterious and unexplained nature of the event seemed to allow me to connect with others on a slightly deeper level than I normally might have and open up conversations on topics that are rarely broached by strangers.
And, finally: No . . . .
To reiterate: No one
has ever been able explain what it is that I saw that afternoon—even, I might add— a' big cat expert' that examined the photo at the urging of a friend who became intrigued with the story after I had posted it on Facebook when it first occurred. All the expert could do was to confirm that the
image was in fact a “large jungle cat” of some sort (I assume this is because
the majority of the cat’s face is concealed behind the trees).
Honestly, I kind of enjoy the fact that it has remained a mystery all these years...
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