Nothing to Write About

El Hombre and I have been traveling for two weeks now, and I find myself with no desire to write anything. Writing requires stopping (stopping living life, however momentarily) to think, reflect, analyze, process, and find the right words to describe my thoughts. But I'm enjoying every day, every moment too much to actually want to stop what I'm doing to collect my thoughts.

Right now I'm sitting at an outdoor table, warm breeze drying my wet hair. Across from me, El Hombre listens to music, offering me his earphones when a good song comes on, while browsing his own laptop. A few feet away is a long dinner table with a large, boisterous Greek family (ranging from little kids running around to mustachioed grandfathers drinking ouzo and smoking cigarettes - at well past 1 am). Our family-run hotel sits on a hill with an outstanding view of the ocean and rocky mountain terrain, situated at the bottom of the village of Gerani - a tiny village where El Hombre and I are the only Asians (and only Americans) we've seen since we arrived. Earlier today, we walked down the road to a charming cove where only a handful of locals were swimming. We sat on large rocks and read, with the sound of the waves hitting the rocks and the warm sun hitting our backs. We then walked up the road to check out the village, passing by a number of bleating sheep on the way and getting plenty of stares from the locals. We came back to the hotel and took a dip in the pool to cool off. El Hombre taught me the rules and basics of water polo (after which I declared - "so basically it's a bunch of dudes wearing bonnets groping each other in the water!"). He showed me techniques for treading water longer. Then we enjoyed a delicious Greek dinner of eggplant with tomatoes and feta, stuffed tomatoes and green peppers and chicken souvlaki. We spend hours reading, sitting side by side. These days, life is so simple, so satisfying - I have no angst, no anger, nothing to rant about. Sure, Greek service so far has been atrociously rude and brusque, but we let it slide off our shoulders.

Being together with El Hombre each day, every day is just so...nice. There's no better word for it, really. After a year of long distance, it's so simply wonderful and wonderfully simple to be able to wake up next to each other every morning, plan our day, eat our meals together, and even do nothing together.

After 11 days in Spain, I got El Hombre to admit that Spain is "a very good country," although he refused to admit it was the most brilliant country in the world. I'm satisfied with that.