I continue down the steps to the bottom and take my sandals off, onto the hot sand, carefully proceeding in amongst the various shades of toned bodies sweating beneath the midday sun. La Playa: theatre of the half-naked. Momentary glances and checkings-out galore, sunglassed eyes roam, gentle smiles exchanged that say I'm so happy, aren't we all here? It's so difficult to not be smug isn't it? It is, lady with the china-white bikini who sits behind me and whom I later overhear talking in a husky-toned french voice. We are in paradise and watching the sea, people lightly bob and sway beyond the shallows where children are washed to and fro. A man runs down the beach, launching himself onto an inflatable unicorn, he scrabbles intensely for moments to stay on before the whole thing tips upside down - ha. The sound of waves and the scent of fried fish and suncream continue to drift in the clear, salty, we are happy, we are smug air.
I head from the beach to a cafe. I see a mirror on the wall - is it I who is the smuggest of them all? Or is it that lean shark-tooth necklaced man who is giving a my life is so awesome I don't even care this coffee isn't good smile to the waitress. Maybe he is spiritually liberated, because the barometer of that is being OK with sub-par coffee.
I head from the beach to a cafe. I see a mirror on the wall - is it I who is the smuggest of them all? Or is it that lean shark-tooth necklaced man who is giving a my life is so awesome I don't even care this coffee isn't good smile to the waitress. Maybe he is spiritually liberated, because the barometer of that is being OK with sub-par coffee.
Yes, one does wonder what life is about bathing in paradisaical beaches and sampling coffee, then writing quasi-poetic blog posts about it. Perhaps I should take socially conscious photographs of the sweating holiday bungalow construction workers for my instagram. Perhaps I could suggest they pay attention to their breath to discover inner peace as they work. Perhaps that would give my days real purpose. Imagine - a life with real purpose! That would be something.
Later I find myself in my new spacious room with private balcony and hammock. I'm sitting at my wooden desk as late afternoon sunlight streams in the colour of marmalade. Sadly the chair is not to my liking. The owners' French Canadian voices, pierced by the birds’ trilling, cawing, kaa-kaaing and peep-peeping arrive through my window as I look at myself in the mirror. I can't ignore what I see - that I should shave and that my eyes are saying - I miss φακές με πολύ λεμόνι and κυπριακός καφές.
Don’t I miss marmite? Or Greggs sausage rolls? Or a country where I discovered this week over half of its inhabitants are proud of its former Empire? Shockingly the answer is no. Perhaps they feel this way out of some cuisine inferiority complex? Because surely over half the population cannot actually be proud of the needless, shameless and violent ‘claiming’ of other lands? Can they?
I taught the word aversion to a South Korean student yesterday - the avoidance of a thing, situation, or behaviour because it has been associated with an unpleasant or painful stimulus. Perhaps I have an aversion to my home country because it reflects everything about myself I don’t want to see. Or perhaps I just prefer living in paradise. Smug - excessive satisfaction in oneself or situation, offensively so.
Later I find myself in my new spacious room with private balcony and hammock. I'm sitting at my wooden desk as late afternoon sunlight streams in the colour of marmalade. Sadly the chair is not to my liking. The owners' French Canadian voices, pierced by the birds’ trilling, cawing, kaa-kaaing and peep-peeping arrive through my window as I look at myself in the mirror. I can't ignore what I see - that I should shave and that my eyes are saying - I miss φακές με πολύ λεμόνι and κυπριακός καφές.
Don’t I miss marmite? Or Greggs sausage rolls? Or a country where I discovered this week over half of its inhabitants are proud of its former Empire? Shockingly the answer is no. Perhaps they feel this way out of some cuisine inferiority complex? Because surely over half the population cannot actually be proud of the needless, shameless and violent ‘claiming’ of other lands? Can they?
I taught the word aversion to a South Korean student yesterday - the avoidance of a thing, situation, or behaviour because it has been associated with an unpleasant or painful stimulus. Perhaps I have an aversion to my home country because it reflects everything about myself I don’t want to see. Or perhaps I just prefer living in paradise. Smug - excessive satisfaction in oneself or situation, offensively so.
