Antigone tis Thívas
Metochi Gavdos
Sgoudiana, Kastri 730 01,
Greece
Futile. Perhaps not fair, but that’s the first word that comes to mind when I think of your life so far. You did ask, and I did promise never to lie. Sweetness, let me hasten to say, I don’t think this is a true assessment of your life’s potential, but I do think it a fair assessment of your outlook and basic emotional tenor. And do I think it can be changed—of course. The fact that you are still alive, still talking to me, still in search of kindness—yes. It is possible. I should tell you that I am coming to Kastri for at least a few weeks. I’ll be staying at Metochi Gavdos, but should you not want to see me, that’s fine. I’m on the hunt to solve a new little puzzle and will be travelling about the region much of the time, so avoiding me won’t be difficult. I’m staying there so that you may speak to me if you want. Since you so rarely leave the island, apart from these cards, and yours in return, there is little opportunity for you to seek me out. So I’m giving you one. Do not despair. I remembered. You will get a care package full of your favourite treats regardless of whether I see you or not. I’ll leave it with our hosts. And yes, I’m laughing at you—gently, with love, but I am indeed smiling broadly. You do love your treats.
Antigone tis Thívas
Metochi Gavdos
Sgoudiana, Kastri 730 01,
Greece
I should be there in about 6 weeks, I think. I have a stop or two to make along the way. I am meeting with Iphigenia to swap reports on Mycenaean migrations. I know I grumble at those of you who don’t want to come into the digital age, but there is something quite nice about these meetups where we can sit at a taverna and eat fresh fish and listen to the sea. You know I like these trips, don’t you? I was surprised, I must admit, but also really happy to hear you’ve been spending a month or so every other year at Shepheard’s when it was still at the old place, and now you tell me you’re booked to stay at the Winter Palace in Luxor. Is this your way of getting close to some form of “Thebes” even if it isn’t the one where you lived? If it is, I applaud the bravery and the commitment you are showing to aging. You realize that as you move toward adulthood—yes, as I define it—that you’ll start to look more like your aunts? That would be wonderful, I think. But on the other question, what I mean by “monstrous” is not a fault and most definitely not a moral sentiment. Aristotle be damned! (I hear your giggle. Such a nice sound.) It is just a statement of how badly circumstances and choices have damaged a person. It is not the minotaur’s appearance that makes him monstrous. Nor was it his choice, but the choices of those around him, allied with his desire to stay alive despite the apparent futility of his situation. The choices you were forced to make damaged you. Now you learn to live again, to walk as normally as possible, so to speak. It could have happened that you died in that tomb that your uncle sent you to. But you didn’t. Someone remembered you, wrote to you, took an interest. Rebirth can happen, but no one—including me—your wonderful aunties of the postcard—can make it happen for you. What makes such a stricture wonderful is that all your years of survival, your moments of contentment, your creations and successes, your friends—they are all a result of your actions since Creon’s tomb. Your vengeance against the Fates’ curse of futility.
Antigone tis Thívas
Metochi Gavdos
Sgoudiana, Kastri 730 01,
Greece
I take it you got your treat basket? I saw your back as you left the hotel entrance on your way to where you sleep. I didn’t call out because you know where I am if you want to talk. I didn’t realize you were working here. For some reason I find that makes me really happy. This place is so joyful in its furnishing. I know it’s just a typical Greek taverna, but the blue and the far sea, the terracotta tiles, sea-green walls, the grape vines and palm-frond shading the terrace—it all makes me feel gently buzzing. Alive, I guess. And yes, unless you ask to meet, I’ll just keep sending these postcards. Well, dropping them at the front desk anyway. Tomorrow, I plan to go down the hill to the bar at the edge of the sea, should you want to join. On the other question—it’s a hard one—what is an adult? I can only tell you how I define it. I think, truly, it is something you must come to define yourself as you continue to live within the community of the current world. It’s that process of living and adjusting to the reality of human life that results in adulthood, but here is what I found in my life. Adulthood to me is getting past absurdity and despair and learning to interact with kindness and compassion. I assure you that things are absurd, and likely will ever be so. I assure you we will all die; at some point humans will cease to exist. On timing—we are nowhere near as stable as sharks and even they won’t live forever. Yes, I’m laughing. It’s a silly thing to hang adulthood on, and yet, despite the truth that there is no reason for being, that does not change the fact that being exists. The simple explanation is that being doesn’t exist to support reason. Reason, as basic as it is in humans, is a latecomer and not very powerful. It exists for the host of things it did to make it easier for our ancestors to survive. Currently, it seems somewhat detrimental to those same chances. I call reason the tool-maker’s-mind, but I doubt tools of suicide have much species longevity. For me, adulthood comes down to generating contentment in the fact that I am a being that exists. That’s all—being for its own sake, for its own survival, for its own feelings. As for our species, contentment must involve kindness to others.
Antigone tis Thívas
Metochi Gavdos
Sgoudiana, Kastri 730 01,
Greece
I was thinking about you this evening and your suggestion that I might abandon you. Darling sweetness. Of course I could. It’s part of my agency, and yours. The thing that matters is why I would do such a thing, and—from your perspective—much more important would be how you come to understand such an action. There are times when you look at me (daggers?) that I know you are calculating how much of an insult it would take to make me leave. Here’s how much: none. All you have to do is say—leave. But beware—you should really mean it because I will. You are my responsibility, but only as one human to another. Despite your eternal-seeming youth, you are a human being of agency with the right to make your own life decisions. It is fundamental to my character that I will treat you so. Feelings aside. I may know you will come to regret it, but that does not matter. You will also survive it, and you may well learn something critical from the experience. So. you just have to ask and I will stop writing or coming to visit. To a friend, I have called you my lovable contrarian mean little bitch. It’s a compliment, really. But before your hackles rise so high you can no longer walk—you are capable of agreement. You are not pathological in your nay-saying. What I’ve seen of your behaviour suggests that you agree on matters of simple feeling. Personal likes and dislikes, for example. They may be unsavoury but they are of simple context. Just a feeling, and therefore probably true, regardless of content. However, anything that depends on things still unknown, and perhaps never to be known, and at best you come back with unlikely. Actually, this tendency of yours to demand to understand the context of truth is why I keep sharing migration reports with you. You are at root an evidence-based thinker and from me that is high praise. Yes. Yes. I am smiling. FirstBird would call me out for harbouring Coyote without snow on the ground to see the tracks. Tricks aside, I am serious. When you next go to Luxor, think about the journeys our ancestors made through there on the way to the Peloponnese, the Caucasus and the northern Black Sea region. And then seek me out. We’ll talk about it.
