Water and Fire

Is there anything more relaxing to the human spirit than lying on a beach, listening to the waves brush over millions of smooth stones, and emptying your mind of everything but sound? That was my morning.
Tim’s was a bit more adventurous. We walked to the end of the bay, where there’s a large, steep rocky hill separated from the headland by a narrow channel. Of course he had to swim all around it. I started off with my typical worrying but as the sea was almost literally as flat and calm as a swimming pool, I figured he would be safe and we could reap the double benefit of him having fun while I did nothing-which is rapidly becoming my favorite thing to do around here Our trips are usually a frenzy of jumping out of bed at 6:30, gobbling breakfast, and buzzing around in the car from one fun activity to the next. Somehow, the combination of how I’ve been feeling lately and the utter peace that suffuses this place of mountains and quiet sea makes that kind of frantic adventuring seem like a big silly waste of time.

Tim described his swim-he was gone about an hour- as magical. The water is clear as a swimming pool. There’s no sand or vegetation to mar the crystal quality of its transparency. The Med is completely different from the Caribbean, at least up here. No coral life, no plants really, and not a big variety of fish. The snorkeling, like the beach and the silent forests, is an exercise in quiet. While the swim over to the rock was a shallow one, once he circled to the other side, the bottom dropped of dramatically, and he was in 60 feet of water. The depth did not impar the view, he said-he saw the bottom clearly, but through a cobalt glass. I was just waking up when I turned over and saw a swimmer approaching the beach. Even without my glasses I could recognize Tim’s swimming stroke. He took over the towel and was asleep in 30 seconds, leaving me the goggles and the silent water. I paddled around, getting 50 feet from shore or so. Amazed by the clarity and the buoyancy. The water is much saltier than the Atlantic, and it would be hard to sink even if you wanted to. My legs kept bobbing up all by themselves. I could almost fall asleep floating on my back, with the limitless horizon on one side and a towering black crag on the shore, and swallows darting all around. No crickets, no gulls, no waves-just the sound of water in my ears and my head-gratefully emptied of thought. Not surprisingly, it was nap time after all this exertion.

We woke up just as the sun was setting, in time for our climb up Mt. Yanartas to visit the imprisoned Chimera. The parking area is at the end of a long dirt road. A few ramshackle tables offering weather-curled postcards and bottled water beckon, set off with a string of Christmas lights in a fragrant pine grove. You pay your 3 lire (a modern offering to the new god of Cirali-Commerce) and set off up the mountain. It’s sobering to follow in the footsteps of so many thousands who have made the pilgrimage to see Chimera spout his fiery stuff.

The Greeks built a temple to Haephestos almost atop the flames-later, the Byzantine Christians tried with all their might to supplant him with a chapel but sorry guys-when it comes to dozens of blue and yellow fires squirting up out of the rock face, lighting up the cliff and flickering off the trees on a moonless night-Jesus just don’t got nothing on the God of the Forge and realm of volcanoes and earthquakes. And Haephestos had the last laugh anyway. The chapel is an earthquake-ravaged ruin, while the flames still beckon.
You feel you’re making a pilgrimage as well, because the trail has been improved with a series of enormous steps made from the rock lying all about. The steps are up to 2 feet high and 8 or 10 feet apart. Shining the flashlight up, they seemed a never-ending ladder leading into the heart of darkness. Just when you feel you really can’t climb another step, there’s a slight curve in the path, the trees part, and the mountain catches fire. Above you, one flame comes into view, and then 3 and then 12 or more, glowing in a vertical path above. The first group is quite dramatic, as the fires arise several feet from an indentation in the rock, among a tumble of fallen columns from the temple. The carved pedestals provide a convenient seat from which to contemplate-how long exactly has this gas been issuing from the mountain? What makes it flame? Does it combust within the subterranean channel, or only when it mixes with our atmosphere? As far as I can tell from my reading, no one has ever really figured this out. And so in the dark, dark night, it’s much easier to believe that Chimera lies eternally imprisoned in the mountain, spitting out his resentment and waiting for the next earthquake to set him free.
The earth power is strong there and everyone feels it, from the silly Turkish teens singing to the flames (I imagined a stark folk song about love lost in the fire, but it might have been a bad rendering of some Madonna tune), to the bearded hulking German who mugged for his companion, adopting the post of a growling bear striking out at the flame. And of course the lovers who twine like snakes, close enough for the fire to burn. Isn’t there a life metaphor not-so-hidden here?
Tim and I climbed to the highest point and lay down near a group of three fires. The stars wheeled above, with a band of Milky Way crossing the valley. Below, the outlines of two mountains dipped to reveal a small slice of sea. The last of the crickets chirped a melancholy tune, but the loudest sound was the constant hissing of the gas vents. No wind in the trees, no crowds of tourists, no birds or cicadas. Just Tim, and me, and a hillside of fire

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