Metamorphosis and Decay by Ivan Calderon

    The sky gleams an otherworldly opalescent stream over an expanse of dirt pathways,
eroding brick homes roofed with corrugated sheets, and fields of lush, wiry grasses dappled in yellow wildflowers. These stone huts inhale and yawn out streaming air that’ll eventually sail its way over the gulf and into the reaches of the Gerania Mountains. While these small Corinthian homes allude to the inhabitants of villagers who once cultivated crops and communities, it now seems dormant. Open windows whisper the stories of an ancient civilization reclaimed from the Romans, and the eventual hush of this slumbering village.

    My original assessment of Nea Korinthos reflects my singular frame of experience with
this region coiled in the long braids of history. Braids of undergrowth, wild flowers, spruce
needles, nymphs, and dryads, and chronicles of generations and societies who walked before
earthquakes and conquest. I would never be able to see the totality of destruction brought under the command of Lucius Mummius or the reign and eventual tribulations of King Sissyphus in the canon of mythology. I wasn’t really interested in reading history to begin with. My eyes were more-so marveled by the mountains beyond, lying like slumbering giants beneath a veil of fog. I found myself fabricating my own daydreams that never pondered the empirical or historical analysis of such an ancient geological structure. I could easily carry on with my day without even an inkling of interest in the chronicles of history before me, but it was hard to avoid the enchantment of structures that could amplify the stories I held in my head. Columns remnant of colonnades gnawed away by rain and conquering stand along hills and meadows near the feet of high, grassy mountains. The valley draws a genealogy from the ruins and up the slope, but only the colonnade caught my eye as a primeval example. Even when I had finally reached the monument, I remember snapping a quick photo of the colonnade and then fantasizing of the journeys that awaited my tour group and I amongst the high orange trees in Nafplio. We never stayed more than a night in Nafplio.

    At 11:59 pm, EST on April 23, 2020, President Trump’s latest Travel Ban went into effect,
substantially limiting entry into the United States. We rode on buses and attempted to send back reassuring emails even with the frightful idea of our elaborate plans now thrown in disarray: Even when we feared the worst, the privilege of being students from a wealthy private school saved us from any major inconvenience. Even though the return home was three days away, we instead traversed the cloudy metropolis of London, England. We stayed in a nice hotel and spent the days exploring the folds of experience nestled amongst shuttling throngs and hazy mist. We shared the privilege to see structures much younger than those back in Greece. We saw the bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, Big Ben towering above spires, a bronze statue of a muscular lion along the bricks leading up to the British Museum, an abnormally large Ferris wheel, a Tescos near the hotel, and various McDonald’s stores and Starbucks shops. We revisited the Tescos and McDonald’s out of necessity. Soon enough, though, at the closing of a detour marked by calls and texts back home, and the looming anxiety of slight uncertainty, we walked to the British Museum— One of London’s most notable and infamous cornerstones of a culture chronicled with colonization and stolen stories. Even though those concerns have been discussed in historical discourse for generations, the allure of such a magnificently sculpted structure depicting a millennia of human existence and the enchanting nature of consumerism batted away moral reflection. We stared at and passed the coffin of Hornedjitef, the Rosetta Stone, and armor pieces of ancient European societies. We all glanced at African iconography, Greek amphoras, sculptures, a restaurant encircled with neatly cut hedges, a little snack bar filled with expensive ham sandwiches, and a bookstore glowing with smooth plastic toys and magnificent, golden book covers. I brought home a book of Grimms’ Fairy Tales that I have yet to read. Stories splayed out in front of me like the tongue of a smelly, panting dog stuck in my face. So, I averted my eyes. I felt no interest in seeing the jewels of recorded time. Furthermore, the presence of evidence, a piece of the puzzle of presentation, illustration, and analysis left me even more unwelcoming to those perspectives. I shunned context because the flight we had scheduled the next morning held the presidency. My stomach also grumbled, my limbs shuddered with soreness, and my eyes drooped with my exhaustion. My thoughts lingered at the potentiality ahead. They were a crowded bus unable to provide occupancy for analysis or present thought.

    With the seemingly swift passage of time came our return back to our homes. The pull
away from the enchanting and unfamiliar topography, weather, and culture of regions brought us “travelers” back to the less vibrant hues of the familiar. A mellow azure sky, beige and terracotta suburbia, glades of darkened green, and the chittering of squirrels wandering the backyard in the morning returned to my senses. I actually welcomed the sights and sounds of familiarity. I got to sleep in my own bed, and my spring break was also extended a few weeks in advance. Life was good until we soon learned that Lockdown would spread the breadth of most of our highschool careers. Hours upon hours sitting on the couch, poised at a desk, lying in bed, splayed out on the floor, and/or skipping courses presented from a computer screen.

    The monotony of the constant flow of classes, homework, lying in bed, and staring out
my window made me stare at the aspects of my enclosure. I spent hours, lying in bed, gazing at my cupboard, or my wall that displayed pictures of a younger me drooling over my grandparents, or out my window that provided a view of the verdance outside. The backyard led to a forest. The longer I grew familiar with these things, the longer my enclosure began to pop and sputter with the flares of creation. My dreams opened up the way for haikus about frogs on boats, my cupboard became a small altar of crystals and incense, my wall began to remind me of a love I could see, and my backyard started to invite me to bask in its green. I began to do my homework out on the back porch, bathing in the spring sun rays and indulging in the chords of chirps and swaying branches. I wasn’t just looking anymore, I began to taste, I began to feel the various modes of language that nature articulates.

    While there were plenty of days that I basked in the warm caresses of soft sunlight and
napped beneath the shade of high branches overhead, there were also many days where I lied stuffed beneath my covers. I lied trapped by the thralls of pressing the snooze button once more. My blinds covered the rainy scene outside. I normally sent out an email or two on these kinds of days because I felt comfort in this paralysis. My covers were an anaconda and I was a coiled up snapping turtle. I tried to bite back and convince myself to move, but the despair of the inevitable, the hopelessness of making it to class on time provided the assurance of simply allowing the anaconda to hug tighter and tighter. Eventually the violent pulsations of adrenaline stall at their apex. I grew tired. My eyelids fell. Darkness encroached, and the anaconda reigned victorious once again. I don’t feel the snake’s bite until I come to. The nap was much needed, but came at the cost of frantic emails and docked points. Moments like those bring in the encroachment of gloam. No longer can I see my altar of crystal bowls and essential oils. No longer do I feel the compulsion to investigate gleams shimmering from the edges of the blinds. I sink into the mattress.

    Wait, what’s peaking through the blinds? The gleam grows and I raise the blinds. Rays of
orange sunlight sweep the room in radiance. Sparkly winks bounce off of the white quartz
crystals on the cupboard, my infant smile shows bright, and I see spears of light volleying
through openings in branches. Sunbeams shower into my backyard. They sprinkle over a
weather-beaten bird bath that lies partially reared over the grass. Left to wind and storm, this small structure embossed with rust and mud reservoirs some water that refracts sparkles off of the light. The bird bath has not been touched in years, at this moment, its age and metamorphosis from a pool of bird-bathing to an old cistern I now observe. While there remains some utility, the bird bath now bathes in the sun like an old oak. Its rust shows its elderly rank, but the allusion of faded red and pink stained glass gives this old codger something to say around the hearth. Paled vibrance, decaying foundation, and the whispers of primeval memory are revered traits held by those who have traversed and endured the duration of existence. While I found beauty looking at this old little bird bath, I also saw other forms emerging from the brilliance of the display out in my backyard. I saw smirks, grins, yawns, and scowls from the trees. I saw frogs in canoes riding the thin currents of rainwater draining down the hillside. I saw a mountain ridge blanketed beneath boreal fog like a slumbering giant tucked into bed. I saw braids of yellow wildflowers and wiry grass. I saw a colonnade standing tall in a meadow scattered with ancient stones.

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