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When you hear the word ‘Greece’ it is easy enough to conjure up some enticing image of blue skies and white-towered buildings. Sure looks nice. Sure would like to go there…all that blue water, those vibrant colors, that sun. Up close or from a distance, I bet you’ve seen the way Greece looks. How much do you know about the way Greece feels?

"I want to wear down my fingertips on rough stone, and cool them on glass fogged by cold wine."

It’s been 10 years since I was there, and I want to go back.

It’s been a decade since I felt the cool air of a high walled courtyard, shade trees above and white stone pebbles underfoot. Since I went from the smooth texture of perfect Greek yogurt on my tongue to the sensation of warm blue water closing over me when I jumped in it. (Water can feel blue, not just look it.)

Not surprisingly, there is more. I felt the baking heat of an olive orchard in the middle of the day, and the vibration of the cicadas I disturbed when I ducked under the leaves of the trees. I felt the sharp edges of rock walls in the village somewhere north near the Albanian border, and I felt the weight of grapes hanging heavy from the trellis above the café porch. I felt the smack of my body as I hit the water after leaping into a blue river pool. I felt the dust in my nostrils on a hike, the cool of Retsina (wine that smells vaguely like paint thinner) in my throat.

And I felt the call of limestone. Towers and towers of it, rising above the village.

"I want to go back to see how Greece feels now. This is my dream trip...to try it out as a climber..."

Glinting in the sun. The last time I was in Greece, I was barely a climber, and was without so much as a pair of rock shoes in a country that suddenly seemed to be MADE of limestone. Was that glimmer a bolt, or just the light catching the rock?

This fall, I want to go back again.

We have some things to talk about, Greece and I. And we need to discuss it, in detail, over the strong silt that is Greek coffee, under a green grape trellis, in view of some limestone cliffs. I want to climb there, and I want to trace a root, one small tendril of me that began to grow there.

The last time I had a conversation with Greece, I was just out of college, roaming. I had never had a full time job for longer than 4 months. Sitting under a trellis one night, playing backgammon, we heard a passerby mention that that Princess Diana had been killed in a car accident. We drank coffee and ouzo (greek licorice liquor), ate lentil soup while basking in a sunny windowsill. It was before people got married, or took any other personal steps that qualified as moving forward, developing, building a life.

When Margaret, an IFMGA certified guide, isnt on an adventure of her own, she guides clients in N. America and Europe

I was at once unformed and yet crystal clear on who I was. This was possible somehow in the intensity of the present tense, outlined by sensation in a country that excels in making you feel things: I am here with my best friends in the world, we are eating fresh figs and practically drinking olive oil. We listen to piano music turned up loud on a windy hillside porch, we drive winding roads to the northern village and try not to barf in the backseat. The light is beautiful, always. In this moment, that is who we are, defined by the place and the sensations and the people we love. As such, we feel whole but are half formed. We have all of our personalities present, the roots of our lives are set deep, and we are starting to grow upwards and outwards.

I want to go back to see how Greece feels now. This is my dream trip for multiple reasons. To try it out as a climber, and include climbing with the sensations I have experienced in Greece. To the dusty hikes and the trellis-sheltered dinners, I want to add a perch at the anchors of a steep cliff, and the satisfaction and sweat of a day spent climbing.  I want to feel the warmth of heated limestone under my fingers, and plunge into the blue pools with feet sore from climbing shoes.  I want to wear down my fingertips on rough stone, and cool them on glass fogged by cold wine.

And I want to check in, to compare, to catch a glimpse of what I am and what I’ve become. Greece was one root of one part of my life, one period in a whole host of different times. Now, with all the branches of me that have grown since I was there last, the present is more complicated, more involved. I am defined now by so many more places, people, sensations. In Greece, I want to focus again on the way one place feels, and let the others fall to the background for a time. In the simplicity of sensations created by that place – light, texture, taste, warmth – I am curious to see my own reflection.