Contrast Conundrum City

Walking the narrow, winding streets, moving through space and time, removing the lens cap from my camera, only to lower the camera from my eye as I gaze up and up and up. The Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Hill of the Muses. Ancient architecture, modern graffiti, anarchist riots, the National Archaeological Museum. Athens: a city of ultimate contrasts and conundrums. The exhilaration, the sites my mind could never fully comprehend. I feel as though my eyes had been in the dark for so long that it was taking them more time than usual to adapt to the bright light of the city.

I saw the olive tree. The one Athena gifted to Athens. It’s situated in the Acropolis, next to the marble stone that Poseidon destroyed. Ok, not the actual tree or whatever but, at the end of the day, what does it matter? Walking through the city, I feel as though I’m walking through a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Athena, Poseidon, Zeus, Aphrodite and Ares were all just as real as figures from our histories: Abraham Lincoln, Golda Meir, Genghis Khan, Simon Bolivar. The gods were a living, breathing part of the city and their influence remains a vital part of what makes Athens breathtakingly beautiful.

To be perfectly clear, the city is far from perfect. It has its problems as every place tends to do. In Athens, the problems are relatively obvious and economic/financial in nature. Beautiful residential buildings, constructed before the economic crisis, remain uninhabited, lonely and deserted. Homeless men roam the streets, sleep on park benches. Walking through the Aristotelean prison which, ironically, is considered by historians to have been an ancient bathhouse and not a prison, I found a homeless man, barefoot and dirty sleeping next to the historical site. This is what I mean when I speak of contrasts. Riveting history and economic hardship are two Athenian qualities that immediately stand out to the stranger tourist’s eye.

Roaming the streets of Exharkia, a neighborhood in Athens, I stumbled on blocks and blocks of graffiti. Not “F*&$ the police” kind of graffiti (although there’s plenty of that… a universal sentiment, I s’pose) but gorgeous murals, significant and thrilling in their not-so-subtle qualities. A homeless man, depicted sleeping on a street, covers the entire façade of a building adjacent to a written quote which says “Dedicated to the poor and hungry, here and around the globe.” Not so subtle. Another mural, approximately 10 feet high portrays two clasped hands, down-turned, either in prayer or in handcuffs. You don’t have to look too hard to find the metaphors of the city, screaming at you, begging you to understand the struggle.

And I can’t. Despite my best efforts, I can’t empathize with the struggle because I’m a young American, swimming in student loans but with a bright future ahead of me. I can afford to travel Europe, work on my art, seek out adventure and say things like “I’m on a journey of self-discovery.”**** I’m privileged in many ways and I have never been so aware of this fact as I am now. I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of guilt that oftentimes accompanies such realizations but I do feel an obligation to take advantage and to bring as much as I can to the world through this privilege.

Thanks, Athens. Thanks for being your beautiful self. For continuing to inspire the present with the past, for bringing my childhood heroes Poseidon, Herakles, Aphrodite and, especially the bo$$ lady, Athena to life. I feel as though I’ve met a superhero and I can go home, happy in my knowledge that the city I’ve fallen in love with will remain protected by the wisest superlady to ever have existed.

I won’t continue gushing about the city but I’ll say one last thing: if you’ve never been to Athens (and even if you have), please do so. You won’t regret it, I promise.

****Not that I would ever do such a thing because I’m not a stupid idiot from a dumb movie but you get the point.