smagik

It’s not an ocean but a sea, the Greeks keep correcting me. Why do you call it an ocean, they ask? I’m used to oceans, I say, it’s been years since I’ve floated on my back in a sea. The Adriatic is a sea.

The water tastes extra salty as I float on my back, no swimming required. I could do this for hours and just might.

Where am I and how did I get here? One year ago it would have been unimaginable. Planes. Passports. Film sets. Adventure. I can’t kick the feeling that I am in a parallel universe, living two lives, one here and one there. I can’t explain.

After a year of interiors, back yards, isolation, and familiarity, (once the constraints of a pandemic became normal) the exact opposite presents itself out of the blue. A job in Greece and Serbia? After a year of fearing I would never go anywhere ever again? This is a shocking possibility.

It is hot. The sea is blue and the farther out you go, the cooler it gets. I will likely only swim on weekends. During the week my days are filled with all the basics of being a costumer; laundry, strange schedules, working in the heat, personalities. But, on the weekends, I can be in Greece. For now.

Presence and flexibility, my new mantras. The costume department alone has people from four countries, working under four different contracts, in it. I tape a phonetic cheat sheet into my notebook. Efcharistò. Thank you. Little things I didn’t realize weren’t universal are quickly shown not to be. A three hole punch and binder? Nope. They have two here. I have yet to decipher a single symbol on the washing machine, still in search of the quickest cycle. It’s humid and clothes take forever to dry, unlike the desert.

An adventure I didn’t see coming until it was upon me. I take none of it for granted and try to appreciate every small, weird, sometimes inconvenient part, grateful for it and also for my life back home to which I will return before too long.