To see her now, you would not know she’s depressed. I watch her photograph trays of golden and magenta spices—sumak, kekik, kimyon—and marvel at how her melancholy comes and goes. Back in Athens, her sobs landed like soft, muffled explosions against the closed door of the hotel bathroom, while I sat on the bed feeling their detonations inside my chest, and now she circles objects with her camera, engrossed in pleasure, cracking up at the dark-eyed toddler who pretends to smoke a hookah and his mother who puts on a show of scolding him but keeps lapsing into laughter. We left Athens two days ago, desperate for air temperature less than ninety-nine degrees. Boarding a ship at Piraeus for an excursion to several Greek islands and the coast of Turkey, we sailed into the cool blue colors of the Aegean, clinging to the rail of the deck like wind socks, filling up with fat, glorious breezes. Yesterday, as we hiked around Mykonos, the island was brimming with wind-mills and zephyrs, and when the sun slumped toward the horizon, we floated back to the ship in small boats, shivering in the tinted light.
What do You think about Traveling With Pomegranates?
