I realised I was happy. Sitting in the shade of a weathered pine tree I was happy.

It wasn’t the prospect of underwater adventure, or the lovely food we just ate. It wasn’t even the blue sky and even blue’er sea that brought upon this feeling of contentness, if anything at all it was the wind. Free roaming, warm, salty. A slight touch of pine and thyme in the air. The smells of the hot, rocky parts of the Mediterranean. Scents as old as time, as old as my surroundings.
Smelling all this made me realise I wasn’t home. That therefore, I wasn’t necesarrily “me”. I would come back again a slight bit different, transformed by travel and new experiences.

And this made me so happy I felt the soft smile break through the tired frown.

 

– Plakias, Crete