The Long Goodbye: One Last Sunset in Crete

There is a point near the end of every really good trip when vacation stops being vacation and becomes The Long Goodbye. You know it’s coming. You start saying things like, “This is our last breakfast here,” and “This is the last time we’ll walk down this street,” and suddenly you’re emotionally attached to a parking space you didn’t even like three days ago.

Our last full day on Crete had arrived, and I was not handling it particularly well.

There’s a real thing that happens when you know you’re about to return from vacation and reenter your regularly scheduled life. Reality reentry. Vacation withdrawal. Post-travel melancholy. Whatever you call it, I had it. And apparently mine comes with laundry, because nothing says, “Our beautiful Greek adventure is coming to an end” quite like sorting underwear.

The Beginning of Goodbye

Breakfast at the Red Bicycle was quieter than usual. By this point in the trip, the Red Bicycle had stopped being a restaurant we liked and simply become where we had breakfast. We had our table. We had our routine. We had Makis. That’s the strange thing about staying somewhere long enough. The extraordinary becomes ordinary. The first morning, you’re sitting in Chania thinking, I AM EATING BREAKFAST IN CRETE. Two weeks later you’re saying, “I’ll have the usual,” while checking your phone and wondering whether you remembered to put sunscreen on your ears.

Familiarity has a sneaky way of dampening wonder. Until you’re about to lose it.

We told Makis we were leaving the next day, and he told us it was his day off. Which meant this was it. Suddenly the three of us were tearing up over breakfast. We took pictures together. We talked. We lingered longer than we needed to. Nobody particularly wanted to say goodbye, because saying goodbye meant admitting that this version of our life was ending. So we sat there for a little while longer.

Then, because life is deeply disrespectful of poignant moments, we went back and did laundry.

One Last Adventure

We had one final adventure planned: a sunset catamaran cruise to Balos Beach. We had booked another tour through GetYourGuide because apparently at some point during this trip we decided that handing strangers money and allowing them to take us somewhere on a boat was now part of our personality.

This particular boat required boarding by plank. A pirate plank.

I swear the universe continues to send me increasingly unsubtle messages that I am supposed to become some sort of decorative pirate. I don’t necessarily want to do pirate things. I don’t want to pillage anything. I have no interest in scurvy. I just want a fabulous coat, a dramatic hat and perhaps a ship on which I can stand while looking meaningfully toward the horizon.

Decorative pirate. I feel this is a legitimate career path.

There were about eight other people on the catamaran, and after everyone climbed aboard, we received the safety briefing. It essentially boiled down to “be careful” and “don’t die,” which happens to be my favorite kind of safety briefing. I tell my students some version of this all the time: “Have fun. Make good choices. Don’t die.” It sounds flippant, but really, those are three remarkably solid life goals.

And off we went.

Somewhere Around Odysseus

We sailed through Kissamos Bay, around enormous rocky land formations rising straight out of the Mediterranean. The water was impossibly blue. The cliffs were enormous. Everything felt ancient.

This was around the time The Odyssey had been released, so naturally Tim announced that this was supposedly somewhere around the area where Odysseus landed to repair his boat. Our captain disagreed. Strongly. A spirited historical-geographical debate began.

I bowed out.

I have reached an age where two men can debate the possible repair location of an ancient Greek hero’s boat while I eat cheese and stare at the Mediterranean. I do not need to win every conversation. Especially when there is cheese.

The crew had laid out a charcuterie board covered in meats, cheeses and olives, followed by fresh-cut fruit. Essentially, pre-prepared Kim Snacks. There were also unlimited drinks, so there I was, sailing toward Balos Beach, eating cheese on a catamaran, surrounded by water that looked Photoshopped.

And yet I was tired.

Not “I need a nap” tired. Trip tired. People tired. Decision tired. Emotionally tired. Maybe I’d been tired for the entire Greek expedition and had simply been outrunning it with boats, mountains, villages, tavernas, cats and Aperol Spritzes. But now that we were nearing the end, it had caught me. Everything irritated me more easily. Everything made me emotional. Even wonderful things required effort to enjoy.

And I hated that, because I was in Crete. I was supposed to be appreciating every second.

Right?

The Problem With Wonder

We talk about travel as though wonder automatically happens when you get far enough from home. Go somewhere exotic. See something famous. Climb something. Sail somewhere. Stand in front of a monument. Take picture. Experience wonder. Check.

But that’s not really how it works.

You can stand somewhere breathtaking and be tired. You can visit somewhere you’ve dreamed about and be cranky. You can sail across the Mediterranean while eating complimentary cheese and still think, I would very much like everyone to stop talking now. Being somewhere wonderful doesn’t mean you are required to feel wonderful every second.

Maybe that’s part of what I’ve been figuring out on this trip. Travel isn’t really about collecting beautiful places. It’s about what those places do to you.

Balos

We reached Balos just as most of the daytime crowds were leaving, which is one of the great advantages of a sunset cruise. While everyone else was heading back, we were arriving. The famous lagoon stretched out in front of us, turquoise water against pale sand and mountains. It was beautiful.

Everyone went swimming.

Well. They went swimming.

I put my toe in. The water was not particularly cold, but apparently my entire body had formed a union and voted against further participation.

“I don’t want to.”

This is not something I say very often. Normally I’m the person saying, “Sure! Let’s hike through a gorge! Let’s get on the weird boat! Let’s go down the questionable staircase! What’s the worst that could happen?” On this particular evening? No. My toe had assessed the Mediterranean and filed a formal report. We would be remaining aboard.

Tim, meanwhile, jumped in and swam all the way to the sandbar and back. When he climbed aboard, breathing rather more enthusiastically than when he left, he announced, “That’s a lot harder in my 50s than when I was a lifeguard in my 20s.”

I gave him the loving wifely look that communicates approximately seventeen paragraphs without requiring speech.

Yes, dear. Time is cruel. Have some cheese.

One Last Sunset

Eventually we turned toward home, and then the sun began to set.

There had been wildfires near Rethymno, the same fires that had closed the Samaria Gorge shortly before our hike. Smoke still hung in the atmosphere, and while the reason for it was terrible, it transformed the sky into brilliant orange, gold and yellow. The Mediterranean reflected it all back at us.

And suddenly there it was again.

Wonder.

Not because I had successfully checked another famous destination off a list. Not because I had swum at Balos, because I hadn’t. Not because I had done something impressive. I was simply sitting on a boat, watching the sun go down, knowing I was leaving.

Maybe that’s why it hit differently. Sometimes you don’t fully see something until you know it’s almost gone.

The Pirate Plank Returns

Back at Gramvousa, we once again had to cross the pirate plank, which did not quite reach the pier in a manner I considered confidence-inspiring. Everyone else walked across normally. I walked across imagining the extremely plausible alternate ending in which the final story of my Greek vacation became LOCAL WOMAN FALLS OFF BOAT SIX FEET FROM SHORE.

I didn’t fall in. This should be considered an achievement.

One Last Ordinary Night

We headed toward Gramvousa Restaurant, which our wonderful host Eleutheria had recommended for its food and live music. Apparently she had also recommended it to the entire western half of Crete, because the wait was three hours long.

I was zero-hours hungry.

So we walked about half a block down to a little family restaurant called Abelo’s, sat outside where we could still hear the Greek music drifting over from down the street, and were served almost immediately. There were cats. Of course there were cats. At this point I’m beginning to suspect that Crete assigns a minimum number of cats to every dining establishment as part of its licensing requirements.

And somehow, it was exactly what we needed.

We didn’t need the famous restaurant. We didn’t need the perfect final dinner. We needed good food, Greek music floating through the evening air, cats wandering around our feet, and one more ordinary night in a place that had stopped feeling extraordinary because, somewhere along the way, it had started feeling familiar.

Then, because apparently I wasn’t emotional enough already, Eleftheria sent me a picture.

It was Voula, curled up on the office couch at the Plaza De Pietro, cuddling Richard the Spider.

Not just any Richard, either. Four years ago, I crocheted a Richard specifically to give to Eleutheria to take up permanent residence at the Plaza De Pietro. He has lived there ever since, although somewhere along the way the hotel apparently lost legal custody of him and he became Voula’s property. I don’t believe there was paperwork. The transfer appears to have been accomplished entirely through cat law, which mostly consists of sitting on something until everyone understands that it belongs to you now.

And there she was, curled around him on the couch.

My Greek cat, cuddling my crocheted spider, in a hotel thousands of miles from my house.

Well, that was just rude.

I was already trying not to think about leaving Chania, and now I had photographic evidence that a tiny piece of my weird little world would still be here after I went home. Richard would stay. Voula would stay. Makis would go back to work after his day off. The Red Bicycle would open for breakfast. People would wander through the streets beneath our balcony. Someone else would sit at a table and order coffee. The cats would continue conducting whatever complicated municipal business the cats of Chania are clearly in charge of.

Crete would carry right along without me.

There’s something comforting and slightly heartbreaking about that. Maybe that’s part of what makes saying goodbye to a place you love so difficult. You don’t pack all of it up and take it with you. You can’t. You leave pieces behind: friendships, routines, favorite tables, familiar streets and, apparently, one crocheted spider who now legally belongs to a cat.

And you take pieces of it home with you.

Maybe that’s the trade.

Maybe Wonder Isn’t Somewhere Else

I started Kim Goes Somewhere because I love going somewhere. Preferably somewhere weird. Somewhere with pirate ships, questionable staircases, strange museums, ancient ruins, improbable festivals, overly ambitious hikes, and at least one story that begins, “This seemed like a good idea at the time.”

But I’m beginning to think travel isn’t really about somewhere.

It’s about learning how to look.

When you arrive somewhere new, you notice everything: the light on the buildings, the food, the way people talk, the old man sitting outside the café, the cat sleeping on a windowsill, the mountains in the distance, the weird little doorway you walk past every morning. You notice because none of it belongs to your normal life yet.

Then something strange happens. You stay long enough and it starts becoming normal.

You stop thinking, I’m eating breakfast in Chania! You’re just having breakfast. You stop studying the street outside the hotel because you already know where it goes. You know where to get coffee. You know which table you like. You know Makis. You know Voula. You have routines.

Familiarity dampens wonder.

Until you have to leave.

Then suddenly you see everything again.

Maybe that’s why this last day felt so melancholy. Crete had become familiar. It wasn’t just somewhere we had traveled anymore. For a little while, it had become somewhere we lived. And just as all those strange little pieces had settled into ordinary life, we had to give them back.

Tomorrow we would pack the suitcases. We would say goodbye to Chania. We would get on the plane and go home. Back to work. Back to schedules. Back to laundry that didn’t have the decency to feel Greek and poignant.

And maybe that’s where the real lesson of this trip was hiding.

The challenge isn’t figuring out how to stay on vacation forever. It’s figuring out how to bring the traveler’s eyes home with us.

Because we do something when we travel that we rarely do at home: we pay attention. We look down alleys. We read plaques. We stop for strange little shops. We photograph doors. We notice old buildings and ridiculous signs and people playing music on street corners. We drive an hour because somebody told us there’s a weird little village we should see. We get on questionable boats. We talk to strangers. We wonder what’s around the corner.

At home, we drive past things for twenty years without knowing what they are.

Maybe wonder isn’t something you have to fly thousands of miles to find. Maybe the world doesn’t become less interesting when we go home.

Maybe we just stop looking at it like travelers.

So perhaps that’s the challenge when I get back. To look at the places I already know and ask:

What have I stopped seeing?

Because somewhere doesn’t have to be thousands of miles away. Sometimes somewhere is the road you’ve driven a hundred times, the restaurant you keep meaning to try, the odd little museum you’ve never walked into, or the town half an hour away that you’ve somehow never bothered to explore.

Somewhere is wherever you decide to pay attention.

And sometimes, apparently, part of you stays behind in Crete, curled up on an office couch in the paws of a cat.

I suppose Richard could have done worse.

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