Sounion is crowned with the remains of Poseidon's temple, the revenge he extracted from Athens for his defeat in the contest to become her protector. The journey took longer than we remembered because the coastal highway bus meandered through deserted stretches of beach by the blue sea; now the stunning sea is surrounded by numerous communities served by the same bus that also takes pilgrims to Sounion. From afar we see the promontory with its columns rise heavenward, thankfully free from sprawling clutter.

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The unstable weather does not lose rain on the Attica basin, choosing instead to menace or cajole with a momentary shift of clouds. Anniversary day reminds of things we so enjoyed that we want to experience again; the pilgrimage to Sounion is a pilgrimage to youth. The buses still wait in the same location of the same square, ageless in their somewhat shabby condition. The confluence of Alexandras and Patesion buzzes with traffic and shows little signs of change after the southeast corner building was razed to the ground replaced by a new one; together with the old building went the fish market, which served the immediate neighborhood and which I saw daily on my way home from university classes.

Since the next departure for Sounion was scheduled for 11:30 AM, we had almost an hour at our disposal and we chose to visit my alma mater A.S.O.E.E. now Athens University School of Economics, three blocks down on Patesion.

Outwardly, the building looks the same as it did many years ago but it has not been maintained well; its walls are covered in places with political graffiti. As we enter the main floor with the hallway of the lecture halls, we realize that a new wing and a mezzanine have been added. The basement, which was then hub of activity because of its large announcement windows in which lists of the examination results were posted, and the lively snack bar students patronized between lectures, is now dimly lit, a couple of administrative offices replacing the defunct snack bar. In the second floor the library still occupies the same area, featuring a new archives section across the corridor we consult for E's research. I am struck by how much and how little things have changed, as a sense of reconciliation with my remembrance of the school overwhelms me.

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On the café table, the remains of lunch sizzle under the sun; to the right the Poseidon temple, undefeated after centuries of upheavals, guards the Saronic Gulf and the tourists who are now prohibited from carving their initials on marble columns in the manner of Lord Byron and other early travelers. An hour ago we strolled about the temple admiring the simplicity of its lines, the white of marble against blue skies, the sparkling lapis lazuli sea and the wildflowers, a splendid tapestry draped on the rocky promontory.

Discovery upon discovery, little steps that take you in a land that never existed except in your mind, the land so precious that you lament its loss for the slightest change or for your own blindness, because you are no more clairvoyant than any of the shadows before you. One by one fragments of detail gather assembling across the vast board of change that rearranges our life, this the never-ending now.

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On another table a tray with teacups; we sip tea and milk in the comfort of "Desiree," a new patisserie on a steep side street of Kolonaki. We smile absently by the window, surrounded by candies, pastries and Easter decorations, like a painting behind glass to keep time from altering the dimming daylight. Again that feeling of home where home was not but in dreams that faltered in the landscape of probability.

Athens 26 April 2002