Get Ready for the Wow

a Greek island, donkeys, core memories

I have brought my family to my two favorite places in the world: London and Hydra (a tiny, car-free island off of Greece). I first came to Hydra in my mid-20s to film Islands Without Cars, and it’s held a paradisiacal chokehold on me ever since. Whenever I need to calm myself down or go to a “happy place,” it’s always Hydra, where cicadas vibrate through pine trees, the water is clear and warm and full of busy fish, there is no traffic, and the only agenda items are to swim, read, and morph golden.

My son crawled into bed with me to cuddle this morning and whispered When are we coming back here?

We’re here now, I pointed out. We’ve got several days left here!

I know, he curled his fingers around mine. But I want to make sure we come back here again. I love it. It’s magical.

My heart leapt. Everything I was hoping for! I knew it wouldn’t be an unmitigated disaster, to bring the ones I love to the places I love the most, but I did have a certain fear of, say, apathy. Like, okay, I’ve dragged you halfway across the world, momentarily destroyed your tiny brain with jetlag, and you think this place is…just ok? But luckily my kids are tiny versions of me, which means they are wholeheartedly enthusiastic about most everything I expose them to.

Like here, for example: excited about a stick.

My mom brought me to London when I was almost the exact same age as Rowan, and it cast a spell over me for the rest of my life. Literature and music and the movies and especially our favorite comedies, AbFab and Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, sort of coalesced in my little growing brain and the world made sense for the first time. I saw beyond the dining room to the kitchen, where the stuff was really made, where everything I loved was birthed (medieval history, my collection of vintage skeleton keys, The Secret Garden, fairy tales, the list was endless). I can see this trip having the same effect on Rowan. His eyes widening at medieval armor at the Tower of London, having his little medieval knight figurines battle each other along the Thames afterwards in a quiet moment when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. Recognizing every visual reference to a Greek myth in Athens, and then casually regaling us with the entire corresponding mythological tale. For the littler Zoe, the inspiration is less clear, but she is enjoying the twice-daily ice cream of #vacationlife and petting every single cat we see on Hydra, while screaming OH MY GOD ANOTHER CAT at each successive cat (every 10 seconds on this island).

Gusts blow through the island in the afternoon, scattering bougainvillea like pink tutus pirouetting through the air. Kittens chase after them, batting the paper-thin skirts about in a demented display. A pink light hits the cliffs around 7pm, bathing the entire western face of the island in a lavish glow. One feels rich just to be here, stepping over the occasional donkey shit on perfectly smooth cobblestone lanes, inhaling this perfect pine-scented air, sea-salted hair tousled by the Aeolus winds, skin covered in a thin film of powdery white sodium souvenirs from swimming in the ocean all day, muscles taut from all the gentle uphill climbs. It’s an island where yacht-owners meet wide-eyed families, all converging for a perfectly salted feta at a table in the wide U-shaped port.

Get ready for the wow, our horse guide alerted us in broken English as we rounded a clifftop for a magnificent view over the entire island. More like Thank you for my new life motto!!!

More on Hydra soon, plus my guide to a prettay, prettayyy perfect week in London with kids.