When the game slows down.

One the rules I've learned for traveling is the first two weeks are weird.

Sometimes they're weird in a good way. Sometimes they're weird in a bad way. Sometimes they're just weird.

But almost never are those two weeks representative of the rest of the time I spend in a place.

And going through the world-churning find-my-feet process here in Athens, I think some of that weirdness it is that I'm waiting for the game to slow down.

See, in basketball - and a lot of sports, I think - there's a common description of something that happens to most first and second year players: one day, overnight, they just get a lot better.

Inevitably, in interviews, the players talk about how, somehow while they were sleeping, the entire game just slowed down for them. Time dilated, and they finally had the ability to see what was happening, make good decisions, to see things and do things that they simply couldn't before.

In travel, I notice this same effect so acutely - one day the world is an overwhelming mish-mash of textures and sounds and I'm just struggling to filter through and make sense of all the noise.

The next day I can separate what's happening - a gentrifying population that's chosen pets instead of kids, the dead of winter, the cultural value placed on fresh produce, the way that the sidewalks aren't actually randomly broken, but actually divided into a square grid that makes them easy to repair - optimal for a city that's slowly rebuilding its infrastructure. I see civic pride and a sense of humor. The patterns in drying bedsheets and activewear, waving above the street. Details. Colors. Textures.

I wonder how many things in life are like this. New jobs. New relationships. New cities, friendships, foods, clothes, skills, languages.

All weird and uncertain to begin. All of them, if we're patient, eventually going to slow down.

With lots of love, -Steven.

p.s. The best thing I saw all week was this staggering video / short film / visual poem / I’m not even sure what you call it and it’s not even my vibe but dear god is is beautiful by Shaffer Nickel. Just wow.