They lead to beaches, angels, and little white convertibles.

Bumping down the ramp with my suitcase off the ferry from Athens, I raise a hand to my face in an attempt to shield my eyes from the dazzling sunlight bouncing off the water. Even with sunglasses on, I can hardly see a damn thing. The immediate heat tightens my skin, and the huge grin spreading across my face feels like a cracking-open, forming a channel directly to my heart and lighting the dark corners there. 

Because it’s right in front of me, I spot the Avance car rental, just a few paces from the boat in the port of Adamantas. I hustle for the first and last time on this vacation to ensure I make it there before the folks still hunting for their luggage and stray family members catch up to me. (An upside of traveling alone is that I mechanically obey my own needs instead of having to stop to consider someone else’s or worry that my stride leaves them in the dust. A downside is that I look a little insane smiling all big like that with no one around me.)

When I duck inside, my eyes start to adjust, and I’m greeted by The Best Looking Man I Have Ever Seen. I can’t help but start to compose similes for blue-green eyes in my mind as I give a big wave and say “ya-soooo!” I might as well have said “hellooooo, NURSE!” 

“You have such wonderful energy!” Says this Adonis from behind the counter. “Thank you!” I say. “I just got off a boat onto a beautiful island!” 

I do not blurt out that my grandmother died last week, and I am looking for signs of her everywhere. That in thinking so hard about death I have been thinking less about life in a way that is so freeing I hardly recognize myself. What this man does not know, as I announce that I need a car but have no reservation for one, is that for me to say and not-do something like this goes against my very nature. Experience has shown me that plans ensure a good time, and control keeps me safe. But loosey-goosey living feels so natural in this moment, I wonder if I’ve really been going against my nature for decades, and everything I’ve done up to this point has been one extended response to being unable to trust anyone or anything?

“We have just one left,” he says. “But it’s a cabriolet.”

I pause, unsure if the expression on his face is one of apology or of mischief. I wonder if the term cabriolet is common knowledge and something I should feel dumb for not recognizing, or if it’s just not American English (turns out to be the latter, thank you very much). 

“What is that?”

It’s a little white Audi convertible is what it is.

When they pull it around front, I gasp, compulsively reporting to the man that “it matches my sunglasses!” and instead of ignoring that or just mm-hmm-ing, he senses the humoring I need in that moment and says, “Oh my, it does! How perfect.” I’m given a demo on raising and lowering the top, knowing full well I won’t ever be putting that thing up, no matter how crispy my hairline might get in the sun.

Once inside the car, I whip up a playlist I title “Driving Around Greece,” which is mostly ABBA. (When something is perfect, it doesn’t have to be good, you know?) This car is enabling me to exist as a the pop-playing, Barbie-car-driving version of myself I had so repressed that I forgot she was even in there. In the early 2000’s, I pantomimed the emotion behind Kelly Clarkson belting “Since You Been Gone,” but now, I sing that shit with experience, projecting from the motherf*cking diaphragm. This cabriolet isn’t just a car; it’s a passport.

As I drive around the island of Milos, people look to see the cute little convertible go by, and I can’t help but smile and wave. I don’t even judge my beauty-queen behavior; it’s just the natural thing to do in this situation! 

With my bags dropped at the hotel and a bathing suit on under white drawstring pants, I plug my selected destination in to Google Maps and hit the road again. It’s not a big island, so I’ll arrive in ten minutes or so. 

There are some lessons you only learn the hard way. In my story, it’s this one: follow the road signs, and don’t ever trust Google Maps. It will lead you to what appears to be a shortcut but is in fact a tangled web of roads so small you suspect them to be sidewalks. I am not exaggerating: I turn down (literally down, it descends) one gravel road and it’s just me, a cliff, and a rooster. That’s it. “Turn left,” says the voice of Google Maps. Girl, where?! Into the ocean?? Deciding my best course of action is to go back from whence I came, I achieve a tight ~11-point turn and set forth (er, back). But alas, after maybe two minutes of thinking I’ve figured it out, I am met with a “wrong way” sign. It can’t be disregarded; encountering another vehicle on this narrow a road bordered by the walls of people’s actual homes would lead to needing to be airlifted out. 

So I park. I have the very clear thought that crying or getting angry is utterly useless, so I do not cry, and I do not get angry. I try to call the hotel for advice, but there’s no reception – or am I just doing another thing wrong? My car is pulled over where it is sort of out of the way, but also not really, so I don’t want to wander off. I wonder how long it might be before another car stumbles upon me, trying and failing to call the hotel again. 

Suddenly, a voice cuts through the silence: “do you need something?” A tan woman with a pile of curly hair and neatly applied red lipstick steps through a screen door, holding a broom (not in a brandishing-at-me way, but an in-the-middle-of-something way). “Oh my god, I — YES” I say, doing sort of a western white-girl version of a bow. “I feel so foolish, I followed Google Maps and now I’m lost and totally stuck.”

“Ohh, don’t worry!” she says. “I’ll help you.” These words are an instant balm and rare medicine. This kind, generous creature with perfect English is here, and she’s going to solve my fuckup? I can’t believe it. “I’m leaving soon, you can follow me out. I’ll be right back.”

“Oh my god,” I say again, giving my newfound valleygirl teenager vibe too much life, “ohmygod no rush at all, I have all the time in the world, thank you thank you thank you.” 

When she returns, I ask her name, then weird-bow and thank her again, and she helps me turn the car around, directing me to follow hers. When we reach the main road a few minutes later, she gives a little wave out the window, and I wave and blow kisses out the top of my car. This is the moment where I let out one great heaving sob, having repressed my nerves for so long, they come out as sort of yelp. It’s times like these when my Southern Christian Girl comes out, and I’m clutching my chest with my right hand, steering the car with my left, chanting aloud, “Thank you Lord, thank you Jesus, thank you Katherine, you angel, thank you LORD, THANK YOU JESUS!” 

To begin my recovery from feeling like The Dumbest Bitch on the Planet, I stop to buy snacks (orange chocolate and Coke Zero with lemon — in a yellow can!) and drive straight to a very non-mysterious beach right off the main road. Coming down the seaside stairs, I see that there’s just one man way down the entire stretch of beach, leaving the rest of the beach and all the water in the cove just for me (I know, I know, but that’s how it feels!)

I lay out my towel and feel calm, still unsure why I didn’t freak out. The only conclusion I can come to is that it truly did seem like a waste of time. 

The sand is soft, and the ocean laps it gently. Warm after spending some time with my head buried in my book, I go to take my first dip. I’m in a one-piece cerulean swimsuit I bought at the Salvation Army and have never felt so unwatched and sensual, walking down the sloped bank. The water temperature is supreme; I’m refreshed without bracing, and I swim more than intended because I cannot get enough of the feeling of scooping my arms and kicking my legs through the lush, clear coolness. 

I tread water for a moment, doing a little 360 as if in need of confirmation of my aloneness. Oh, yes…I am indeed alone-alone. The water is so salty that, as I swim out, out, out into it, I find I barely have to tilt my head back and, whoosh—I’m floating.

And I cry. No one can see me; I don’t have to worry about their worry, or judge their judgment, or risk an urge to explain myself. I’m just a small dot, starfished in this cove, bobbing and blinking at the sun while tears slide down the sides of my face into the ocean. I look at the sky and think maybe I can see the slit in the seam of the universe where A Person Who Loved Me has just slipped out.

I am so light in this water, I imagine it’s lifting me up, up, up, bringing me closer to the edge of the sky. With my ears underwater and my eyes shut, I’m just listening to my own breathing, wondering why I’ve ever thought I needed anything else. 

I don’t know how long I stay this way, but eventually I want to churn my limbs again, and as I do I start to laugh, because man, how great of an ad would today have been for Audi? A shittier rental just would not have made it, and I looked so, so cute in the midst of my distress. I send all the best vibes out to Katherine and hope that infinitely good karma comes to her. 

It’s a few minutes of swimming before I arrive at the shore, plopping myself face-down on my towel, panting. I haven’t looked at my phone; I have nowhere to be and no one who needs to hear from me any time soon. Plus, you know, it totally betrayed me earlier with the whole Google Maps thing. The salt crystallizes on my fanny in the sun, and I know that tonight I’ll sleep like a baby. 

I climb the stairs and grin at my little car, perched on the cliffside alone, waiting for me. I don’t bother with a coverup but plop down and crank little miss Cabriolet up along with Belinda Carlisle. “Ooh baby do you know what that’s worth, oooh heaven is a place on Earth…” 

I told you the playlist was perfect.