Janis Petzel joined us on the Greece Writing Retreat where storytellers gathered and magic filled the air. This is her account of her journey and her writing of her fantasy novel.

Skala Eressos 

With gratitude and thanks to Sarah Bullen, Liz and Emma Dhesi for leading me into the forest to find my courage. 

On the first day, she stood at the edge of the sea. Dressed in a modest bathing suit, wearing water shoes with thick soles to protect her soft feet, and wearing borrowed goggles to protect her eyes from the salt, she immersed her pale body in the blue water that made her skin look even more pale. Her arms too weak to move her body forward through the waves, she dog-paddled half-way to the gnarled domed rock guarding the bay from the open sea. White splashes of bird shit decorated the rock, a faded Greek flag at the top. When she tried to get home, the rocks lining the shore hurt her feet. The waves tipped her over when she tried to stand. She had to crawl to shore, the sand scouring her palms. 

On the second day, she explored different paths to the sea. She wore a bikini bottom and a jog bra, having lost her bathing suit top during unpacking somewhere on her journey. She cared less and less that her tummy pooched over the elastic of her suit bottom, dead fish white in the waves. That night at dinner with her sisters, she drew the Wolf card from the vision cards and finally understood she did not need to be afraid.  

On the third day, her friends waited for her on the Rock. Still on shore, she thought What the hell. She dropped her shirt in the sand and went topless into the water. Her breasts looked twenty years younger in the salty sea. When she came back to land, she didn't even care that they drooped like the paps on wax women in a Natural History Museum. She read her work out loud to her writing group, and didn't faint when she bared her soul to them. 

On the fourth day-- At the rock, two women climbed up to a natural platform and jumped into a blue hole that no evil eye would dare penetrate. She had intended to just watch, but again What the hell bubbled up in her and out her nose when she too, made the leap. The bubbles cleansed the self-doubt blocking her vision. Sunlight sparkled off the crests of the waves which broke over her nipples as she back-stroked to the beach. 

Day 5—she misunderstood the time and got to the beach before the others. Feeling the power she’d gained in her arms and spirit, she did the crawl stroke to the rock, basking alone on its sea weedy skirt alone swimming back. Later, when she got to her room, she found that tiny sea creatures had come with her. They attached to the fat of her arms, around her naval, and across the expanse of her buttocks, making her skin itch and ooze. 

Day 6—Her body had learned to accommodate the heat of the sun, so the water felt cold, then delicious. The sea creatures in her symbiotic crevices were happy to be under the water again, and she was happy for them. She let the fish nibble at the dead skin on her feet.  Like sculptors, the fish scraped away unnecessary flesh to reveal scaly fins as beautiful as their own. She had to re-learn how to move on land. Her finny feet still found the joy of dancing that night with her writer family. 

On Day 7, she rested on the guardian rock, humming the new music emanating in bright rays from her heart. Her gorgeous scaly tail stirred up bits of sparkling sand at the edges of frilly grayish seaweed. She decided she would gild her hair like one of her goddess sisters had done. Tonight, and every night into the future, she would float bare-breasted on her back in the waves listening to the stories the constellations told her.  

And tomorrow? She would compose stories so compelling that sailors would dash themselves on the rocks to hear how they ended. Stories so powerful the sailors would rise from the dead to explore new lands. Stories so beautiful they would realize they loved her for all time, when it was too late. 

Creation was hers.