![]() The rooms, all 41 of them, are burrowed into the volcanic rock they’re individual caves. It’s an iconic property, chiseled right into the side of the mountain, like so much of this town. And Mystique is probably in your feed, too. And Oia, the Candyland hillside town sprinkled with sugar-white buildings topped with gumdrop blue domes, is what you think of when someone whispers, “Santorini.” Its images fill your Instagram feed and nurse your wanderlust. Up there, at the northern tippy-top of Santorini, the Very Fine View isn’t just of the sea, but the village of Oia. At the tippy-top of Santorini is the Candyland village of Oia, which can be seen from Mystique. It’s easy to get lost in that Very Fine View, to float away into its marvelousness. (The one, incidentally, created by the big volcano.) Forget you’re a small man on a big volcano. It’s easy to forget that you’re floating in a pool on a volcano-the Very Fine View commands it, after all. In fact, some locals gossip that the volcanic rumblings regularly continue one local at a taverna swore to me that he’d seen boulders rise from the caldera like Godzilla-summoned by these earthquakes-appearing suddenly one day, disappearing the next. This is an active volcano, something that’s easy to ignore, but it last erupted in 1950 and will almost certainly do so again. Its infinity edge merges with the horizon of the Aegean, interrupted by the four smaller islands of the caldera. The pool of Mystique, the hotel I called home for a short while, juts precariously from Santorini’s cliffs, a perfect vista for the Very Fine View. To sit in a swimming pool, stare at a Very Fine View-no other expectations, no other wants. To play in the world of make-believe, the world that’s invented while you’re on vacation. Kanava Hotels & Resorts Forget Your Troubles The infinity pool at Mystique is the perfect spot to lose yourself in the Very Fine View. They’re trapped by the gaze of impossible beauty. No doubt, many are unable to look away from the Very Fine VIew-unable even as they plunge over the side into their doom. “ Psst,” the Very Fine View says to them. They’re all too overcome by the Very Fine View. None of the tourists here ever sense the danger, the lurking shroud of death, even during a murderous pandemic. From her honeymoon to an early grave, all in one of the most beautiful places in the world. The waiter launched into an unverified rumor of a Lithuanian bride who was smashed up the week before in a motorcycle accident. “Someone’s always dying on those roads,” a 14-year-old waiter told me after I lamented my stomach going soft due to a madcap taxi journey. Both thoroughfares are clogged with a combustible hodgepodge of aggressive taxi drivers, confused tourists in rental cars, overzealous motorcycle riders, and sluggishly slow ATVs. The upper is called Eparchiaki Odos, or the “Provincial Road,” and it crawls through the mountains at spine-tingling angles, all the way from the northern tip of Oia to the black-sand beach of Perissa, on the southern edge. The lower hasn’t a name, but it avoids the mountain passes and runs half the length of the island. When aging brings inevitable changes that challenge us physically and emotionally, engaging in efforts to bring positive change is always a “win-win.”ġJane McGonigal, SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2015).There are two major roads on the Greek island of Santorini-an upper and a lower. Becoming one of the “fixers” can yield results that range from alleviation of anxiety, depression, and awareness of physical pain to making them actually go away. ![]() Is it on work at hand or a pleasant diversion? Is it on the pain or immediate concern that is blocking everything else out? Is it on what we feel we should do rather than what we want to do?įinding a cause that provides a space to develop our own interests, contacts, and awareness of our own potential for “world-fixing” leaves less time for focusing on negative aspects of life. Science1 and experience tell us so.Ĭonsciously or unconsciously, we are always making choices on how we focus attention. Because distraction from anxiety, depression, and physical pain is a very good thing. If “Yes” is the answer to any of the last three, then please welcome the distraction! Perhaps you were anxious about being at loose ends. Please, excuse me and go right on with what you were doing. Oh, sorry, did I distract you? Were you doing something important? Listening to music? Watching an absorbing TV show? Talking to a friend? Meditating?
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