"At ferry stops, homestay hagglers hustled us into their cars. They drove us to remote domatia, where we slept on crisp white bedsheets that had been washed then draped to dry over fragrant hedges of rosemary. We ambled down dirt tracks and spoke to goats. Broke into village chapels with the entitlement of curious Australians abroad. I turned 30 there and, in an outpouring of camp, I sang Judy Garland's I Don't Care, dancing on a weed-girt chunk of granite, part of a fallen ruin."
"But I was lying, I did care because back home in Australia I had always adopted the shape of my parents' ideal: their hetero son. After drinking a half bottle of ouzo, I resolved to kill him off. As my coming-out letter steamed across the Aegean on a ferry to Athens, regret sailed into my sleep. I had nightmares of parricide. The island was beautiful but a cancerous reservation undermined my enjoyment of it."
While day-drinking ouzo on Paros, a coming-out letter to parents is written and posted, sealed with a Hellenic stamp moistened by aniseed tongue. Recent relocation from Australia to London precedes an island-hopping holiday with friends, sleeping in remote domatia and wandering village tracks. A thirtieth birthday performance of camp songs accompanies a resolution to reject parents' heteronormative expectations. Guilt and nightmares of parricide follow the posted letter. The island's beauty becomes marred by ink-splattered esplanades, spiky sea urchins, and discarded condoms, prompting a departure for Mykonos in search of queer freedom amid unexpected cultural encounters.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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