Years ago, I won a scholarship to spend a summer in Greece, studying classical archaeology at the British School of Athens. For weeks, I was ported around the country with 30 other students to visit its ancient sites, from the sanctuary at Delphi to the monasteries of the Peloponnese to the ruined remains of ancient Athens that break the city into fragments. It was a trip that would change me fundamentally, that taught me more about myself than the ancient people I had come to learn about.
I was 20, five years bereft. My mother had shocked us with her untimely death a month shy of my 16th birthday; my grandmother followed exactly 12 months later. I had yet to tumble down the canyon of my grief. Instead, I worked hard and traveled as much as possible. I sought dramatic landscapes, arid Mediterranean summers, forgotten ruins perched on hilltops, and cliffs where I could watch the indigo ocean crashing into the rocks below.
