Letters · 5 min read
Letter from the Cyclades
Dispatches from a slow August — donkeys, boats that don't run on time, and the best tomato I've ever eaten.
By Ekaterina · June 4, 2026
I am writing this from a rooftop in Naxos. The ferry was two hours late and I did not mind. The woman next to me at the port was reading a Greek translation of a novel I love and we spent forty minutes talking about it in bad English and worse Greek.
This is what the Cyclades do to you. They loosen the joint between the thing you planned and the thing that happens.
The tomato — because I promised you a tomato — came from a farm on the west side of the island. It was warm. It had been picked twenty minutes earlier. It cost less than a euro. I stood in the road and ate it like a peach.
I will remember this month for a long time. I hope you get one like it soon.
