EVERYTHING IN MODERATION

I WAS HALFWAY down the mountain when the church bells tolled. I had spent the past two hours alone, hiking the steep, rigorous trails of Mount Taygetus, the Peloponnese’s highest peak, breathing the pine-scented air and hearing nothing but the satisfying crunch of the earth under my shoes. So when the bells rang, sending reverberations through the valley, I jumped, startled. Sitting down on a rock to catch my breath, it occurred to me that these bells had been ringing at the same time, daily, for hundreds of years. The moment