I remember Marianne and I were in a hotel in Piraeus, some inexpensive hotel and we were both about 25, and we had to catch the boat back to Hydra, and we got up and I guess we had a cup of coffee or something and got a taxi, and I’ve never forgotten this. Nothing happened, just sitting in the back of the taxi with Marianne, I lit a cigarette, a Greek cigarette that had that delicious deep flavor of a Greek cigarette, that has a lot of Turkish tobacco in it, and I’m thinking, I’m an adult. You know. I have a life of my own, I’m an adult, I’m with this beautiful woman, we have a little money in our pocket, we’re going back to Hydra, we’re passing these painted walls. That feeling I think I’ve tried to recreate it hundreds of times unsuccessfully. Just that feeling of being grown up, with somebody beautiful that you’re happy to be beside and all the world is in front of you.
- Leonard Cohen, on being asked about his finest memory from Hydra
Strange what a rouge morning search with Zillow can lead to. This morning, while scouring the same cities I do every week with my first cup of coffee before the boys wake, I stumbled unto this incredible property in the desert currently for sale and formally owned by the late great Dinah Shore, and now apparently owned by Leonardo DiCaprio which somehow lead me to some old photos of Leonard Cohen's home in Hydra Greece that he bought in 1960 for $1,500 and where the song (and his love for the lady) Marianne was initially born. This house, at least what I can find of it, like the songs on that album, prove almost too pretty to bear.
In further trails of distraction I then watched Leonard talk about falling in love with Marianne (at the time another man's wife) Here
And This one which touches on his love for the island.
And then back to laundry, emails, grocery lists, and all of that jiving around. . .
