"I like the lifestyle here better, but I have all the people I love at home, except two," Ailyn succinctly explained.
That right there is the conundrum I feel every time I'm on Patmos. There's nothing in Westlake I like better except the people I love – two of them most specifically. With my kids at the ages they are and being grounded in Westlake, there doesn't seem like any realistic path not to live there.
"Well, I have 3,000 people I love here on Patmos!" said responded – typically less sentimental than his sister. "When I'm here, I just want to stay here. I like our life here.'
There's no doubt in so many areas, Sennen is more like me.
Sometimes I wonder how in a world of possibilities we choose what's really right for us. It seems to me, so often, we allow external factors make the choices for us. Somewhere we grew up, got a job, have some friends or family, found a good deal on a house. Maybe we move for our health, choose a city with an ethnic community that matches us, stay where we went to college, or these days – want to be someplace that politically aligns for us better.
Some people don't really perceive having a choice – or maybe don't think one is necessary. They continue where generations of their family have been because what else would they really do? Other places may not even seem like real or likely choices.
"I'm leaving in ten days," Yorgo (George), the nephew of the lady who owns Ta Kardasia pie bakery told me yesterday.
Yorgo is 16 years-old and comes to Patmos for the summer from Piraeus, the port city for Athens. He works mornings for his aunt and has afternoons and evenings to do whatever he wants. Last summer he could be seen with a band of same-age boys roving the town and beaches in the late afternoons and early evenings. This year, his group hangs out indoors more – often with video games and TV. His aunt isn't thrilled with the change, but also feels pushing does no benefit.
"So soon? You don't have school until September, right?" I asked.
"No, not until September 7, but I want to spend some time with my family before it starts."
"Where do you like better – here or Piraeus?"
"I like it here a lot. I have friends too – it's nice. But my family is in Piraeus, so I like to be there with them," Yorgo answered.
Same as Ailyn. Sort of a "Home is where the heart is," answer. Totally fair. Because time doesn't run backwards, we don't get the moments back. We can get a lot from our environments, but love isn't one of those things.
Of course, for Yorgo, the choice is less stark than for Ailyn. Yorgo's aunt and cousin are family and he has an established social group he enjoys here on Patmos. Not only does Yorgo get family and love, he gets to be on an amazing island and have a job where he can improve his English skills (which are critical to getting the good paying jobs in Greece) and earns actual money. I would guess his parents see sending him to Patmos as more than a summer getaway – but a skill-building camp.
That doesn't mean all is well in paradise.
"George, what do you do when you're not working? Tell the nice man…" Yorgo's aunt said.
"I mostly stay inside, with my friends. We don't go out the way we did last year," he sheepishly explained.
Yorgo's aunt looked like a prosecutor who had got her confession. Then she turned to the jury…
"He's older now and at 16, they just don't do anything. We get some good family time together when he's at home – which is really lovely – but these kids, they don't do anything!"
I said it's funny because in California 16 is the age when you get a driver's license and then once a kid has one, you never see them again (although I understand from people I know this is becoming less true as kids forgo their licenses and become parent and Uber-reliant). I explained that once my friends and I had our licenses – we were at home far less.
"But it's so dangerous, the roads here. I would be afraid all the time," the prosecutor said with second thoughts.
"True, the roads are narrow and you really have to watch for people who pop out or sharp curves you can't take too quickly," I acknowledged. "But the dangers are just trade-offs. We allow our kids onto big freeways where they're driving at 130 km per hour. When I was his age, I drove two or three off-ramps to school every morning at that speed. There is no feeling safe with your kid behind the wheel."
Aunt and nephew both quietly nodded, absorbing a new thought. The driving age in Greece is 18, so this is a scenario neither had likely considered before – although I have wondered if Patmians always adhere to this.
"What will you do when your kids get their licenses? Will you allow them to go out like that?"
"I will do what every parent in California does – have a knot in my stomach and hold my breath until my kid comes home safely at night," I said.
Aunt and nephew nodded – for this seemed right to them. It showed Californians aren't a different species, just a little crazy with their laws.
To Yorgo, Patmos is likely a small, remote place – far more boring than Piraeus, but fun to visit in summers. For me – and possibly Sennen – it is a small world without all the chaos I can't explain back home. Why do I go to so many stores, pay so many bills, deal with all kinds of bureaucratic details just to get healthcare or re-enroll my kid in the same school she's been going to for years? The world feels incredibly and needlessly complicated – filled with banal things that take up the day and mean nothing. How many days in a week or month do I actually remember? They're so busy, so full and yet I'll never look back on most of them with any memory.
Even worse, in order to make sure all the "stuff" is done and managed, I frequently push off the things that matter. I tell my kids I don't have time to sit down on the sofa with them because I'm trying to get the dishes done and the garbage out. We don't make plans with family because the kids each have a soccer or softball game that weekend maybe a birthday party or two in the mix too. And sooner than later, the years where time together in the living room and extended family get togethers will be gone – and what will I have to show for it? A string of errands and tasks successfully accomplished?
For Patmians, keeping a standing Sunday afternoon lunch is much more feasible. Everyone lives within a 13 square mile zone. Although it seems they too have some issues with distance. Nicholas and his wife bemoaned their older son marrying a girl from the Kampos area and building a house there. Kampos is an entire 10 minutes drive from Skala and they would have liked their grandchildren to live closer.
Nonetheless, the culture here supports family Sundays. The size of the island eliminates hours spent running errands. There are no warehouse or big box stores. The only chains are the Alpha-Beta supermarket and the National Bank of Greece. In Skala, there is one pharmacy and butcher in the front of town, and one pharmacy and butcher in the back. No need to walk the ten minutes to get to the vendor on the "other side" of town. If you live up in Hora, the grocery stores and coffee places will deliver to your door. And when you do shop, it's also a social event – chatting with shop owners you know and patrons who are part of your community. Running errands and having a social life are not completely separate things.
Still, this couldn't have always been the case. Yesterday when the kids were weighing in on their lifestyle preferences and family attachments, we were sitting on the beach at Sapsilla Bay – enjoying beautiful, warm turquoise water. Just above and to the left was the hill at the top of which sits Hora, the monastery and the Cave of the Apocalypse. St. John The Theologian was dropped on Patmos sometime between 81 and 96 AD by the Romans as part of his sentence of Banishment from Rome – ostensibly for evangelizing or speaking in some way on Christianity. While there were several Greek islands used as banishment sites, supposedly, Patmos was not typical for the time – which makes sense since it is reasonably far from the Italian coast.
When St. John moved into his cave and wrote Revelations, it's unknown whether there were others on Patmos and if so, how many. Patmos was little spoken of in the canons of Greek Mythology and has very little recorded history prior to St. John's arrival. If I imagined the Patmos of St John – one without vehicles and likely limited roads – Kampos might very well have been a terribly distant place to have a relative. How long would it have taken for a determine St. John to get to Livadi Geranou? A day? Two? More? Where would one have camped? Or were there people to take in a traveler? There are large hills involved and in a world with limited to no roads and travel by foot, or at best donkey – Patmos may well have felt like a large island – a world unto itself to be feared, explored or both.
St. John had no one. Not loved ones in a nearby village, nor people across the world he could call on FaceTime. There was no postal service to even send letters letting family and friends know he was alive and doing okay or to receive notes of connection and comfort. And no one delivered a double cappuccino to his doorstep. Patmos was as disconnected from the world he had known as it got. Sometimes where and how we live aren't a choice. The truth is, we can be lonely anywhere we please.
So maybe it's not where we are physically, but where we are emotionally that matters. Perhaps whether you're tied into the family and friends in Westlake or the 3,000 people on Patmos – sustaining, meaningful connection and community are available. Certainly, there are things about some cultures and places that better lend themselves to our personalities and values. It's soothing and fulfilling to find your people and your place. But as St John knew, that's not always an option.
Perhaps if you're as lucky as me or Yorgo or Sennen or Ailyn – your world is big enough to never have it all in a single place. Your conundrum is that there's always something you love, and something left behind. To sound like a yoga class, you have to let go of something in order to be fully present with another. The trick might be to know when to let the dishes sit and cuddle on the sofa – whether the sofa is in a suburb of Los Angeles or a gloriously beautiful Greek island that is as big or small as your eye perceives it.
