"I don't want to go anywhere…. I hate this… I don't feel good…" Sennen said repeatedly yesterday. Today, he didn't want to go his favorite pizza restaurant, the beach or the park. When it was time for an afternoon nap which he desperately needed, he just couldn't fall asleep and then melted down with phrases like, "I just can't fall asleep! It's not fair… everything I do just makes things worse…"
In short, he's been intermittently miserable. In general, Sennen doesn't handle being sick very well which is offset by the fact that it happens very rarely. Unlike his sister, who can kvetch about the tiniest of boo-boo's or if her underwear bunches, Sennen doesn't tend to have a lot of physical complaints. But when he does, steer clear.
In fact, he has a fairly minor cold – stuffiness and fatigue being the only real symptoms.
How do we know? Because Emily passed it to Ailyn who passed it to Sennen. Emily had three days of headaches and mild stuffiness early this week. Ailyn had a stuffy nose, glassy eyes and was very tired – peaking on Wednesday. Then she took a long afternoon nap which seemed to turn things around and was doing great Thursday. Thursday night, Sennen woke up in the night needing to blow his nose and come morning, he was clearly sick.
So today, we've been taking it easy. The kids slept in a little, read books, played, did yoga in the living room and didn't really want to go anywhere until past lunch time. No one could agree on anything to do for the day, so Emily and I eventually made the decision to go to lunch and then the park. We never made it to the park. Lunch was a two-hour affair at a very casual, mediocre place by the water – but someplace new for the kids. Nicer than gyros or Greek pies but not as fancy as many of the restaurants we go to, the kids were able to choose things like hamburgers, pizza and pastitio (like moussaka, but with pasta – kind of like a Greek lasagna).
Because as a family, we have plans for late tonight – going with Victor to a restaurant in Hora that features traditional Greek folk dancing – rest is the priority and we took the kids home, even before making it to the park. We're hoping rest helps with Sennen's cold and fuels us for the night ahead – which seems to be a gesture from Victor after he tried to charge us extra for utilities and got peeved when we explained how Airbnb works.
Both this morning while the kids were being lazy and again while Emily was trying to get them down for naps, I ran and did errands – the butcher, the bakery, the ATM, the organic shop and the supermarket. It somewhat mirrors my weekend errands at home. My favorite is always the butcher, where the kind people there sell the best quality meat, welcome everyone and locals gather to chat. Despite our limited ability to communicate verbally, Tassos the butcher and I are always happy to see each other and he's very helpful in identifying what I should buy – and how he would cook it. Even if he mostly tells me in Greek, I seem to get it.
Today when the lady who works with Tassos was trying to make a recommendation to me, she asked another customer to help. In perfect American English the woman explained they were season pork cubes typically pan-fried. In summer, Greeks avoid lamb and goat – and eat mostly pork and chicken as these are "lighter" meats. I asked the woman if she was American. She said no – but a large part of her family lives in Florida, she lives in Athens where she teaches English. But her family is from Patmos and she comes back every summer for a month. She wishes she could live here, but there's not enough work to sustain she and her family.
The story of women returning and often bringing their families back to Patmos for a regular to semi-regular summer visit is popping up all around us.
We've run into Mary from Boston with her two teenage sons who owns a small vacation house in Skala. Her family is from the island, though she grew up in America. When her husband got a job in Boston, she gave up her career as a personal injury attorney in California and decided not to take the Massachusetts bar, but to instead retire and tend to her family who she brings back to Patmos every summer.
On the ferry from Samos to Patmos Monday morning we met Efrosini, a woman in her 60's from Brooklyn born in Greece whose family immigrated when she was a young girl. She spends every summer in Greece – mostly Patmos – and the rest of her year as a "roaming grandma" going between the homes and families of her five children, spending chunks of time with each group. She knows everything about Patmos and has her favorite spots and people. We see her periodically in the town square.
"Where in America are you guys from?" a dark-haired woman with a Brooklyn accent floating in an inner-tube at Agriolivadi Beach asked me Thursday as I was playing in the water with Sennen and Ailyn.
"Oh! I knew it wasn't New York, or Boston or Florida or Chicago – I couldn't figure out where you were from!"
She apparently doesn't cross the Mississippi often. The bigger irony is that she's a Speech Language Pathologist (aka Speech Therapist) who as thrown off by our accents….
Effie brings her three children ages 7 to 15 to Patmos every summer to enjoy and visit her extensive family here. We know her Uncle Jimmy who owns a ceramics and art store and The Balcony restaurant up in Hora. "Jimmy is American Mafia!" Nichola says of Jimmy because Jimmy often touts how he used to live in America (New York and Iowa) as if it gives him some importance and worldliness. Jimmy happens to be both very kind and very funny. From talking with her for ten minutes, it appears Effie brings her own American gravitas to the island and is friends with half the island – having her favorite families, restaurants, etc. She says she always considers doing more travel in Greece, but why would she bother – she's seen it and nowhere is as great as Patmos.
"Excuse me, are you guys Greek?" a woman sitting at the next table from us at our favorite gyro restaurant in the square asked one evening. We get that question a lot – in fact someone started speaking to me in Greek just this morning. When I explained that we aren't, the woman was very surprised and asked where we're from. She was Patmosian-Greek-American born and living in Florida, here with her mother for their annual visit with family in Hora. She doesn't have as many favorite places and connections as Effie – but when she learned we were from the Los Angeles area, she immediately asked how our house and family were doing in the aftermath of the Ridgecrest quakes which had just happened at that time.
When visiting Nichola a few weeks ago, a Canadian family from Vancouver BC was staying. Sennen and Ailyn happily followed their 10 year-old girl around. Kristina, the mother, explained that she grew up spending her summers staying in an apartment over the restaurant that is now Ostria by the harbor. Her family emigrated to Canada when she was 11 and after that, her summers in Patmos continued, but less frequently. This was her first visit back in more than 20 years, this time bringing her own family, sharing her childhood with them. Her parents also came since they retired to a suburb of Athens three years ago after selling their home and business there for far more than it takes to retire comfortably in Greece. Now she plans more visits to family in Greece and hopefully Patmos as well.
The one thing almost all of then asked was how we heard of or chose Patmos if we aren't Greek. It is a somewhat unknown destination to Americans who aren't religious and into the Book of Revelations and story of St. John the Divine/Theologian. But invariably, they are impressed that we know a great place when we see one.
The part they don't realize is that they are perhaps the best testaments to Patmos. We are impressed that despite all their options in life, they come back and make Patmos a second home. Especially Mary who is "retired" in her late 40's and enjoying her summer home in Patmos. Bravo to her.
