Finding A New Blend

During our year of travel after getting married, there came a day in Allepey, Kerala (India) as we walked along the edge of the backwaters up toward the footpaths that led from our Ayurvedic resort up to the main road to town that Emily and I realized that we hadn't run errands in almost six months. No grocery shopping, no laundry (we had just watched sacks of our dirty laundry sail off in a canoe down a canal to wherever the "laundry service" was), no Target, no car washes or oil changes. Not even a visit to the bank – just ATMs. We barely had bills to manage. We had suspended our phone service and had no apartment so therefore no utilities or monthly rent. Just minimal insurance payment for our parked cars which we put on auto-pay. While our focus until then had been on everything we were doing – which was all fascinating and mostly fun (there were some days in Nepal….)  - we finally realized that part of the joy was what we weren't doing – and that was the grind of daily life.

The same is true for me of this time in Patmos. The change of scene and ability to reflect is underpinned by the vast reduction in the things I manage. Grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking two meals a day, almost every day plus packing school lunches takes up a lot of time and mental space. Add in the many occasions when we entertain, plan to bring something to an event, pledge food for the temple's Feeding The Hungry program or are responsible for snack for the kids' sports team or class… and there's often some additional work to be done. There are also bills, taxes (which I did finish here), paying our au pair and the agency, yoga,  car maintenance, dry cleaning, signing documents for the temple, volunteering in Ailyn's class, volunteering at temple, kids' sports games, religious school drop-off and pickup…. all the stuff of suburban family life. None of it in and of itself is a problem and even combined, it's not overwhelming. But it is a lot and more than the time, it's the mental space it requires that forces me to expand. 

The most important lesson I've taken from yoga is that every time I hit a limit – some stretch I don't think I can go further into, an impossible posture, a pain or stiffness that says "dead end" – most of the time, if I breathe deeply a few times and let go, I expand my capacity and can go a little further than I thought. Most of the time, the limit is a perception, not hard reality.

Having a family also means taking those breaths and expanding my capacity to hold space for them. My kids have emotions – big ones sometimes. They have needs, curiosities, intolerable hunger, and can go from happy to disaster in a split second from a small injury or a slight from the other one. That's of course in addition to a spouse who has innumerable needs – often even more emotional. In my marriage, most of those center around anxiety and overwhelm. I support anxiety daily, helping to make space for it – and helping to navigate all the little decisions and logistical issues that Emily doesn't want to face alone. More recently, there's accommodating big feelings and needs – allowing her to feel angry, ignoring resentment, giving her time to go places and socialize, being sure to ask for as little as possible in return, being okay with her finding ways to slip out of helping me the rare time I ask for help, accepting irresponsible and sometimes aggressive drunken behavior, finding ways to confront how her drinking affects the kids and me. (she has since cut back considerably on the drinking after being confronted)

Lots of breathing and finding more room than I thought I had. Requiring less space in life to be okay.

Patmos has freed me from so much of this – especially the emotional support which is sort of the most obvious reason to be here. But shedding the logistical stuff is not to be understated. 

My errands mostly consist of stopping by the butcher and produce shops every few days (on weeknights I tend to make two nights of dinner at a time and can enjoy just sticking leftovers in the oven every other night). On Fridays, I stop by the organic shop where the owner is waiting with my weekly supply of kombucha. I switch out my dirty laundry for clean at the laundry every few days. If I want, Michaelis can deliver it. The same with my car wash. If I text Dimitris the rental-car owner, he'll come pick up the car in the morning, take it to his shop to wash it, and then return it to my driveway without even bothering me. Dimitris prefers to do this in the morning because the temperature of the road is at its coolest and it puts less wear on the tires along their maybe one mile journey to his shop (???!!!). I would guess Dimitris' wife Christina does a fair amount of holding space for his anxiety.

If I do none of these things, that's also fine. No one needs me to be anywhere at a particular day and time. As far as Michaelis and the organic shop owner are concerned, if I don't show up today, maybe I'll show up tomorrow, or at some point. It's Greece – no one cares THAT much. So even the things I need to do can be done at my convenience. If I were to fail on my minimal grocery shopping, the nice lady at the Sagittarius restaurant or the man at the gyro shop that delivers are happy to make my dinner at an affordable price.

It also helps that whatever errands I do are all within a short walk around town. I park and can do four errands in less than 30 minutes – then drop my items in the trunk of my car while I have lunch and write. Life is simpler and that has helped turn the stress down and make room for me contemplate and be able to drill into all the thoughts and emotions I share in this blog.

Of course, there are the little things I miss from my routines at home. I have known most of the employees at our local Trader Joe's who watch my kids grow up and who I enjoy seeing each week. One of the managers is a friend from yoga and if I go during his shift, we usually get a chance to catch up. There are the baristas and patrons at the local Starbucks I know and the people at yoga with whom I bonded during the year and a half of "the long march" when yoga teachers set up shop in parks, backyards, pool houses and a tent in a parking lot. We did yoga in the heat and the cold – with the cramps in my feet from the cold ground being more challenging than any of the postures. There's a sense of community and camaraderie that likely would never have developed the same way had we just gone in and out of the yoga studio the way we did before.

But aside from cut-up pineapple from Whole Foods, the little thing I missed most was my morning Frappuccino. First, I know a few people who will read this who are going to judge my getting sub-par coffee from a massive corporation. Surprise –  I do and I'm okay with it. Secondly, my Frappuccino is a highly customized order designed to bring down the calories and sweetness. That said, aside from the supermarket and the bank, there is no chain anything on this island. Patmos is a paradise of independent small businesses and residents all know there's no reason to buy produce or meat from the supermarket because the produce shops and truck – and the butcher are so much better (which is probably why the meat section of the supermarket is unusually small). So, unlike Athens and even Rhodes – no Starbucks on Patmos.

I decided not to live without my Frappuccino and have undertaken the process of figuring out how to produce it at home. The experience has been surprisingly more challenging that expected. Initially, it seemed like all that stood between me and success was a blender. The very nice guys who run the one and only appliance and electronics shop understood I probably didn't want to invest in a top-of-the-line blender, so the suggested a small one that is sort of a light food processor/blender combo. I went with their recommendation. It took three earnest attempts with that blender to declare it a sunk cost. In the meantime, the coffee maker at my place yielded poor results with the decaf espresso I brought with me from home (decaf isn't a very Greek concept and I don't do well on caffeine). So I turned to the Nespresso machine. I've never used that particular brand and didn't know if it was very different from a Keurig or similar. It's not.

Luckily, I found Starbucks decaf espresso pods for the Nespresso (which seems to be THE brand of pod-coffee maker here) as well as Starbucks cocoa powder. I also found a brand of dubious looking chocolate syrup which I got because Starbucks uses chocolate syrup in their mocha Frappuccinos. To my surprise, the supermarket had almond milk and the organic store had barista quality almond milk. I even found biodegradable straws to complete the experience. A produce stand in the marina area had a sign outside advertising ice which came in a giant, roughly 10 pound bag for 2 euros. After a quick trip back to the appliance/electronics shop and I was armed with a much larger, more powerful blender. Success seemed a matter of trial and error now.

After yoga the next morning, I got to work. Only I couldn't figure out how the Nespresso machine could intake water or turn on for that matter. A few Google searches later and I find the model I had and a video going over how it works. Who would have thought the water worked the way it did? But no matter, there was a path. It then turned out the buttons to select the coffee volume and start the process were not so sensitive. After some additional struggle, I had my first shot of Starbucks decaf espresso, and then another (Starbucks uses two in my drink). From the original experiments with the useless blender-ish device, I knew the chocolate syrup was disgusting and ineffective. Everything was riding on the Starbucks cocoa. I threw the shots, cocoa, almond milk and ice into the blender, turned the knob to pulse as I was advised to do when starting with ice. Nothing happened. I spent time checking connections, manuals with many languages, knobs, the pitcher, lids, etc before concluding I had a defective blender.

I washed the blender pitcher, returned to the appliance store where after much consternation, the two guys concluded it was a defect in the shape of a nodule on the bottom of the pitcher that kept it from making contact with the blender base – preventing the base from turning on. They tested it with another pitcher and sent me home with that one.

After a repeat attempt, I had a decent product. Not perfect, maybe a little too much ice, not quite as sweet as I would like – but that's probably because I don't have the Starbucks "Frappuccino Base" they pump into their drinks. My guess is I'm better off without it and could stand to adjust to a little less sweet. So today I upped the cocoa powder a little, brought down the ice a touch, balanced out the almond milk and I got a fairly accurate Frappuccino.

I may never get my pre-cut pineapple and I won't get to find out how my friend the Trader Joe's manager is doing with his injured knee for awhile, but I do have a decent, possibly healthier Frappuccino that doesn't even require an errand. Maybe before it's all over, I'll share my recipe, blender and technique with Stelios or one of the cafe owners and let them continue my work, bringing it to the American tourist population of Patmos.