Was it a large yacht or a small cruise ship at the port? I've seen both here in Patmos before. It didn't matter that much because it could mean only one thing – tourist activity, the life blood of Patmos. As I approached the town square yesterday – which to my delight you can now park toward the front of due to the road work that has taken away the normal street parking – there were groups of teenagers either dressed up or dressed in traditional Greek costumes. A giant Greek flag was waiving over the port and a woman I assume to be a Middle Eastern refugee turned immigrant (Greece had a large refugee camp on the nearby island of Lemnos) was selling Greek flags from a cart. The sun was shining, the water glittering, the weather warmer and the town square suddenly come to life from just the day before.
Yesterday was Greek National Day – their Fourth of July – celebrating Greece's independence from Ottoman Empire. Finally freed of the rule of muslim sultans and divans, Greeks were given a Danish royal for their new king, courtesy of England and the other European powers. But we talk about that no more than we talk about Bruno because in the end, after roughly a century of political tumult and poverty, Greece found its path to real democracy and a reasonable increase in the standard of living, despite continued financial challenges.
I apparently missed the parade through Skala in the morning – but made it to town before the high schoolers in their traditional Greek regalia were done, proud parents and community members looking on. I learned quickly that besides whomever the cruise ship brought, a moderate number of Greek tourists had come on the ferry from Athens the previous night to enjoy the three-day weekend. And, if my eyes caught it right, in the afternoon the smaller fast-ferry from Rhodes or Kos brought a few more. At this time of year without the yachts and more regular ferries of summer, a boat approaching the island is highly noticeable – especially from my perch over the harbor cove. Might as well have Herve Villachez announcing the arrivals.
My micro-economics professor in college – one of my favorites – said that land in California needs just a few drops of water to suddenly bloom. Thinking about how quickly the hills around Westlake Village turn green from a light rain, I realized how right he was. Patmos land seems to do the exact same thing. But on Patmos the same happens with tourism – it takes just drops to make the island, or at least Skala, spring to life. While some businesses were closed as their owners took the public holiday off, many more that had been closed suddenly opened – particularly the ones that are not essential to residential life. Suddenly, clothing boutiques, cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops that had been shuttered, re-opened. And I'll bet that just as dryness causes the hills in both California and Patmos to turn brown again, many of these shops will close for another month or so after the holiday weekend is over.
I learned early in my time living in Thailand that a lot of things go one that it's best not to try to understand or dive into too deeply. There are absurdities and strange happenings that may make sense to some – and just as often make no more real sense to locals as they do to anyone else – like when an elephant walks by your Bangkok apartment in a small soi (alley road) in a residential neighborhood of little fame and no one bats an eye. Or when a makeshift vehicle you couldn't find the words to describe travels down the street of a small town. Sometimes living in Thailand was like living in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel where magic realism came to life.
This was excellent preparation for travel in many parts of the world – including Patmos. Why would the waitress at Petrino cafe look at me like I was absurd to consider asking if they had a food menu on Thursday but the next day, they were serving sandwiches galore? Why can someone park by the statue in the middle of town where it would normally be illegal if not for the road work, but it would obvious be a high crime that no self-respecting person would dream of to park one space in front of that? Why is it obvious that the gyro stand would not make gyros and only offer souvlaki if the weather is too cold when they also make more because locals order more take out on cold-days and the gyro stand delivers? Especially given it is a GYRO stand with GYRO in its name. What is best is to simply accept whatever is said as fact.
So this weekend Patmos wakes up a little for its domestic tourists and cruise passengers (since I heard some British accents in town, I assume the ship brought mostly foreigners) and with temperatures in the low 60's, a light breeze and sun coming back to its full glory, it should be a wonderful Patmos experience for all.
But what intrigued me most yesterday were the costumed teenagers. On its face, it all makes perfect sense. Young people engaged in a tradition celebrating the national holiday and the town coming together. Classic, good clean cultural pride and somewhat heartwarming to see. The less clear part is why those costumes? In Greek dancing and festivals, traditional Greek costumery seems centered on fashions or perhaps the 17th to 18th centuries – maybe continuing into the early 19th. In a country THOUSANDS of years old with an incredibly rich history and culture that goes back further than almost any European nation's, what makes the garb of this particular time period the definition of Greek?
It certainly can't be related to independence because Greece was under Ottoman rule for almost 400 years including the entirety of the period that these costumes would have been in fashion. And I'm guessing that Ancient Greek wear is off the table because it was pagan and Greece is at least in principle, very dedicated to the Greek Orthodox Church (there's a fairly low rate of attendance, but a strong popular support for the existence of the Church). I suppose the challenge is in a country with such depth of culture and history and diverse micro-cultures among the islands – how do you define Greek-ness?
America seems to have addressed this issue through color. We can all waive the flag and put on the red, white and blue whether we're liberal or conservative; metropolitan or rural; yankee or southerner; and whatever religion, race, national origin, sexuality, gender or any other personally defining factor you may have. Three colors, fireworks, the national anthem – we can generally all go with that. It has the very subtle element of skirting the social issues, woulds and rifts that fixing a particular time period to our national identity could open up. After all what was the most American time? When we won the revolution, but had slaves who counted as 3/5ths of a person for census taking purposes while at the same time only white, male landowners could vote? In the 19th century when Main Street America was charming and the industrial and scientific revolutions moved humanity giant leaps forward, but children worked in coal mines, Chinese immigrants were excluded from the opportunity to become citizens, the Native American and bison populations were being systematically killed off, Jim Crow kept freed slaves down and Eastern European immigrants like my family were living in crowded and often unsanitary tenements? This isn't to say that America isn't or wasn't great – but that like any society there's no time that's perfect – no glorious moment when there is only greatness and not challenge, unfairness or strife. I think we make a great choice not to idealize any one particular moment but to instead celebrate our ideals and shared sense of nation which allows for greater unity and the opportunity to look to the future rather than define ourselves by our past.
Perhaps that in and of itself is one of the great differences between America and Europe. Not wrongfully, Europe celebrates its past. The nations and peoples of Europe have much to look back on – and some of it to be very proud of. Patmos is charming because its lifestyle and its very architecture keep a continuity with its past. Within a five minute walk in any direction, you can do all your shopping, run all your errands and visit with people you know and love (or in some cases politely tolerate). Tourists want the charm of places like Patmos or Antalya, Turkey's historical Kaleci district – not the disarrayed cement buildings of Athens or the average Turkish town. For Patmos, looking too far forward could be disastrous for business.
Still Patmians at some point integrated plumbing, electricity, phone lines and internet into their world. People here have smartphones, microwaves, laptops, flat screen TV's, hot water heaters, solar panels, cars, motor scooters and Nespresso machines. The future is impossible to hold back. We live in a global, interconnected world that even includes Patmos. In the end, in one form or another – often in very different contexts and from very different lenses – everyone wants the same thing: a good life for themselves, their families and their children. And so I wonder again if the traditional Greek costumes are really the epitome of Greek culture? Is the best already behind them? I wonder if there's some way that Greece could celebrate its ideals which seem to include the willingness to support refugees, welcome strangers warmly, take pride in their language and nation, come together in community, slow down and enjoy life and to park with a creativity the world has never seen.
