Intimate Places

The morning is as quiet and still as Bali. While the water just outside my door quietly shimmers in the sun, smooth as a swimming pool, the air moves gently and I can hear roosters crowing, bugs buzzing and the rustle of leaves. Skala down the hill is usually sleepy in the mornings, so unless something unusual like road work (which is coming to an end) or a visiting cruise ship in port (there were three yesterday!) disturbs the town, the island defaults to a quiet morning.

Since arriving, the temperature hasn't broken 70 degrees and in theory it might hit 70 a week from today. Yesterday was a brisk 59 and today 62 while back home, there was 95 degree heat only two weeks ago and temperatures will continue to fluctuate from the upper 60's to the mid 80's over the next ten days. Instead of donning my usual shorts and t-shirt, here I'm still in sweatshirts and often pants to stay warm enough. I brought two bags with more than I have ever carried on a trip before because I essentially needed both winter and summer clothing being here for long enough that the weather should shift during my 2.5 months on Patmos.

Aside from the weather, everything else about Patmos is very familiar. This is my fourth time here and our very shortest stay was three weeks, while our last stay was closer to nine. I know the layout of the entire island, the times of day town is busy and the times that it's not, and the blind curves you have to slow down for or use the mirrors that are mercifully posted on poles and walls. I know to bring recycling to one of the sets of bins planted around the island and that the parking lot toward the back of town has a lot of bugs that like to bite ankles flying around that set of recycling bins – so I don't go there. I'm no longer surprised when the front door of the power plant is left open for extended periods of time while workers take smoke breaks or grab lunch and I have solve the mystery of the never-seen garbage truck which it turns out lives down a little road behind the New Marina – although I still have yet to see it in use and would love to know how it reaches certain spots around the island. But this is a mystery I'm content to let be – you can't know all the tricks or it spoils the magic.

The main characters around Skala and even a few in other parts of the island are familiar to me too, whether they're merchants with whom I do business or just the faces I see everyday sitting at various cafes or standing in front of their shops – or the guy who likes to ride his motor scooter all crazy on the main road between town and the New Marina. I would think he's a jerk except everyone seems to love him. 

Intimacy is a word we use in regard to human relationships – and it's a big and important word because it's something people usually seek and that meets deep important needs. But intimacy is tricky because it can yield good and bad results. Its inherent risks can make us wary or scared because it also renders us vulnerable. In yoga, instructors frequently point out that camel pose can be a struggle because it's a significant backbend in which you expose your neck, chest and stomach – things we naturally protect and therefore leave us feeling vulnerable. People's instinctive self-protection can cause them to feel the pose is physically hard for them when it's really more visceral anxiety. Intimacy among people is the ultimate camel pose and many struggles ensue.

Less discussed is something I find fascinating: the intimacy of places. We focus on the people we spend our lives with for good reason. Yet, we spend as much or more time with our environments which we get to know well and which affect us deeply. Ask anyone with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which I only learned about after I moved to Seattle for college. People struggle with depression because of too little light. There's a reason Swedes have a more sober cultural disposition than Brazilians. More specifically, we are affected by our cities or towns, offices, homes and anywhere else we spend time.

I think about his often when I pass my childhood home which is only a few blocks from my house. My parents had that house for more than 20 years and I grew up in it. I knew everything about it – the layout, where things were kept, the secret false panel to the lower attic hidden in my bedroom closet, the window that took an extra tug at just the right angle to open, way the lights flickered for a brief moment as the air conditioner kicked on, how the original oven ran too hot causing my mom to put notations in many of her recipes that said "in my oven 325" and the very distinct smell of the house when summer arrived. If I think of each room one-by-one, I can conjure hundreds, maybe thousands of distinct memories if I give myself time. I knew that house.

And now I don't. I drive by it – that vault of memories and stored sensations  - but I can never go in and what I would find inside would not be the same anyway. 

I could tell a similar story about my grandparents' house which perhaps in some ways I knew better than them, having hid in every closet when playing hide-and-go-seek or during my times as a fugitive hiding from my Grandpa when he would try to "arrest" me for "speeding" when spinning the swivel recliner in the living room too fast. The smell of the front-hall closet was distinct and better than all the rest, and I have never encountered that particular smell again. The house is still there, but undoubtedly renovated and changed – and most importantly, the people who defined it are no longer there. 

Interestingly, we don't confine our intimacy with places as tender to us as homes. Offices, schools, shops, parks…anyplace we have spent significant amounts of times quietly become a part of our lives. A few months ago, I took my kids to school and we walked across the lawn that separated the park from their school. The ground was wet with morning dew and muddy in patches. I warned them to watch for mud. Ailyn stepped in some. Sennen asked me why I never stepped in mud and why I took such erratic steps so quickly. I realized that it was because I went to the same school, walked the same path knew that lawn and grass intimately. I worked off a combination of physical memory and instinct – understanding that particular lawn and place.

During the 2020 George Floyd protests and riots, my former office at Fourth and Santa Monica was fire bombed – you could see it on the news footage. My former colleagues all jumped to Facebook to communicate with one another and share the grief. None of us had been in that office in five years. In fact, by strange happenstance, I did business with someone who worked in that very office, in my very spot after her company took over the space. By all rights, the loss was hers – she was directly affected. However, a group of people who hadn't stepped foot in there for years mourned the attack on a place where they had spent so much time for so many years – a place so intimately familiar to them. Our memories were attacked – despite that fact that they are intangible and were never really in that building. 

When this happened, I got a glimpse into why my Dad reacted to a Fedco store (a sort of predecessor to Target, but with a membership like Costco) burned during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. We were watching the news as the city went into chaos and building went ablaze. Of all the things we watched, my Dad was upset when the Fedco he and my mom used to shop at when they lived off Fairfax was looted and burned. "Not Fedco! I used to shop at that Fedco! That was our Fedco!" As if by attacking the Fedco, the looters made it personal – they crossed a line.

They did. Of course many people crossed many lines that day – but they crossed a line that was personal to my dad because it was a place intimately familiar to him. They attacked his memories in what may well have been a location he wouldn't have named or imagined if asked for a list of important places in his life.

Our intimacy with places helps us function too. The physical memory we develop through familiarity helps us get to the bathroom in the middle of the night, quickly set the table, grab a pen when we're on the phone and need to jot something down, time dinner correctly, back out of the garage or sense when something is about to break. We become more attuned to our environment that we realize which is why when someone puts my favorite Dutch oven back in the wrong spot, I go a little nuts looking for it. I needed it when I needed it – and now, I'm going to lose time on it – even though the extra minute or two probably won't mean anything.

I've noticed it doesn't take that long to start developing familiarity and even intimacy with a new place. In the four weeks I've been here, my apartment has started to become MY apartment. It's my primary habitat. Because of the cool weather, I haven't spent as much time working at cafes and tavernas as on past trips. I primarily work at night, so I come home and by about 6pm, it's too cold to work at the table on my patio so I head inside, close the door and heat the place up for awhile. I rotate where I sit throughout the night. I make dinner. I walk around while on calls. I run into the bedroom to grab my wallet or a power cord. I spend a lot of waking hours in my apartment which is fine because it's a really lovely place. Things are organized my way, the bedroom feels like mine. I have the chair at the table I prefer to work in – not the other three – just the one. I keep the pots and pans in an order that makes sense to me. I bought oven mitts and hang then from the hooks next to the fridge and I added a Brita filter to the faucet. I bought a few Pyrex pans and containers since I have a very nice oven, but no microwave. I've made some minor improvements. It's my space.

The drive into Skala is my drive. I have my cafes I work at, and the ones I don't. There are the places I prefer to park, the recycling bins I prefer to use, the ATM I go to because it's less crowded. I know where the little, narrow streets/paths lead and which beach has the best sunset. I like using the laundry service because I like supporting Michaelis who is a really nice guy. I also like how nicely the laundry comes back and how they always sort it by item so it's easy to put away. The laundries in Thailand and Bali never did that. I'm excited that one of my favorite tavernas near my favorite beach will open tomorrow and I can start having lunch and writing from there. This weekend, I'll probably read at the beach – even if in a sweatshirt. 

I certainly don't know everything about Patmos – not like the Patmians whose families have been here for hundreds of years or more. I may never know everyone's backstories and secrets the way the Patmians know about one another. Still, Patmos is one of my intimate places and not only has this trip furthered it, but it's taught me the nuances of Patmos in the Spring. Not the Patmos where the walk down the road from the butcher to the supermarket might feel a little heavy and daunting, but where it's quick and effortless. Not the Patmos where I sweat bringing the laundry up to Michaelis' shop, but where instead I feel just a little silly carrying my bundle of laundry past the cafes in the middle of town – everyone immediately spotting me as a tourist.

Only three tavernas have been consistently open for lunch since I arrived. Netia seems most popular with locals and does the best business. While a little pricier than the others, it has two things going for it: ample parking and a server who is Australian-Greek and speaks English natively. I enjoy hearing her switch languages frequently and effortlessly and the way she sounds like a completely different person in each. 

I asked her why she chose to live here and not Australia anymore. 

"I used to go back and forth, you see. I had the best of both worlds in a lot of ways. It wasn't the travel time that made me change – because it's long, but not that hard. It was the endless summer. When summer here would finish, I would go back to summer in Australia. And then come back to work the summer season here. And both places have intense summers. The Australian summer heat is quite something. In the end, I just found it exhausting to always have summer. I needed some other seasons – so I finally stayed here."

My first thought was that she was a fool. The thought of endless summer sounds like a dream to me. I have always loved summer best and living in the tropics, as I have on more than one occasion, is like an endless summer. I could live with never being cold, enjoying long days and always being able to swim. Then, on a morning like this, I see what she means. Why would I not want to know this gentler Spring Patmos? One reason I came is that I have always wanted to see Patmos off-season – always wondering what life and the island itself felt like at another time. It's quite beautiful and special.  Then I think of my hesitancy to schlep from the butcher to the supermarket even though one is visible from the other's shop – and I start to get it. Endless summer also means she would never get to experience either place fully, for all their attributes and beauties. After all, part of the Little Prince's relationship with his rose was keeping her warm at night. Just like with people, loving our places means loving them for all that they are.

Patmos doesn't get a choice in whether or not I come here. I am a self-invited guest, even if Dimitris my car rental guy – seemingly on behalf of the people of Patmos – always welcomes me to their island. Nonetheless, Patmos is gracious to me. It always seems to have a spot for me – and over time, increasingly more beautiful ones. I always feel safe, serene and at home here. Patmos is quite gentle and makes life a little more bite-size. It strikes an unusual balance between being both remote and feeling like a fully-functioning and infrastructure European town. Patmos is not lush, but remains beautiful. It's curved and wandering coast lines yield many coves, beaches and views for an island so small. Patmos doesn't care what I do, what time I'm anywhere or seem burdened or troubled by me. I'm welcome to be who I am, go where I want, live on my own timeline and participate or not to whatever degree I choose – for which I am grateful.