"Everything is so quiet…." I said to Andreas.
"Yeah, the beach is full, it's a beautiful day and it's quiet," he responded.
"It just seems weird it's so quiet…"
Andreas, who runs the beach lounge concession at Agriolivadi and seemed to be grateful for a quiet lull rather than questioning it responded in his British accent, "You want me to spank the bottom?" Miming spanking a newborn's bottom.
"Are you also an obstetrician?" I asked, "Because that would be very fitting for the island."
We both laughed because, well, it would kind of fit. I told Andreas about the man I met two years ago who is a plumber most of the year, but spends his summers as a skipper on a local tour boat. If a plumber whose services are always in high demand on the island can spend the summer as a tour boat operator, then it's not such a stretch to imagine Andreas taking a few months off from his obstetrics practice to run a beach chair concession – especially given the number of pregnancies per year on the island would be very manageable for an OB.
While I can't say the day stayed calm and relaxed for Andreas, it was a perfect final Sunday for us. There was a nice breeze, Agrio was busy but not crazy and there was a calm in the air. We stayed until almost 6:30. The kids swam and played with their new ball that can skip on the water's surface. I swam with them sometimes and they entertained themselves a lot. For the first time, we began to deal with the upcoming transition home – a few of the things we need to do next weekend and in the couple of days between arriving home on Saturday and school starting Wednesday – haircuts, clothes, picking up school schedules… back-to-school stuff.
Sennen had a few emotional moments about leaving. Patmos is a good place for him and he doesn't want to give it up – even when I point out all the things about home he likes from friends to Bar Mitzvah this year to family members. He's willing to simply visit them in exchange for Patmos life and a Bar Mitzvah on Rhodes or Crete will work for him. I didn't bring up that Israel is a short flight away.
Despite all of that, like most middle-schoolers, he can find comfort in seeing his friends and actually doesn't mind school that much.
On the way from our house to a lovely outdoor dinner at Pantelis, we heard a "Hey, Sen-non!" It was Yiannis – a kid from Sennen's basketball practice experience greeting him while sitting in front of what I assume to be his family's jewelry shop. They chatted and I complimented Yiannis on his strong English. It was a great reminder of one of Sennen's accomplishments this summer – breaking the barrier to finding peer friends on Patmos.
Over dinner, the kids were talking about language – including what they've learned of Greek. Recently, they developed a beach game called Oxi/Pame (No/Come-On!) in which they do crazy things and the other votes yay or nay via Oxi or Pame. We took inventory of their Greek vocabulary which as they searched their brains, was much larger than any of us had realized. They don't tend to speak much Greek – but they know quite a bit and attribute Oxi, Pame and a few other useful words to Coach Thanasis who mixes in Greek phrases into his English instructions.
We also talked about the Patmians we know who are natively bilingual like Andreas and of those, which are because they were born abroad – like Theologia at the Proton Supermarket or Prokopis who owns the hardware store – both born in Australia. They very smartly wondered what it must be like for people born in Australia to move to Patmos at kids and be put in a local Greek classroom. Maybe it wasn't so hard because perhaps they spoke Greek at home and had a foundation for the change – but still, it had to be a shock. I encouraged them to talk to those people and find out.
Then Ailyn pointed out that if Sennen wanted to move to Patmos, he would be the English speaking kid in a Greek classroom unless he did Online Academy through our school district at home. It helped him imagine what that change might feel like. Not surprisingly, he didn't back away and instead decided he would change his name to Sen-non because that's how kids here - like Yiannis – pronounce it.
So, Sen-non is still prepared to become Patmian if ever allowed – linguistic and cultural gaps be damned.
Travel – and now time at our house on Patmos – has always been about broadening the kids. I want Sennen and Ailyn to experience the world and see how many facets it has – how for better and worse, not everyone lives as we do at home. So many kids live in a bubble with school, sports practice and entertainment – a lot of it from screens. Westlake is a very privileged place and much of America isn't like it, let alone the world. But there are so many variations to the human experience – many of which are not about socioeconomics. Our environments, values, religious beliefs, histories, cultures all play roles in the incredible diversity of lifestyles. There are some better and worse choices and also many that are just very different from ours.
If the kids appreciate some things at home more - anything from a greater diversity of produce to regulated parking spaces – I'm happy for it. If they redefine their sense of community because of what they experience on Patmos, I'm cool with that. At the beginning of the summer, Sennen wanted Eirini to "promote" him to helping customers in "the sales department", but today he recognized he wouldn't be so effective because she speaks five languages and he really only speaks one. That was great.
Whether it's knowing kids in Thai public schools spend their days in open-windowed, fan-cooled classrooms or that Christmas in France is a quiet affair without so much commercialism or that there are still Balinese families who bathe in rivers and aqueducts – Sennen and Ailyn's perspectives shift and their Westlake world is less entrenched.
Good that they wonder what it was like for a ten year-old from Australia to be placed in a Patmos classroom. Good that they appreciate how Eirini can speak five languages and Andreas "doesn't think" when he speaks his two native languages. Even better they can walk free, run errands and hold part-time jobs stamping bags and scooping oregano and wild rosemary.
My great-grandmother, Nettie Wald, left what's now Ukraine – though she knew it as Austria since it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time – at sixteen year-old for another country on a different continent – sight unseen. She knew only that she had two older brothers there who sent her $20 to show officials she head the means to support herself in order to board the ship. She gave back that $20 when she reached New York. Whether from wisdom or the boldness of youth, she took a step into what was wildly unknown because she felt confident enough it was better than what she left behind.
Adaptation is why I exist. Adaptation had my family safely out of harm's way when others like us perished.
I hope they never need to, but I want my kids to be capable of adapting. There are increasing reasons to believe we may all need to make significant changes in the course of our lives. The more my kids understand the diversity of the world, of places, of human experiences – the more they are creative and can draw from multiple inspirations and influences – the better their odds of having good lives.
Our summers on Patmos and every-other-winter trips to places like France and this year Italy are beautiful times. I watched Sennen and Ailyn playing I the calm, cool waters of Agriolivadi yesterday spending what I would call an ideal summer day. I'm thrilled for them to grow up with memories of long afternoons on Greek beaches floating, swimming and playing in crystal clear waters. When we were in France in the Winter of 2023-2024, we enjoyed Christmas markets, walks along the Cannes beach and crossing the Ile St Louis in Paris. It was all so fun. All the while they learned more about how the world worked and the lives and systems of some groups of people.
The Parises and Romes of the world are easy. Thailand had more layers of complexity. Some day there will be India, Nepal, Peru, Laos, Cambodia, Paraguay, Zanzibar and God willing French Guiana to explore where the lessons will be more stark. There are places where it's not all Oxi/Pame on the beach. But I think they'll be ready for that – their minds are already open and they're resourceful.
Sennen and Ailyn will never have Andreas' ability to speak two languages with perfect fluency and "without thinking". But they do seem to transition seamlessly among several cultures. This kind of fluency can be hard even for those who are linguistically adept. We'll go home and they'll slip right into their lives as usual, though they will be a little different than before the summer. Next summer, they'll slide right back into their Patmos lives. And in December, I fully expect they'll take to Italy like ducks to Pellegrino just as they do to barley water in Singapore and iced tea in Thailand.
