Scale It Back A Little

Sennen's second word was car (his first word was baby – which he said about himself when looking in the mirror). While here on Patmos at age 15 months, it was his favorite word   – pointing at passing cars when we along the main road to or from the town square. "Cah! Cah cah! Cah cah!" Over and over. It's not like he didn't have plenty – and more – cars at home to look at. But frequently those were seen from a car window and here on Patmos we were often on-foot and the cars passing by were clear and visceral.

Over the past year to two, Sennen has become obsessed with cars – identifying every make and model, asking questions about their relative costs and who drives which kind of cars. We discussed how cars he thought were the most common – such as BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, Tesla Audi and Lexus – are common in Westlake Village – not in most places. So he watched as we drove further away and noticed the increased proportion of Toyotas, Hondas, Fords and Chevy's. Once Sennen became grounded in how cars played into socio-economics, his attention turned to the rare and expensive – always with eyes out for Lamborghinis, Bugatis, Ferraris, McClarens, etc. Again, these are found more easily in Westlake and the Conejo Valley so he gets far more sightings than I had realized were possible. Emily realized we had a skewed situation when Sennen and his friend Henry switched from playing "Punch Buggy" (where you hit the person next to you when you spot a VW Beetle) in the back of the car to "Punch Porsche" and there was a fair amount of punching.

America loves cars and trucks. We generally like them big and in pockets, we like them pricey and prestigious. Of course Los Angeles and Southern California's car culture take this to another level. I can't pretend not to be a participant. My car may not be the most flashy, but it's a decent size, sporty for a sedan, has tons of sometimes ridiculous features and while Volvo may not have the cachet of Porsche or even BMW, but it's no slouch.

Patmos – and Europe in general – are not so car obsessed. With the high price of fuel – even on a good day without a war in Ukraine – narrow roads usually built long before cars existed, the more liberal use of motorscooters and fantastic public transportation in most European cities – or even between cities – the idea of a luxury SUV doesn't make much sense. I once saw a BMW X5 here on Patmos and on these narrow island roads, it was almost frightening to be driving opposite to it. It stood out not so much for its make, but for its behemoth size on Patmos' scale. And one time in Cannes in 2007, I saw a SAAB 9-3 – the same car I drove at the time – filling up a narrow side street as it tried to make its way through and then struggling to park. My car was never considered large at home.

With a few pockets of exception, Europe prefers small, fuel efficient, easy to drive and easy to park cars. Here on Patmos, Sennen could easily be playing Punch Suzuki, Punch Hyundai or Punch Fiat. He might be excited to spot a small hatchback version of a BMW 1 series with an Motorsport package (the fanciest car I've noticed this trip).

Despite Europe remaining the third wealthiest continent after Asia and North America – and also the third wealthiest by per capita GDP following North America and Oceana  - European life is often much more modest among the average person. As comedian Eddie Izzard said in his Dressed to Kill routine, as a child in Britain when you have big dreams, they tell you, "Well, this is Britain, so you'd better scale it back a little…."

While Greece is certainly nowhere near first among EU countries,  it's also not especially lacking in the standard of living. And within that, little Patmos does alright thanks to a healthy (but not overwhelming) tourism sector and the fact that of the roughly 3000 permanent residents, most are part of landowning families. Today, someone's not particularly exciting family farm house can fetch a solid nightly rent on Airbnb. Build a large, fancy house on your land and you might make 10,000 euros or more a month between June and August.

But people's lifestyles don't necessarily display their financial position the way Americans tend to do with theirs. Patmians, for example, seem to turn off their water heaters when not in use – because why would you spend all that money to heat water when you're not using it? Throughout Europe, it's common to have a washing machine, but not a dryer. Even Parisians and Londoners still hang their laundry to dry.

Here in Patmos, almost without exception, the fanciest houses are either for Airbnb rental or someone's vacation home – or both. Nicholas who owns the studio-hotel we used to stay in is among those families with significant property including stuff right in the middle of the square in Skala. For years, he and his wife and daughter lived in a slightly larger apartment within their studio-hotel and over time, they built a small house next to the studios. For a family that owns one of the most visible and successful restaurants on Patmos, a couple of hotels and houses and commercial property in the center of town – their home and vehicles are exceedingly modest. This is also a family who bemoans not seeing their middle son enough because he married a girl whose family owns land in a "village" three beaches down and they built a house there. It takes all of 10 minutes door-to-door, but you wouldn't go driving up and down the island so frequently.

Two days ago, I happened to head to my car parked in front of the post-office at the town square at 1:30 pm. Just as I opened the car door, a swarm (and by this I mean maybe seven or eight) cars and motorscooters all pulled in and blocked me – almost like police descending upon a suspect at the end of a car chase. Of course, they weren't interested in me. It was the "car line" to pick up their kids from the elementary school which is buried in the middle of town where no vehicles can access it. Most parents seemed to get their kids and walk home, some of the older kids came out on bikes or walked in groups – and the "swarm" walked into the thick of town, brought their kids back to their vehicles and dispersed almost as suddenly as they arrived. The process took about seven minutes. Unlike White Oak Elementary – my kids' school and alma mater – no one who lived within walking range approached with a vehicle, clogging up the streets for blocks. And of course, no parent did what most peeves my friend Leanne – idling their cars while waiting.

One of the things I most love in Europe is that life is in many ways simpler. Of course Patmos takes it to a different level. With one real supermarket, there are a fraction of the errands to be done. For better and worse, there are no Trader Joe's specialty products or those special items you can only get at Gelson's or Whole Foods – so you just let that go. But there is a butcher with higher quality and better priced meat than the supermarket and a produce shop with better looking fruits and vegetables. Given the supermarket, butcher and produce market are within a 200 foot span from one another, I can do errands on foot and quickly. I park in town and do everything I need on foot in less than half an hour – including dropping off my laundry (Michaelis then delivers it back to me). 

While this certainly only applies to Patmos and a handful of places like it – the island has no chain anything except the supermarket and two banks. No fast-food, no Starbucks, no Costco or Target, no chain dry cleaner, no Petco or Petsmart, not even a chain gym or yoga studio. There are tons of local cafes (everyone loves to sit around and drink espresso drinks), no dry cleaning at all from what I can tell, pet food is available by the kilo in some of the local stores and Coach Tenassus and his family own and operate the one and only gym (which they sometimes leave unattended and just let members come and go as they will). And for specialty food items – there's one organic shop that doesn't carry cookie butter or peanut butter filled pretzels, but has kombucha and number of other healthy and gourmet products. Tomorrow they get in their shipment of kombucha which has my name on it.

While I love my morning light Frappuccinos (the frios here just don't come out anywhere near the same), there is something much more human about the personal interactions and manageable scale of life here. In France, I always love the charcuteries, patisseries, frommagiers and epicieries – getting my favorite things from people who chat, make recommendations and to whom you become familiar after a few visits. There is community in the mundane and purchases are more intentional especially with recommendations. Here, even the produce truck man picked out the poor-looking green beans and made sure I got only the best of his selection.

Today I'm writing from Stelios' Gelateria and Cafe. Stelios has one of the best located spots in Patmos and between his very affordable spinach and cheese pies, cold water, coffee and gelato – his establishment originally became a favorite place for Emily and me to work and later developed into a family favorite gelateria. Stelios not only has comfortable seating, but he doesn't care how little you buy in proportion to how long you sit around. A two euro purchase can buy you 12 hours of table time for all he seems to care. Today – maybe because he recognizes me from prior visits, or maybe not because he's him – Stelios closed the shop for his off-season 2 to 5pm break and left me sitting outside at this table. As he rode away on his motor scooter, out of sheer politeness and a sense of propriety I called out asking him if it was okay for me to stay (the answer seemed obvious by his actions) and he told me stay as long as I like as he rode away. My guess is that if I'm here when he returns, he won't bat an eye.

This scaled back simplicity is a major reason for being here. Besides the obvious benefit of making life a little easier and less cluttered during these ten weeks, there are values I enjoy. Sure, Greece could stand to be more economically minded and harder working, but the appreciation of the things that matter in life is enjoyable and seductive on a very basic, human level. In the shtetyls of Europe, the Jewish idea of Shabbat meant actually stopping and being together. The joy of Shabbat was leaving the week and the banal world behind. It was a time for family, connection, simplicity. It separated one week from the next and it put the brakes on the grind and hardships. For many Orthodox and people in Israel it still does. But for those of us more secular Jews – particularly in America whose drum in the background never stops beating – Shabbat is something perhaps we honor with dinner and going to services, but life continues. Kids' sports games, getting the shopping done, catching up on mail, going out, plans, housework or whatever wasn't done during the busy workweek. The weekend can be as scheduled and structured as the rest of the week. We may be together and the situation may be social – but somehow, things don't necessarily slow down. The flavor of life is lost and the appreciation of all we have is the exception more than the rule.

One thing Greece and a number of European countries seem to point out is that standard of living and quality of life are not one and the same. Sure, I really wish the small sporting goods store had a yoga block to sell me or that I could order one on Amazon (there's no Amazon in Greece). But then again, it's kinda' nice not to see Amazon trucks rolling around the island or blocking the town square. Instead, I'll take take it as motivation to sit directly on my mat and work a little harder at flexibility in my hips.