Summer Nights

I looked up at Hora, the hill and the giant, glowing moon and realized there was no point to going back inside.

Often, I work at the the table on the porch in the evenings, enjoy the late sunset and cooling air. As the summer progresses, the number of voices and the amount of activity increases each evening. In mid-June, sitting on the porch feels like as good a place as any to be – by July, I start to develop a mild chronic case of FOMO – knowing there are people enjoying late and lavish dinners, chatting with friends over drinks or gelato and kids running around enjoying the summer nights every bit as glorious as the summer days.

Last night after some work calls, I needed a break and wanted a piece of the warm evening with its gentle breeze. So I went up to the roof to get a better view of the incredible large and golden moon. On Patmos, sometimes the moon seems so yellow-orange and bright that it pierces the night sky, seeming almost like the sun – especially to an iPhone's camera. I have some awesome photos of a moonlit night last year with the kids and my mom where the moonlight on the water behind us looked radiant. Sometimes with a full or nearly full-moon, the lit-up Monastery of St John on the hill in Hora and what astronomers call The Moon Illusion – meaning that perception we sometimes have that the moon is low and big – my roof is an awesome place to be. 

Last night, with the perfect breeze,  it certainly was.

Then I realized I live five minutes from a beach in either direction. I often see the water from the front of town – but in the four weeks I've been on Patmos, I hadn't once gone to Choklokas Beach which because of its rockiness is unusable for swimming and beachgoing but is the best place on the island for incredible red-orange sunsets and stargazing. 

So as to fully scratch my FOMO itch, I walked to Choklokas at roughly 10:30 pm. It was 76 Fahrenheit with a light breeze. Cafe Mostra in front of my house had large groups of Greeks – local and vacationers – enjoying evening drinks, cigarettes and each other's company. Always shockingly, diners at Trihandiri were still mid-meal at 10:30 with lots of fresh seafood still coming out of the kitchen and platters of whole fish and grilled octopus filling the MANY tables. 

Then comes the irony of Patmos. A few steps past the perimeter of the town center and activity drops off. From Trihandiri to the beach are quiet neighborhoods and hillside homes and apartments. If not for lights on porches and in windows, it would seem like a ghost town. Then the quiet beach with maybe two other people along its entirety – but a sky full of stars overhead. In a region of low-population islands in the middle of the sea, a clear night means seeing a bright, glittering sky. It's amazing and sadly, looks nothing like the sky at home even though we supposedly share the same constellations. 

The only other place I have ever seen a sky with stars so clear and low so consistently was in the giant sky of Bali. Of course they were different stars. There you could see the Southern Cross and Centaurus. On Choklakas at night, it's easy to imagine why the ancient Greeks needed to identify and assign stories to the night sky. It was just so huge above them. With much of the year warm enough to enjoy the evenings outdoors and a lot of sailors guiding there boats through the night – they had more time and reason to look up and ponder. 

It's funny how a quick change of scenery can sometimes change everything. In the afternoon and evening I was buried deep in my laptop, focused. My world was in the computer and with people far away – thinking about issues and solving problems no one else on the island cared about or had any reason to. My body was 100 feet or less from people enjoying an amazing evening, but we were in separate worlds. Kinda' like a marriage sometimes. 

Luckily I realized their world was better and that's the very reason I'm here. I can't avoid being in my laptop – that allows me to be here – but I can look up from it, or walk away for a little bit and be present. 

It never ceases to amaze me how in Greece, children stay up until midnight or 1 am on summer nights. Greek kids especially, but often foreigners used to staying here. This includes babies. There are one-year-olds partying with everyone else at 11 pm. I know from past conversations with Greek parents that little kids often get big naps in the afternoons and tend to get up later in the mornings. Unlike the structured schedule the American parents I know – which included Emily and me – keep with their kids, Greeks let it all go in the summer. If a kid is too tired, you take them and put them to bed. If they want to play and party – let them. 

Two summers ago – our first with the house – the idea of letting go of bedtime and all elements of a schedule seemed crazy bordering on bad. In the flux and uncertainty of divorce, I worried that letting the kids stay up could be seen as boundaries or neglectful – maybe used against me in some way at a point in the story that was peak contentious. So while bedtime moved later, I still capped it at 9:30 or 10.

Last summer, I let go of the reins and the kids got to stay up until they were tired – typically midnight, once in awhile 1 am. They got up at 8:30 or even 10. I realized it just didn't matter. There was no schedule, they were getting enough sleep, it was safe for them to be out and about and they wanted to live in sync with island life. Why not? For Greek kids – including teens who aren't working – evenings are for playing sports, playing the park, hanging out around town. Did I want my kids to watch TV and go to bed or to play and be part of a lifestyle they can't get at home? The answer was obvious to all of us. I just had to embrace that I wouldn't be accused on being some kind of incompetent monster parent for untethering their leashes.

Sennen has said many times over the course of the year that this summer, he's going to be a Greek boy – even more than last year. He's going to get tan, play sports at night, meet local kids and stay up late. That sounds perfect (so long as uses sunscreen and tans without burning).

For most, there aren't that many years people have the possibility of having a completely free, unstructured summer – or any time of year to just play. The freedom to be – to have a world without adult oversight, but also with someone at home as the anchor who makes you feel safe – has a limited window to even exist and it isn't a universal right or opportunity.

At home, I asked several other parents what their plans for their kids' summers. Some had a mix of family trips and day camps. Others sleep-away camp for some portion of the summer and hanging out at home for the rest. Others had a series of classes and specialty learning classes line-up. Then there were those who had nothing and were just letting the summer unfold – which on its face sounds nice if you live in a neighborhood where your kids are going to organically get together with friends and spend their time on bikes, swimming, playing and such. More realistically, in those times that aren't camps and classes, kids spend a lot of time on screens. The saddest part – and I understand completely why it happens – is so often kids who get the amazing opportunity for sleep away camps end up with the least structure and most screen time the rest of the summer because sleep away camp is SO expensive. Even people with good incomes have limits.

Not that I've figured out the best thing ever, or that there aren't other great options for a kid's summer – but I am grateful for what I have. Spending days at the beach and evenings around town playing is everything I want for my kids. Patmos is safe enough for them to walk around without me – to the soccer field, basketball court, park, town square. I've found a number of English-speaking kids of Greek and other nationalities their age who are happy to pull my kids into things like basketball, soccer or just playing around town. We'll see who Sennen and Ailyn actually gel with – and there may well be different kids they befriend. The key is they have the opportunity to move, roam and develop their own lives in the evening air with a giant, low moon and under the watchful eyes of Orion and Cassiopeia.