Tempted to Abandon

We're spending today at the swimming pool at Pleiades Bar and Restaurant overlooking Sapsilla Bay – a gorgeous turquoise cove with a small and sparsely used beach. While the kids swim, Matheus watches them and Emily and I work at the restaurant 20 feet away with slow jams pouring out the sound system, we all look out at yachts, two small high-end cruise ships and the occasional ferry passing by. Pleiades is surrounded by the Nine Muses Villas – a series of traditional exterior, luxury interior villas that fill-out the hotel compound.

In Patmos, you know you're at a high-end establishment when they offer free flowing filtered ice water. Everywhere else charges by the bottle. Yet, Pleiades prices are maybe a couple of euros a plate more than the average island restaurant – perhaps because its somewhat out-of-the-way location doesn't make it convenient and its brand is not yet all they want it to be.

We look at the two extra euros per plate as the cover charge for the use of the swimming pool which they are happy to let us use so long as we dine – more like a swimming or beach club than a hotel. Given our kids go to the beach three to five days a week, a swimming pool seemed like a nice change of pace and given this is an island with ubiquitous beaches with predominantly still water, there aren't that many actual swimming pools. Still, for some reason, our kids get extremely excited about a swimming pool anyway and they can spend six hours in one without getting bored – stopping only for food and restroom breaks.

They're also not averse to yuppie food – which Pleiades offers to distinguish itself. Pleiades calls it Greek Contemporary – I call it mixing Greek cheeses and seasonings with commonplace American Farm-to-Table cuisine. Local feta in the Cesar, some tzatziki on the grass-fed burger, etc. But that's fine for Sennen and Ailyn who take no issue with tzatziki on a hamburger, gyros, omelets or anything else. If given the chance, they might bathe in it.

Yesterday, Matheus opted to take the kids to Livadi Geranou beach at the northern end of the island – a unique mixed pebble and soft-sand beach with an incredible range of blues looking out at a small island with a tiny church on it that challenges swimmers to reach it. Because of my aversion to "disorganized" beaches – those without rows of available chaise lounges and umbrellas – we tend to stick a certain set of beaches that also have the advantage of adjacent cafes and tavernas at which Emily and I can work. We realized that on a day when Emily and I are busier – such as Mondays – that Matheus really shouldn't feel constrained in his choice of beach for the kids. So he decided to mix it up and the kids who spend most of their time in the water and the sand or pebbles, were happy as could be. We also identified a couple of other similar beach options they could add to their repertoire in the near future.

And there's the rub. After a month and a half, we're really just getting into our groove. We're just finding the shortcuts and backroads of town. We know what time different beaches and restaurants get busy. We have learned which shops have the things we like most and become acquainted with many of the shop owners. Like cooking a great dish, we're at the point where the food isn't merely edible, but the flavors are really settling in and bringing the dish to life.

But as the calendar is about to strike August, we have begun feeling the specter of the end of the trip. One might think that we return August 15th (August 12th for Emily) and have more than two weeks left – that's as long as most people take for their entire year's vacation. We aren't ordinary vacationers and if anything, we have established a life here – albeit one that admittedly feels very vacation-like. 

More significantly, the time has come for us to start dealing with the events we face at home – school kick-off events/meetings, after-school activities, the arrival of our next au pair, baby namings, pediatrician appointments, playdates…. the stuff of our everyday life. It can't be ignored anymore. Unfortunately, when these things demand attention – often Emily's – anxiety creeps back into our world. How do we make this and that work? Both the kids' schools have a parents-only kick-off night at the same time – who is going to which? How are we balancing things during the two weeks before Camila, our new au pair arrives from Brazil? Nothing in itself is a real challenge or problem – it's just that these things that occupy so much headspace don't belong on Patmos where our deliberations are supposed to be which beach or restaurant we plan to visit next and our biggest anxiety is running out of Ailyn's favorite Peppa Pig yogurt or needing a new loaf of bread on a Sunday when the bakeries don't produce bread (yet are strangely still open selling everything else…).

Even worse is the shadow we dare not name – the departure of Matheus. On August 15th, we will part ways at the Athens airport, taking to different flights taking us to different continents and futures. Matheus has been such a beloved part of our family and we know that while we'll stay connected to him and hopefully have him visit as often as he can in the future, it won't be the same as having him part of our daily lives. This is hardly imaginable to Sennen and Ailyn who are so close to him. Although Ailyn understands and is fine with the fact that it's Matheus' time to go home, when she talks about events to come at home, she still includes him in her image of them like when she brings up trick-or-treating. The full concept hasn't fully sunk in.

Of course, this is the big drawback to the au pair program – that someone you come to know and care about who becomes part of your household, life and family eventually leaves. People have different views of this. Some families keep more of an employer-employee relationship with their au pairs and are even happy for annual or biannual turnover. However, the au pair program is also supposed to be a cultural exchange and we have always taken it that way. Our au pairs have been amazing young people who we have come to love and to stay connected long after they depart. Their relationships with our children have run deep and been amazing to watch. Matheus has had an especially profound relationship with them and has more photos than I can count that look like they belong on an au pair program brochure or website.

Our strategy is not to speak of it too much. The end is not here, yet. At the same time, when we're sending Camila her the outline of the first weekend and her first week's schedule, the hard truth stares us in the face. 

There is one good solution to all of this.

"I don't want to leave Patmos. I just want to stay. Is that wrong?" Emily offered.

I counter with the idea of staying, buying a house here and enrolling the kids in the elementary school from which we live a few doors away. There's nothing like getting what you want to make you back down.

The scary part is that I half mean it. Catch me in the right mood, at the right moment and I could almost go for it. It just means forgetting that our life at home is pretty great, the importance of family and friends, raising our kids Jewish, that summer will eventually end and that it would be very hard to get an au pair here – which is essential to this life working out. But in the cool mist of denial with a Greek breeze blowing from the blue cove below across my face as I sip cold, filtered ice water, it seems like an inspired idea.

The way I see it, we have two weeks to enjoy the best part of the trip. As we move along, it gets richer and better. We fall into a life so intoxicating, we have moments of fantasizing about staying. That's the mark of a pretty great summer. The only real choice is to hope life continues to be so kind to us that we have more amazing summers like this – and do it all again.