LESSONS FROM THE AEGEAN
I looked like a complete tourist but at that point I didn’t care. Never mind that I was actually a dual-citizen of the country. Never mind I spoke the language. (‘It’s Greek to me!’ Was always ironic to me growing up, so my family had jokingly started saying ‘It’s Japanese to us!’ but after too many blank stares, we had given up.) We had been walking — myself in flimsy flip-flops — for thirty minutes, over the rocky hills down towards the ‘dream beach’ of Psili Ammos, reachable only by foot or by boat. It had to be 40C outside with humidity. My grey straw hat which I had purchased for one euro at a shop in the dodgy area of Omonoia in Athens and which had earned the comment ‘You look like such an American!’ (that’s never really a compliment, is it?) was on its last leg, so poorly constructed the slightest of breezes would send it down the steep rocky hill into the sea below. Please hold out! My travel companion— another half Greek like me, Gina from New Zealand, was much more light on her feet than I was, called out from the safety of the sand below, “You ok?” I slid as gracefully as I could down the last of the rocks, the beach finally coming into view. We made our way on the hot sand past the resident white donkey whose only duty in life was to haul supplies for the tiny taverna over the hills. The beach was pristine, isolated. Straight out of a postcard.
It was unusually windy that day. The sea had actual waves that could have nearly rivaled those more familiar to me on the Malibu coastline. The taverna was packed with the afternoon’s crowd of families on holiday, mostly French. Tables sat directly in the sand and waiters ferried plates of pastitsio (apparently the speciality of the place) and ‘horiatiki’ salads to and from the kitchen, the sweat gathering on their faces. Greek teens sat underneath the trees, smoking and flirting, the summer holiday season finally underway. Mr. Donkey — still not amused, had moved next to the generator that powered the entire establishment.
‘Ready, hun?’ Gina unwrapped her sarong and walked towards the shore. (The day before Gina had forced me to go topless at another beach — “Just do it!” she insisted, despite my protests.) As soon as my feet hit the water…. ahhhhh, cool! Ahhhhh, water! This was my hard-earned reward. I fell backwards into the abnormal waves, giving into the thrashing and bobbing that the wind was wreaking on this normally peaceful, calm little beach. I looked behind Gina to the edge of the shore, where a small boat was docked. There was a tiny blackboard hanging from the front and written in white chalk ‘16.30.’
Gina said “Do you reckon we should hop on that one?” Do you reckon. One of her many phrases that though in English, sounded so foreign to me. A man with bright pink shorts popped out from behind the boat and secured one of the thick ropes to a hook on a rock. He made his way to the taverna, where he was promptly brought an ouzo over ice and a pack of cigarettes. He must be someone important, I thought. “Yeah, let’s do it,” I replied.
The cool thing about Gina was that unlike other Greeks she was not uncomfortable with moments of silence. I liked that about her. We had only met recently, introduced by a friend while at Cannes for the film festival several months prior, but we had become fast friends. Gina had relocated to Athens after being in London for years and fell in love with the city of her father’s childhood.
In the ensuing silence, floating in the water, I began to think about what awaited me when I returned to Los Angeles. As a freelance writer and director, a lot of my days are spent working from my isolated home in the canyon hills above Sunset Blvd. I can go several days without leaving the neighborhood or talking to anyone as texting and email dominate my methods of communication. What a strange existence, I thought. When I come to Greece — which has been often over the past year due to several films I am making there — I can’t function without some kind of constant human communication. It feels good. Still not fully accustomed to email, most Greeks prefer to give out their personal cell phone numbers to anyone and everyone.
In the water I thought about how in LA, introducing yourself as a ‘writer/director’ is so commonplace sometimes I feel like making up another profession like ‘bee keeper’ ‘physicist’ or ‘nail polish namer’ just to get a conversation going that doesn’t involve someone talking about how their agent just sent their script to Mark Wahlberg who is ‘reading it right now.’ The effect of so many people in the same place at the same time, trying to do the exact same thing had been demoralizing lately. Lately I had felt like apologizing for what I do. The pride in what initially drove me to pursue this career was starting to fade. The race set before me to get a show on TV, get my first feature made, get into Sundance! Cannes! Berlin! Toronto! was beginning to take away from the joy of the job itself.
Floating in that water the feeling of dread, of returning home, was overwhelming. Even the rest of summer wouldn’t be the same: crowded California beaches versus secluded pieces of paradise such as where I was now? Fresh fish that I could select off the fisherman’s boats versus shelling out a hundred bucks for a ‘tapas style’ trendy restaurant where you had to go to In-In-Out afterwards anyway to get full?
By the time the boat horn blared, signaling the impending departure, I wanted to leave. I desperately wanted a drink. “Guess it’s time, hun.” Gina and I exited the water, grabbed our bags and hustled over to the boat. As per usual, the Germans and French had piled on first, securing the best seats facing the back of the boat. As we crossed the rocks, pink-shorted man greeted us in Greek with a cigarette still in his mouth, and extended his hand to help us one by one jump over the gap between the rocks and the boat. With such a windy day, the boat was already rocking quite hard. We found a spot on the side of the open-air boat, a cushioned seat where we could hang our feet off the side and lean all the way over the rail. God bless safety laws that are never enforced in this country, I thought.
As the motor sputtered awake and we set off, turning away from the cliffs and the sliver of beach, Gina and I swung our feet through the railings and faced forward, out to sea. The colors were a magnificent blend of vibrant turquoises and electric blues. The sun was still high overhead. We made our way around the eastern side of the island, its stark cliffs flanking the sea below. Rocks jutted out of the water, some formed brilliant arches. Patmos — this mystery of an island, where St. John had experienced a vision and written the book of Revelation in a cave now visited by thousands of pilgrims the world over — had captured my heart.
As I let the sun warm my face and the spray of the water splashed onto my feet, the man in the pink shorts made his way over to myself and Gina. He introduced himself as Yorgo. He held out two little plastic cups and poured white wine into them for us. We thanked him and he sat down, explaining what we were looking at on the coastline. Homes built by the royal families from Jordan and France, businessmen and jetsetters. Jackie Kennedy Onassis had come in the 1960s and 70s, forced to travel from her home over here to the port of Skala where the only phone on the entire island had been located at the time. She got a lot of calls, apparently, Yorgo explained.
Yorgo wanted to know why we spoke Greek. He was delighted to hear we were second generation half-Greeks who had grown up in the diaspora but loved coming back. Had we been to Patmos before? No. Would we want to come back? Most definitely. Yorgo was broadly built with strong, tufted eyebrows and a kind look to him. He took out a stack of cards from his back pocket and handed them to us. On the front was Yorgo’s name with several methods of contact for him: two cell phone numbers, and an email address. The email address had the email address ‘@mail.com’ scratched out and scribbled in black pen the correction ‘@gmail.com’ — clearly proving my theory that Yorgo preferred contact by phone. The inside card had a map of the island and a description of services Yorgo offered: tourist boat rides that went around Patmos and to other islands in the area. There was a two hour tour option, five hours, and all day.
Yorgo explained he had several other boats he operated, and if we wanted, he could take us out tomorrow for an all-day tour. As he told us about each of the other islands he could go to, he became increasingly excited about the diversity of each of the islands and what cool things there was to do in each place. Then he launched into his own little history of how he came to own his cadre of boats and employ summer workers to run everything. Yorgo was a shrewd businessman, totally passionate about his work yet humble. He worked very hard. This being a summer business only, he knew he had about four or five months to make his money for the rest of the year. Thus he was selling us on this boat ride for the next morning, but in a completely genuine way. I liked Yorgo. The conversation turned to a film festival that was taking place on the island; in fact the reason Gina and I had come there. He wanted to see some of the films at the open-air cinema at night, but he had to clean and prepare the boats each night for their tours the next morning.
As we got closer to shore in Skala, Yorgo excused himself to prepare for the docking. Gina turned to me and said “He’s proud of his job, isn’t he?” I agreed. We slowed down as we pulled into the port, weaving our way through the jetsetter’s yachts and tiny fishing boats. Yorgo pulled down the walkway once we had docked and personally thanked each passenger for coming along for the ride. He had good posture and took a mini-bow to each lady. We thanked him for the company and the wine and said we would call if we could go out tomorrow. Yorgo waved goodbye with a smile.
As Gina and I made our way through the port’s tiny cafes, I noticed a lot of other sandwich board ads and flyers posted around advertising boat daytrips. On such a small island, there must be a lot of competition for customers. Establishing relationships must be key. I wondered if Yorgo ever got discouraged by the daunting task ahead each day, pressure to fill his boats. I wondered if perhaps he even waited for the big passenger ferries to arrive at the port in order to tell potential customers about his services as soon as they arrived. These ferries came only several times a week (Patmos has no airport) and at odd times of the day like 3 AM. In any case, Yorgo had reminded me of something: pride in the work. Pride in my work. Despite the competition. Despite the potential limited audience. The pride in the uniqueness of the particular thing he was offering — different than the other boat trips. And all with a smile, a genuine joy.
I am back in Los Angeles now. Alone at the moment, writing from my isolated canyon home where all I can hear are crickets outside on this blazing hot heat wave we are having. I haven’t gone outside today at all. Haven’t spoken to anyone, only text and email. Things look the same as before, but they are slightly different, because I think of Yorgo and I am grateful for that forty minute boat ride, on that tiny little boat on Patmos.
