Temenos 2017

Temenos—A Family Journal 2017

Temenos, the ancient Greek word for sanctuary, embodies our family’s sense of mission—imperfect and aspirational at times, rarely rose-colored or sugar-coated, the concept nevertheless remains central to who we are as a family. “Sanctuary” can be understood in the physical sense—our home on the edge of the Downeast boreal forest or our spitaki in an olive grove in the rural Peloponnese—but as we grow as a family our understanding, without too much effort, leans more toward a spiritual or metaphysical definition. It is a place borne of a feeling, but equally a feeling that emerges—as if magically—from the place itself.

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An Editor’s Note: On the advice of an old friend and fellow editor, I dispense with the third-person narrative (e.g., “Jonathan swam today”)—described as “just a bit spooky”—in favor of the “I” voice. When other family members weigh in on the narrative, their own individual “I” will noted.

Also, in the interest of privacy—such a quaint concept in the age of the Internet—full names of friends have been occasionally represented by first initials only.

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I arrived in Greece, my family’s ancestral home, a little more than forty-eight hours ago, enjoyed a night with my dear friends in Athens, and then set off in the rental buggy toward the southernmost reaches of the Peloponesse, that great inverted hand-shaped peninsula so rich in history, culture, and gracious proud souls.

Nothing has changed since 2016—and yet everything has changed, in keeping with the paradox of this blessed place. The new highway that bisects the spine of the Peloponnese, a marvel of German engineering and Greek fortitude, opens this place to the new fangled world—which like change itself is both good and bad.

Wild Thyme and Lemon Blossoms

This family narrative began in 2009, during our sabbatical year in Greece. We landed in a place called Finikounda, a charming fishing village on the southernwestern-most tip of the Peloponnese. The entire region of rural Messenia, with Kalamata as its capital, has been spared much of the wholesale devastation that bears down on all places beautiful, serene, and essential. The forces of tourism on our tiny planet have a way of rendering such “undiscovered” and wild places ghastly shadows of their former selves. Thankfully, for the most part this has not yet occurred in southern Messenia.

Back in 2009, our young children attended the village school and all of us immersed ourselves in a culture rich in heritage, seeping with hospitality, and surrounded by a stunning backdrop of mountains, beaches, orchards, and hundreds of villages that time forgot. In some ways, owing to the length of our stay and my semi-fluency in Greek, we became a part of this community. In the intervening years we have cultivated friendships with the local Greeks and also the foreign residents: mostly British, German/Austrian, Dutch—with a sprinkling of French and Italians—and a tiny handful of Americans who are otherwise in short supply.

Since my first visit in 2007, I have been to weddings and funerals, celebrations and minor disasters, dances and protests. For me (Jonathan) this is as much “home” as anywhere. I relish the best of both worlds—rural coastal Maine and rural coastal Greece—and would not cede a centimeter of either. Such is our good fortune.

In ten days, Ann and Nia will arrive (aka wife and chaperone) and will embark on another Hellenic adventure, with all its many joys and occasional pitfalls.

At First Glance

It is a visual feast crossing the Peloponnese, from Corinth to Tripoli and on toward Homer’s “sandy Pylos,” and then the final climb to our mountain village just east of Finikounda. The final leg from Pylos to Finikounda presents stunning vistas of aquamarine, white sand beaches, medieval castles, and endless waves of olive groves and vineyards. The smell of wild thyme pours down from the mountains, every crag and crack of blossom.

Our little house was as I left it last July—a pastel shrine tucked between olive orchards. The astounding growth of our 2014 plantings (lemon, orange, mandarin, avocado, apricot, fig, rose, oleanders, thyme, lavender, cypress, and bay tree to name a few) was shocking at first glance. The trees had doubled in size in just one year, the lemon trees are covered with ripe fruit, the olive trees are especially laden with a maturing harvest. The pomegranate tree resembles an oversized Christmas decoration awash in crimson. The avocado trees, knee-high two years ago, are now taller than me, the wispy sticks now tree trunks.

But buildings in this region, with its extreme summer heat, salt air, and intense winter storms, take a beating. Our house is no exception. So each year there is maintenance that must be undertaken. The clock is ticking.

First Things First

Greece remains in the grip of a punishing financial crisis. With unemployment at 26 percent (and much higher for those under 30) and capital controls in place, the ordinary Greek is gasping for air—and “poor Greeks” (as defined by the European Union) now account for a solid one-third of the population. Public services have been eviscerated.

The situation is reflected in the local banks. Withdrawals are limited to 400 euros per week. Making one’s weekly withdrawal is an epic undertaking, a grievous process that requires taking a ticket and waiting for an hour to accomplish a task that might take two minutes in America or England or Germany. The bank lobby feels like a very popular delicatessan with one hundred hungry patrons waiting in line, desperation written on their face. This is especially true of the elderly, pensioners whose monthly incomes have been reduced four or five times in the past three years—to accommodate the creditor and the big financial institutions that have been fleecing all of us from time immemorial. The “banksters” and Brussels (the EU government) turn the screws each month, squeezing blood from the proverbial turnip—to use a Downeast Maine phrase.

There is no relief in sight, even among the foolishly optimistic.

And yet Greeks are a resolute lot, a people who have endured many stages of suffering—amid moments of splendid glory—over the past 3500 years. It is completely acceptable to complain about “the crisis” (a term that covers the broad sweep of misery) but totally unacceptable to allow a mere financial catastrophe to ruin a good meal with friends, a night of dancing and singing, a steady stream of village gossip. Or the quintessential naked swim in an irrespressible sea of cobalt.

How Many Kisses?

In the Eastern style of greeting, Greeks kiss on both cheeks: men kiss women, women kiss men, men kiss men, women kiss women. This replaces and utterly overrules the sterility of a Western handshake. Needless to say, after just two days I am all “kissed out”!

And so I enter the village of Finikounda on Day One, a slow march toward the cafeneion that is waylayed by a multitude of greetings and a stand question: “What can I treat you to?”

The resident foreigners (the xenoi, the root word for xenophobia among others) have gone native too.

And so, with little reservation, I must admit that my cheeks are sore. (And this is before even getting to the beach.)

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