In fact, you can get here from there

I set off from eastern Maine, bound for Logan International, early yesterday morning. Seven hours later, I arrived at the departures terminal with a stunning five hours to spare before boarding. The kind folks at the Lufthansa check-in made an offer I couldn’t refuse: How would you like to board a plane bound for Frankfurt in the next fifteen minutes? I not only jumped at the chance, I ran for the gate, led by the Lufthansa Man, who managed to escort me through security with minimal hassles, ahead of the throngs.

The down side was the seat assignment (#49D), shoehorned into the very last row of a sparkling 747-8, in a row whose electronics were malfunctioning—no movies, no lights, no fan. The cheerful flight attendant informed me that they were experiencing an “electronic malfunction” but would be taking off shortly. As a committed non-drinker, I nevertheless imagined what I might have requested with this technical report. (“Would you please bring me a double bourbon on the rocks with two valium?”).

This little detail paled in comparison to the excited woman who sat beside me and couldn’t stop talking for seven hours. I figured her out in five minutes—clearly she was a pathological talker who said nothing with many words. Within fifteen minutes I was fully engaged in my non-deistic practice of mindful meditation, breathing steadily and not hearing a bloody word she said and feeling rather serene for it all. Thankfully she asked no questions. Breathe in—nod—breath out. I mastered this advanced technique in short order.

It is not lost on me that I landed in Europe on D-Day, without a parachute. (I am represented in officialdom by an unstable idiot, Dear Leader (aka Son of Kim), who denigrates the heroic service of others, but that’s a place to which I vowed not to go. This will remain a politics-free blog henceforth.) At the Frankfurt Airport I was spying the terminal as a potential running track—it looked like a solid 3200 meters just inside terminal A-B. I wondered if there was a 60+ course record, but there was no one to ask. I thought to myself, if the Hari Krishnas can do their thing, why can’t I do mine? There was the thorny issue of my backback and a small carry-on roller suitcase. Compared to the Hari Krishnas droning in their orange robes, a guy running in circles pushing a suitcase and wearing a backpack appeared entirely suspicious. So I took the day off from running.

Two kilometers to the finish of the Spetses Mini Marathon (the Old Harbor)

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Old friends and their “village”

I was nearly drafted into the Greek army in 1974—coincidentally, the year the US draft ended—days after the Cyprus invasion and the subsequent coup d’etat in Hellas. I was a scrawny 15 year old who happened to meet the height requirements for conscripts, and they were looking for live bodies in order to make dead bodies. I was saved by Rasputin, the Orthodox priest (actually named Father Nick) at the Orthodox summer camp I attended. He wagged his finger at the army captain who had barged into our compoud with a long convoy of armored vehicles and troup carriers and ordered the “big boys” to line up. He lined up a half dozen of us compliant recruits in front of a troup carrier. Good Father Nick overruled the military junta and ordered us back to our dormitories. The convoy rolled away in a cloud of dust and grit.

That was my second trip to Greece and it might have been my last---but there have been 17 trips since. At 58 I was issued a draft waiver, as part of my dual citizenship, which is a curious fact because (a.) I’m a pacificist; (b.) I’m an American citizen; (c.) and, anyway, who the hell wants a 58 year old (now 60) running into battle as an infantryman? 

I lived in Athens in 1979-1980 as a student of the classics/archaeology; and again in 1981-1982 as an apprentice for a British publisher—the dawn of my 35-year career in book publishing. During those times I met several Greeks, both my age and my disposition (I shall remain silent on the details), and we have all been fast friends ever since. In the evening, not having slept for 24 hours or more, several of us went out to taverna in the neighborhood of Kaisariani, hanging on the lower slopes of Mount Hymettos. Spending time with Thanasi, Koula, and Akis, who I met 40 years ago as a ruffian American living in Europe, was especially gratifying. Old friends are like well worn sweaters on a grey winter day—comforting, assuring, and dependable.

We have an inside joke whenever I visit: “Welcome to my village,” they say (describing a city of five million). In truth, this taverna beside the park was so quiet it may well have been in the Greek countryside. The food was exceptional and the company was unsurpassed.

I woke this morning feeling a little bit like my head was screwed on alright but it was simply misthreaded. Thanasi resuscitated me with a strong cup of coffee. And I was soon off in my rental buggy, an aptly named Nissan Micra, slightly larger than a bread box and with the acceleration of a scooter. At 20 euros a day, it was a steal.

I navigated the new highway (built for the 2004 Olympics), bound for Corinth, passing by ancient Eleusis, the home of the ancient Mysteries, and onto the impossibly circuitious road to the eastern tip of the Argolid (NE Peloponnese), ending up in a small village named Kosta, across the Saronic Gulf from the island of Spetses, my first destination.

Spetses is my matriarchal homeland (the patriarchy hails from Crete), the place where my grandmother Efstathia was born in 1899. She immigrated to America in 1912, a frighted 15 year old traveling alone to the New World. She was a daughter, which was problematic for the family, and also highly spirited. My poor grandmother, who anticipated a one-year hiatus from the new, cruel stepmother, was unable to return to her beloved island because of the advent of World War I and the danger of Uboats torpedoing civilian liners. In fact, the boat she came on was later sunk by the Germans.

In the final approach to Spetses, through a maze of mountain peaks and dizzying turns, I couldn’t help but notice the hillsides awash with yellow and purple flowers--a landscape overrun by wild thyme and oregano. But this is a nation where you needs to keep your eyes on the road and your  hands upon the wheel. (Highest road fatalities per capita in Europe.) The occasional burned carcass of an unfortunate vehicle, hundreds of meters down the embankment, serves as a stark reminder. Concentrate! Focus!

Spetses

I first came to Spetses in 1979, forty years ago this July. The island, once poor and always starved for water, is now a mecca for the super rich and their super yachts. I am an anomaly, with a few rupees and a canoe. But that’s no matter. This is a kind of second (or third, or fourth) home in Greece, an incredibly beautiful and sophisticated place. Each year, there are more and more houses with their own helipads, if that is some marker of success. Maybe we’re missing something back home? Build that helipad and the wealth will come?

I took an ancient, slightly listing ferry, billowing diesel exhaust as it crossed the channel, and then marched my way to my uncles’ hotel in the town square. The square itself was part of our family’s land 150 years ago, the location of my great grandfather’s grocery store, replaced forty-five years ago by a three-story hotel overlooking the port.

Uncle Kyriakos was waiting for me with a table set—stuffed peppers and tomatoes, village salad, bakery bread, big hunks of feta cheese, potatoes roasted in lemon and olive oil. Am I making you hungry?

Your hapless blogger and my mom's first cousin

I took the standard siesta, then rose and laced up my running shoes, and headed out on the 25-kilometer course that I ran last October with my friend Peter, who served as "team captain" and lucky charm. I narrowly missed my age group award—a then 59 year old beaten by some upstart 51-year-old from Holland. I hope to return the favor to a 69 year old this October!

I ran to an isolated cove where I didn’t have to get my running clothes wet. The ocean—silky, crystalline, and beckoning—made me laugh. It is so utterly, unbelievably beautiful, what else can you do? Laughter is a gift after a long cold, dark Maine winter and a long wet spring.

Horse and buggy show

Car and buggy show

Swimming a bit too far offshore, I noticed several fins and then the dolphins themselves. The Saronic Gulf is famous for these lovely, friendly creatures. Yesterday I ran to Reversing Falls in estern Maine. Today I’m swimming with Greek dolphins. Life is good. It really is.

Running in the heat

A cranky night of sleep and a rendezvous planned for 10 a.m. shortened my run. I set off at 8:00 a.m.—and it was already too late. The choices for distance running are 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. By 9:00 the temperature is already in the mid-80s (with no humidity) and the strength of the sun is hard to comprehend for a northern New Englander.

Yesterday I ran the first 5K of the Spetses Mini Marathon—a rigorous and incredibly scenic 25-km course along the one road that circles the island—and this morning I ran the final 5K of the same course. Sadly, the middle section—15 km of hairpin turns, steep elevations, and no chance for water—is unapproachable without doing the entire course, which means wearing a hydration pack and/or carrying two bottles of water. In truth, unless you’re a camel, a mere two bottles is an invitation for catastrophe. So I’ll be doing that middle section on race day, if I return for the big event in October. The Mini Marathon includes, for the so-inclined, a 5000-meter, open-ocean swim (to the mainland and back). Thankfully, it is possible to do one or the other—and a few super athletes do both. Clearly I would drown after about 2 miles of swimming.

Life is a beach

There is no shortage of named beaches on Spetses, but there are also dozens of isolated coves down one or another goat path leading to the ocean. Today I visited one of those more isolated beaches, heroically lasting there until 2 p.m. (when my water bottle was empty). There were few people there, but when I returned from my swim there were three Caravaggio-esque women set up by my camp: plump, brown-skinned, and doe-eyed. Like many twenty-something Greeks, they were chain smoking, which was positively asphixiating. So I returned to the ocean, swam a few hundred meters down the coast, and found a little cove. An hour later I swam back, hoping that my backpack hadn’t been absconded with. Of course it was there, but the Caravaggios were gone. This is an incredibly safe country, simple theft outside of Athens or the other big cities is very unusual.

At 10 a.m., with a brilliant sun overhead, my 83-year-old uncle and I drove up the mountain on his scooter in order to visit Aghia Panton, the nunnery that looks over the town. The primary purpose was to light a candle for my dear sister Dyan, who died on 9 December. She was more than a sister—she was a dear friend, a mind reader (perhaps only my mind!), an agitator for women’s reproductive health, and a committed caregiver as a nurse practitioner. The two of us visited the same nunnery just two years earlier. Before she died, the nuns gave me a flask of holy oil (from the icon of the Virgin Mary) with which to bless her--we were ready for miracle cures for an otherwise incurable affliction. The abbess remembered her and recalled my visit last October.

Are you hungry yet?

There are 28 nuns, all of them quite aged but full of joyful countenance. Our family has a 100+ year connection with the monastery, as stewards and protectors. Some of us are heretics, but we are well-intentioned.

Dorah the Explorah

Here are some photos from this morning’s run and this afternoon’s swim.

Spetses, the inner Old Harbor