LENEA AND CRETE -10-

X

Oh my, can the food be this good? This good and this healthy? Even the lamb dish, which must be full of cholesterol, feels so healthy? Is it because the sheep that sacrificed themselves for us was grass fed? Is that why people lived up to 100 and beyond on this land? “Not any more” Sofia says, which her husband Michail will verify in the next day or two, despite his devotion to Crete. “Not any more. People do not eat horta any more as much as they used to. They eat McDonalds, fried chicken and all the rest, more and more. No more several 100-year olders in a village. Crete is changing…” Thanks to globalization and mcdonaldization of the world I think with resentment. I look at the raw horta that I just treated with a bit of salt and lots of lemon juice and olive oil a few minutes ago with more affection now. “If only globalization could produce you in its conveyor belts, mankind could have been healthier.” But it is not your fault, mankind will find a way through this storm of globalization, who knows when, but a time will come we will learn from our mistakes.

This is the simple but phenomenal restaurant where I had two spectacularly authentic Cretan feasts.

After devouring, the raw horta salad with lamb, fish comes along with steamed horta. We treat it with sea salt, olive oil, and lemon juice, too. My taste buds are celebrating a true reunion with what I used to have day in day out when I was a child. We sample lots of other dishes from calamari, to crab, to feta, to baklava and raki. Here is a difference between two sides of The Water. In Turkish cuisine, raki accompanies the food early during the dinner, baklava is savored on its own terms, solo. Well, when in Rome do as Romans do. I wash down my baklava bite with a sip of raki as Sofia does, we are on Crete. But I have a final request. I know this is not how Romans do it, but I will do it anyway. I wave at the restaurant owner, who is hanging around to make sure he responds to customers readily. He is surprised, he thought we were done, just like Sofia did. “Will you bring me another serving of the steamed horta please, that will be my real dessert.” The restaurant owner is smiling trying to conceal a laughter, Sofia doesn’t. She cracks up with a barely audible “You are a true Cretan, aren’t you?” I nod, “You’d better believe it, I want to leave this table with the top notch flavor on my palate.” We both crack up.

After enough has been said, unexpected welcomed rapport has been built, I feel like “I can tell her about Lenea, now.” and I do. She is in an affectionate and appreciative disbelief. Good, she at least doesn’t think I am insane. I ask her whether she can give her a call to understand fully what Lenea needs since I am sure there are lots of gaps in what I was able to understand. She says she will. We plan our day for the following day. She has to teach until 10:30 and will pick me up at 11 to head to Chania. I give her the phone number Lenea gave me. We walk back to my hotel, part with warm hugs and I head up to my room, she to her house.

We meet the next morning, but no talk of Lenea. Should I ask Sofia whether she called Lenea or not? It feels so awkward, here I am for professional purposes. I already told her my story with Lenea. I expect her to inform me on what our plan is related to Lenea. I need her to save me the awkward appearance of being obsessed with a woman, with whom I had an hour of contact with nothing verifiable in what she shared with me. But Sofia doesn’t bring up Lenea to our conversation. She is all too excited about spending the rest of her day with me and I am, too. But what about Lenea? That is a question that will linger around as we drive to Chania, as we walk around town, as we look for a place to have “colochitha borek”, authentic pastry with zucchini, and as we check the local jewelry stores. Lenea will not emerge in our conversation. Eventually we choose a restaurant to have a late lunch at. Our server is a young man from Bosnia. I am surprised to learn there are lots of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia in Crete. This young man shares his stories about discrimination against his kind in Crete. How his accent has always been disclosing his ethnic identity. How he made a conscious decision to teach Greek to his children as their first language. Bosnian is disappearing from one generation to the next, it seems.

Venetian warehouses still in use at the dock of Chania

I can’t help but think of how the same dynamic is at work with many of my Turkish friends in America. All of us adult Turks are first generation immigrants having a degree of an accent. Some of them make a conscious decision to make English their children’s mother tongue. Something I never agreed with, but I respect their decision for their families; how can I know what motivates them to allow, in fact support their children leave their mother tongue and culture behind to fully integrate into the American culture.  Having taken the challenging path all my life (sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me), I had made a conscious decision on keeping Turkish the language of the household when my 13 year-old daughter and I had moved to the USA. To me, a language is not simply being able to say things in just with a different set of words and rules. It opens the door to or keeps it open to a culture, allows ongoing connection with the people of the land of the language. One good expression in Turkish says “One language is one man” meaning, however many languages you speak, that is how many men you will become.  I always believed, “When one is freely immersed in a culture, acquiring the language of the new land with some effort will come naturally.” My daughter proved me right, I am so at peace that she is not only bilingual but also bi-cultural with no limitation in her adaptability to either culture and language. She was upset with me, of course, for some time for putting her through the difficulties of immigration at such a tender and critical age. Those days are all behind us now. She has grown only stronger with what didn’t kill her. Kudos to you for that Zeyno’cum.

The street where I bumped into a displaced Turkish Greek at a jewelry store

We are now at a jewelry store run by a family. Sofia allows me practice my broken Greek. It is such a pleasure to see shopkeepers enjoy my effort, sometimes as miserable as they make me look, I don’t give up. My grandmother’s voice in my ears: “You are a Cretan girl, you have to learn our language.” I have learned, the quickest way to finding Greek Turks is to tell them a brief version of the story of my grandparents, it never fails: “Oh, catastorophie, my grandparents, too.” And they start telling me where their people came from in Turkey, how they went back and found their family home and became friends with the current Turkish owners, on and on.  When the mother-shopkeeper Maria listens to my story, her face lights up. With a big smile she declares “My husband is from Urla.” Oh my, Urla, the quaint little fishing village half an hour from Izmir.  She tells me the story of her husband going back to Urla, finding his family home, staying with the current owners in the very house where his father grew up. This is how Turks and Greeks relate to each other despite what the governments try to stage on their own theater. My heart is full of warmth. I ask whether I can meet her husband. Unfortunately he is out town not to return for a week. Next time, “make sure we plan on meeting ahead of time, my husband can help you find your people’s house.” My heart is full of hope. There will be a next visit to Crete, for sure.

Beautiful Chania, the land of my people.

LENEA AND CRETE -9-

IX

I walk into the lobby. The friendly receptionist is still behind the desk, in front of which is a woman, probably slightly older than I, curly dark hair encircling a big, welcoming smile. I have always loved seeing people smile. There is something therapeutic in a smile both for the donor and the recipient.  Something that bonds, something that opens the gateway to our inner worlds, something that conveys, “I accept you, I welcome you, I celebrate our connection.” I wish we smiled more, I wish we accepted one another more, welcomed and celebrated connections more. With that smile, she did open the gateway to where the Resmiye with no social mask resides. Mine must have done the same to hers. We let go of professionalism. We give a warm hug to one another. Two Cretan women in a warm embrace, celebrating the opportunity, thanking the universe for the opportunity.

I believe, one recognizes the person who will become a dear friend for life in the first minute or two of the first encounter. Falling in love may be a different story. It may come over time with deeper getting to know and connecting at multiple levels. For me, with all my best friends, who have stayed with me for many decades, I knew we would be friends for life as soon as we met. Here I am,  that very feeling that is so familiar to me now taking over me one more time. The same feeling I had felt when I had met my dear friend Nukhet 11 years ago, now a sister that I never had. So familiar. I know in the depth of my heart this woman also will be my friend for life. I know already, this evening is going to be a self discovery as well as discovering each other and that more will come out of this encounter way beyond professional work.

Orthodox church in Rethymnon

Sofia

leads me out of the hotel. My arm is in her arm, when and how did this happen? We are walking toward The Water as if we are two girlfriends who have known each other since childhood. Arm in arm, my hand resting on her arm, and she gently pressing my hand against her body with an unspoken “We are friends.” Don’t acts speak more than the words, though? Most of the time. This is clearly one of those times. We don’t need words at this point.

Sofia, humble; she downplays what is around us, when I know it is history of thousands of years. Sofia, lively; she laughs as readily as any woman around The Water. I feel so much at home. I am by The Water, I am with Sofia, I am home. Sofia, gently curious; asks questions. I answer as openly as she asks. We are comfortable with each other, gateway is mutually and totally open to reach each other’s depths. Sofia, just; good politics, she knows it is not the people who created the artificial animosity between the Greeks and Turks. It has always been the political agendas of powerful few, be it politicians, colonists, or superpowers. Sofia, the helper; she returned to Crete from America where she had lived most of her life to take care of her dying parents, now on her way back to America to help her sister taking care of a son with multiple medical problems. Sofia, caring; she is not even involved with child abuse and neglect, but she knows how desperately Crete needs an initiative to change the way child abuse and neglect is addressed in Crete even though, she will leave in a few months, most likely never to return for good. I find myself in her. I am liking this woman more and more with every idea visited, with every feeling shared…

Venetian fountain of hundreds of years in Rethymnon 

We walk along The Water. How I missed it, how I can never get enough of it, even though I visit Izmir at least twice a year. The same scent, the same aroma of iodine, fish, and salt water. An intense urge is working its way up from within to kick the shoes off my feet and jump in The Water, become one with it, one more time. I counsel myself silently “Savor the pleasure of anticipation Resmiye.” The little Resmiye within listens, “good girl.” I smile, Sofia doesn’t see. When the right time comes, I will tell her, I think I can.

The fortress walls from Venetian times

She shows me the city walls from Venetian times, the watch towers, the history behind them, how Ottomans fought the Venetians fiercely for centuries to conquer Crete. We talk about the French revolution, its affect on peoples of Europe turning them into nations, gradually but surely. How Greeks finally started feeling nationally Greek and a desire to get rid of the Ottoman rule. We talk about WWI, its affects on the region and its people, how British imperialism used Greeks as the buffer “tongs” against Turks on Anatolia. How Greek “tongs” were put in the fire of fighting the liberation army of Turkey sparing delicate British fingers. How British dropped boxes and boxes of fliers flaming animosity between Turks and Greeks that had lived side by side in peace all the way to the heart of Anatolia for centuries. I feel an elation discovering more and more that she is a woman after my own heart. I love this woman, I know we will become very good friends.

As we approach the one restaurant she promises me I will get the best authentic Cretan food, she tops it all: She has a son, who is in England, refuses to go to America. His stand on who The Water belongs to, since it always becomes a point of contention between the two governments when they desire to make it such, is: “The Aegean belongs to nobody but its fish!” I crack up, I love it. I want to give a hug to this guy I haven’t met, yet. I tell her to give him a hug for me next time she sees him just for this, for now. Brilliant. I will tell this to all my friends in America and Turkey alike. We are finally at one of the two restaurants that hold onto cooking authentic Cretan food. Two out of hundreds of restaurants in this highly touristic town. I can’t believe it. Was globalization supposed to connect people and introduce local cultures to visitors or was it supposed to destroy everything local and allow the visitors rule the scene wherever they go, wherever they can go. Indeed it is true, the entire path we walked along was lined with restaurants serving burgers, fried chicken, and the like. Towns of Turkey are not alone in becoming little America, it seems. Even Crete is conquered. I feel a renewed ache in my chest for disappearing values and traditions in the service of globalization and profit.

The most authentic restaurant in Rethymnon if you would like to have true, omega-3 rich Cretan food

We are finally in the restaurant. A friendly, tall, sturdy man greets us with a polite Cretan Greek. It is clear he knows Sofia and respects her a lot. Sofia introduces me to Stefano. We are the first customers although it is 8:30 pm. Of course, Greeks do not go out until 10 pm or so, which will soon be proven. By 10:30, all tables will be full. I will feel gratitude for coming early and beating the crowd. Spending an hour and a half with Sofia and learning a wealth of information about Sofia, her family, economic crisis in Greece, Cretan cuisine, Greek politics, Greek men, Greek academia, on and on and on, is precious while devouring the spectacular Cretan food some of which I had had all my life and some I have almost longed for as long.

LENEA AND CRETE -8-

 VIII

Although, with every mile I cover enters more of a distance between Lenea and I, she is almost still looking at me through the windshield. So soft, so human, so real. I may have to carry you around with me throughout my trip Lenea. That is fine with me if it is with you, too. To my left the terrain is getting more and more sheer and rugged. I haven’t heard, yet, the stories I will in couple of days from the locals about the fierce fights that took place in these mountains during WWII. The brave men who helped the Jews of the island the Nazis and their local collaborators were after, flee the island to meet their final fate in the middle of the Libyan Sea. The same breed must have helped their Turko friends to leave the island the night before an imminent massacre at the turn of the 20^th century after WWI. I will learn how tens of thousands of Jewish population on the island was decimated to almost nonexistence, thanks to Hitler and the frenzy he and his like-minded fellows created all over the world. I will see first-hand in Chania, how the one remaining Jewish temple is almost a shack now in the back streets of town with almost only tourists like me visiting from time to time, not often. When my gaze wonders to the left, all I see is the grandeur and wild and inviting beauty of the purple blue mountains. At the end of my trip when I travel to Chania on my own to catch my plane early in the morning, I will almost have a de ja vu moment with images of the Cretan guerillas scattered into the mountainous landscape.

Not my own photo since I was in a rush to get to Sofia on time, but better than nothing. This is how Rethymnon and any other town on Crete embraces the Aegean or the Meditarrenean, almost leaning into The Water.

In the distance is a city, must be Rethymnon. Had I not known I am on Crete, I could’ve easily mistaken it for Phokai, one of my favorite destinations on The Aegean, on the Turkish side of The Water. In Phokai, the two little bays adjacent to one another look like generous, fertile breasts of The Mother Aegean thrusting herself onto the land. What I am looking at from the top of a hill is almost not a city but an elegant necklace along the delicate curves of The Aegean. Red rooftops shimmer under the sun reminiscent of precious stones. The white wash of the exterior of the buildings is accentuated by the bright, blinding Cretan sun. Here I come, namesake. You are Rethymnon in Greek, Resmo in Turkish. I am Resmiye in formal circles, Resmo in familiar. I like you already. It is almost like meeting an old, good friend, even if I have never met you before. In the depth of my heart, I know you. I have waited all this long to meet you. I am nervous about how you will greet me, whether you will also like me, if you will embrace me as ready as I am to embrace you.

I am now idly driving down a road that is meandering into the heart of town, it looks like. I want to take my time to take in all I can. Streets are narrow, so be it. I know this kind of driving. I notice the Cretan testosterone is not as bad on the streets of the city as it was on the highway. That is good, I like the prospect of more peaceful, less stressful driving. There it is, my hotel, on the left. Cute, warm, a welcoming place. I greet the female receptionist in Greek. She is very friendly, I like her. A Cretan beauty. Wide shoulders, sturdy, strong hands, pleasant but confident demeanor. Yes, I like her. I manage our business in Greek, valla! I am one happy camper as I head up toward my room. I survived the testosterone on the highway, I met a very interesting local, whose story may be entangled with mine for some time, and here I am in safe quarters in a land I am dying to discover.

The moment I walk in the phone rings. Hmm, either the receptionist thought of something to tell me or Sofia is extremely punctual to make a plan for the evening. Neither! It is Lenea. It looks like Lenea will travel with me on this island. I am surprised to catch myself feeling happier that it was Lenea not Sofia. It is interesting how our inner territory of feelings has a will of its own. It does what it desires or needs to without paying attention to what needs to be desired or needed. As in falling in love, as in grieving after a major loss, as in encountering a scene that may call for our help, as in meeting somebody, who will become a life-long friend.  I recognize gently, this is one of those moments. Who knows what role I will play in her life, what role she will play in mine.  Dear Lenea, she must have left the shop as soon as I left to go home to get the phone number she promised to give me. She must be burning with a desire to reconnect with her daughter. I understand Lenea’cim.

We start talking. I must say, she does most of the talking and I do my best to get the most out of what she says. I am a good listener. She gives me a phone number. I assume it is her daughter’s. However, things are getting complicated; what I am hearing is confusing. Perhaps I misunderstood her the first time we discussed this issue. She is telling me now, she doesn’t have a phone number for her daughter. The number she gave me is her own phone number, why do I need that I don’t quite understand at this point. Wait a minute, she has more plans, Lenea the manager, she does have plans. She tells me, she will take a bus and come to my hotel tomorrow morning and we will go to Chania together! Oh, my, I chuckle affectionately. I want to be able to say “Yes.” to her right now, those three letters are at the tip of my tongue. Ah, Lenea, I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t utter that word, not just, yet, my dear. This cortex of mine is keeping an upper hand over what my inner child, the helper in me would like to do and say. That yes has to wait until I meet my hostess and introduce this crazy story to her when the right time comes. I know how miserable one may feel when patience is all one can rely on at a moment patience is most uncalled for. This is life Lenea, we all go through paths that feel most difficult to cover, at times.

She is disappointed but understands. She will wait to hear from me. My heart is singing, she is not a lost cause, yet. She is trying to understand my position as well as she is pursuing her lovely agenda. I like you Lenea. We will live through this and will see what will come out of this story my dear. I will do my best to help you in any way I can. These are the thoughts I think, very little of which I can convey. I hope she feels what I feel deep down. We hang up after “Adios”es. As soon as the phone hits its socket, comes another ring.  This time it is Sofia, speaking in English. Oh my, what a relief, to be able to speak in a language in which everything flows out of one’s mind and mouth and lips all too easily with no conscious decision-making. She sounds as friendly and warm as everybody I met on this island so far. What a delight. She is coming down to my hotel, she lives in walking distance. We will take a walk along the harbor and will choose a place to eat. Just her and I. Lovely.

LENEA AND CRETE -7-

VII

What could really happen if I accepted her offer to host me in her house for the night? I imagine we would chat here until dusk. Then we would secure everything around the shop and climb up the hill to her house. She would greet me into the house with delight and unbelievable hospitality. We would prepare dinner together. She must have horta, one or more of the more than 1500 kinds of wild greens that non-Cretans may call weed, delicious and so healthy.  The Cretan in me has found at least some of the horta in the woods, on the sidewalks, even in my back yard, over the years. I am sure some people in Iowa City are talking about this unusual woman foraging for weeds! Who cares, it takes me to my childhood memories full of sweet moments. The women of my family would make a picnic out of “picking horta” or simply put foraging. Female spirit at its peak of independence, out in the meadows, dancing with the spring breeze, kneeling down for horta that would become food for the family, that would bring health to everybody. We would return home with bags of a variety of horta, which would be sorted to “steamables”, to “sautaeables”, or to “raw edibles”, etc.  I am so looking forward to finding the real thing again, the real Cretan horta, on Cretan soil. 

Perhaps she would serve soup with “kreas”, lamb chops of highest quality with potatoes, tomatoes and rice or orzo. Soup is all I need at this phase of my travels as is always the case. At the height of exhaustion, that warm liquid lining my insides for some reason is so soothing and comforting for my soul as well. My best friend of my entire life Bill had learned this so well. After a trip, home partially meant going to his chicken soup with parsley, celery, mushrooms, potatoes, and lemon juice waiting for me. All of a sudden I realize how much I miss Bill one more time. And the pain cuts through my chest one more time; that I will never be able to hear his voice any more, look at his eyes any more, nor will I receive a warm hug from him anymore. I can’t believe it has been only 24 hours I received the horrible news of his choosing to exit this world on his own terms. I force my thoughts move away from that, I know if I give in to the urge of allowing Bill and my thoughts about him engulf me, I won’t be able to complete this trip, and I have to. Such trying times on earth, we never know what is ahead of us.

I manage to divert my thoughts back to Lenea, she deserves it at this moment. What would we do next? We would light a fire in her fireplace, she would tell me all about her son and daughter and husband and the rest of her family. She would show me their pictures. Pictures, yes… One of the most fundamental tools of creating a history of a place, of a family, of a person... The desire to accept her invitation escalates with the thought of viewing her family pictures. I recall how much fun my daughter and I would have looking at the pictures of our history together from Turkey to America. Every time we would both re-experience the challenges to a certain extent. But the elation that came from “But we overcame all the obstacles and here we are, happy and strong and together.” was the highlight each time. Every time I think of our camaraderie through the challenging years of my life, the feeling is a delicious bonding that I have with nobody else and sense she has with nobody else, either.

After looking at her pictures, she would make a bed for me covered with white linens with hand-made crochet or needle-point ornamentation all around, perhaps, from her dowry. I would collapse onto the white pillows breathing in the scent of local soap, olive oil based soap. I would have the most peaceful dreams. I would wake up in the morning to toasted bread aroma filling the house, to a bowl of olive oil, in which would be a block of feta cheese, to olives from her own orchard, to Greek (or was it Turkish?) coffee, to tomatoes in olive oil with local thyme, cucumbers, arugula, and green peppers, and to quince jam of her own production... Maybe she would allow me make Turkish tea for her. We would set the table on the deck looking down on the market, her own one-shop market beyond the ravine. We would top it all with oranges and tangerines form her own orchard. We would savor the morning breeze, the warmth of the sun blinking at us from the east. We would become true friends for life by the time we would start loading ourselves into the car. If she is indeed a Cretan woman like the ones I lived with and got to learn all my life, wouldn’t it be a fantastic story to have lived?


The bed I imagined Lenea would tuck me into.

Fortunately (perhaps unfortunately?) my cortex is gradually taking over. I can almost feel it slapping my daydream left and right to put off the flames: “Are you crazy? You came here to start a national training and intervention program. You haven’t even met your hostess, you are planning to stand her up at the hotel lobby to spend the night with this woman, about whom you know nothing? She may even have a mental condition. How do you know you will be safe in her house? How can you even consider staying in the house of a stranger?” Ok, Ok, got it, of course it is out of question, it must be. If nothing else, I can not not keep my appointment with my hostess that is to occur in 2 hours. “You win Ms. Cortex, let’s get going.”

I turn to her with as much affection as I can fit into my looks and thank her gratefully. “My friend is waiting for me Lenea, I don’t have her phone number (white lies are sometimes helpful) and we have to meet tonight. I can’t stay with you. I wish I could (I guess I just thought this, I don’t have enough Greek to express this the way I felt). But I will give you my hotel phone number and when you find your daughter’s phone number, call me and give me the number. I will visit your daughter in Chania and tell her you miss her and she should come visit you.” A bit disappointed, but she understands. I give her my business card with the hotel phone number scribbled on the back. She is content. I take a picture of her. I will send it to her. I try to imagine the beautiful smile that will cover her face the day she receives it. I smile. I linger around a bit more with hopes another customer may stop by to take a picture of both of us. Why didn’t I think of using the delay mode? Must have been overwhelmed with all the emotional stimuli. Alas nobody stopped by to memorialize our encounter. That’s when I decide to write her story to never forget her.

Difficult moment is approaching. We have to say good-bye. She gives me two additional bags of citrus. I want to pay, she doesn’t accept. “These are for my daughter, if you find her give these bags to her, if you don’t ….” I bet what I couldn’t make out was something like “May it be health to you” or as we say in Turkish “Afiyet olsun”. I promise myself to find her daughter even if Sofia may think I am crazy, silly, or whatever she may label me with. We look at each other, next thing I know we are in each other’s arms giving and receiving the warmest hug I never expected to give or receive from anybody throughout this trip. I give her the hug I wish I could have given Bill before departing for this trip. I caress her cheek, it feels so natural, she lovingly accepts. I collapse to the driver’s seat, I hate departures of this sort not knowing if there will be and when there will be a return to the departed. As I start the engine, my eyes follow up her big, strong hands resting on my window to her shoulders, to her face. Pearly drops are rolling down where my fingers touched her face a moment ago. I smile, her image is slightly blurry, she smiles.

This is the last I saw her, I thought it might also be the last to hear from her. I should have known better. Women of Lenea’s kind never give up; with their strong roots, with their powerful reach, they emerge at the most unexpected moments to stir up the most unexpected, unimaginable things in their lives and in the lives of everybody they touch.   

LENEA AND CRETE -6-

VI

I finally interrupt the silent communication with “I am so sorry, so sorry”, don’t know how to put into words the cascade of emotions bubbling up inside my chest. I probably wouldn’t be able to do that either in Turkish or English, let alone Greek. I can only hope my eyes, my body, my posture, my hands are more telling than my lips. She understands, I read an expression on her face so soothing, almost trying to take care of me and my helplessness with lack of words rather than expecting to be taken care of.

She continues “and I have a daughter.” I feel the light of hope entering my heart, but what is that flat affect about? Still, I cheer up, at least she has one more child to hold onto. I say “kala, poli kala” chirping like a child, almost. “Premature joy”, I will discover in the next moment. She continues “but she doesn’t talk with me”. Oh my goodness, what kind of drama am I witnessing in this remote corner of earth? Here is a woman without a husband in the countryside of a probably harsh land, at least in some ways. She has not only lost her son but her daughter is also incommunicado. Should I continue asking? Is what she needs to talk, get it all off her chest, now that she has found interested caring ears? What if I do more harm than good with my limited language skills? Yet, how can I just sit there without saying anything? My 52 years of experience with people is screaming out loud that she wants to talk about something. That her heart is bursting with what she must have been holding in for who knows how long. I can’t help thinking the “science” of grieving may not have found its way to these parts of the world, yet. Around The Water, people die, their loved ones suffer quietly, silently and move on, carrying the burden of ignored grief throughout their lives to burst at moments like this, perhaps.

I am already overwhelmed with what I have heard. I put myself in her shoes thinking of losing my only child, my beloved daughter. That moment of entering her world is so painful, I can hardly bear being there. My limbic system has taken over cortex, the urge to help is so intense. This doctor the helper in me will never move aside at times like this even on vacation. I hear my voice pouring words that I haven’t planned to utter “Oh, I am so sorry, but why?” as if my Greek is adequate to understand the depth of such drama I know will unfold with this three letter word. “Why?” All of a sudden it opens a gateway to allow a flood of pain pour out. She is telling me an intense story that is thrown at me like a storm. I can tell there is frustration, longing, a bit of anger, a touch of judgment, but mostly desire to forgive and request for forgiveness. Unfortunately my grandmother did not use any of the words pouring out of her mouth. “Then katalaveno Lenea”, I don’t understand, I am sorry, my hand is on her knee. I am sure she reads the helplessness on my face. “Where is she Lenea?” “She lives in Chania.” Oh my, Chania, where my people came from, the one town other than Rethymno, I will definitely visit.

In fact, Sofia, my hostess, whom I will be meeting in 2 hours in Rethymnon and I will go to Chania tomorrow! I thought I was thinking that thought silently, apparently not. I realize I didn’t only think the thought but said it out loud with her “Aliphia?” meaning “for God’s sake, really?” I notice she says the word with the exact same accent as my grandmother’s. All of a sudden I miss my grandmother intensely and I wonder whether this longing for her is what keeps me glued to this place to this woman at this point. Of course Lenea, too, is a Critica, a Cretan woman just like my grandmother except that there is at least half a century between the two. As rational as I want to believe I am on many matters, there are times in life I believe something mystical exists in the universe that engulfs and leads us in a flow of things that we just let go. It is not necessarily that we drown in that flow or feel at a loss of control over things. Quite to the contrary, at times like this, I have always felt it is a smooth, tango-like flow in which I feel I have a part to dance in harmony with whatever else is flowing along with and around me. For some reason, I have the same feeling right this moment. My choosing this spot along the road among many vendors, putting up with Lenea’s initial anxious/rude attitude, feeling some tension in the air and wanting to stay to find out more, and here I am, I am dancing with Lenea in her drama and almost feel I have a mission here.

I can’t believe my ears when I hear my voice uttering “You give me your daughter’s name and cell phone, I will find her in Chania and talk with her.” How absurd, who am I, my goodness? I don’t even know why the daughter is in Chania, I don’t know what led to this interrupted relationship, I don’t know whether Lenea wants to talk to her, although I have a gut feeling that she does. Lenea’s face is nothing but a big smile now. Hold that smile Lenea, it is so becoming to you and it is so soothing in this chaos. Alas, she starts a long monologue again, from which I gather the daughter’s phone number is at home, she works at a pharmacy in Chania. Where does she live, Lenea doesn’t know. She hasn’t seen her daughter since the daughter left home. One more time the dark clouds settle down on her face, her eyes are almost glossy. Does she have any tears left, I wonder.

She takes me by the hand and leads me to the edge of the ravine pointing to the top of the hill on the other side of the ravine. My thoughts meander toward the days of my intense hiking and camping on the mountains to the east of The Water. I see the same khaki, purple, blue hue on the hills, boulders and beyond. I am so ready to leap forward and hike up to the top of the hill she is pointing to. This childish curiosity in me will never fade away... She helps me see a two story house within the olive and citrus orchards. I manage to say “Omorpho”, beautiful. It is indeed. How romantic it must be to live out in the nature (my cortex whispers, not forever, for a while maybe) waking up to the sound of birds only, being so close to the sky with your loved ones around. And that is the key word. All her loved ones are gone and the last one is attached to her with a barely visible thread, nothing else. Is she happy here? Can she be happy?

She turns to me with determined eyes and declares an unexpected, appalling plan: “You stay with me tonight at my house. There is no man in the house, I live alone. I prepare dinner for you. Tomorrow morning we go to Rethymno, meet your friend and go to Chania together. I take you to my daughter.” Lenea the manager! She must have managed her life all by herself for so long, creating a plan like this is no big deal for her. Wait a minute, though. She said all of this in Cretan, how did I understand it all? I can’t believe it. Something is happening to me in this land, unknown becomes known all too quickly, unimaginable becomes imaginable at an unexpected moment. What is most unimaginable is that the insane in me gives this crazy plan of Lenea’s a consideration, be it for a split second! In that split second I create a scenario on what may follow if I accept her invitation…

LENEA AND CRETE -5-

V

Another customer arrives. She serves them cheerfully and rapidly and is back by the caminato fixing the second cup of coffee, this is for her. I notice that she gave me the better of the two cups she has on the premises, a rule in poor households in these parts of the world. Guests are treated as God-sent. She is focused on the coffee pot. The bubbles will rise up forming a foamy layer over the surface of the coffee. The pot will stay over the caminato until the foam rises to the edge of the pot. She will withdraw the pot just before it overflows. As she does so while also pushing the flock of hair falling onto her face with her other hand, the risen foam gradually starts receding to form a creamy bubbly layer over the coffee. She pours the coffee into her cup slowly with her eyes still fixed on the pot and the cup. Once we both have our cups full, she lifts her head up with a warm smile, now she is back, to be with me.

She lights a cigarette with swift movements of her hands, hands that do things, as if the hands know where the package and the lighter, clearly has done this many many times. She invites me into the shack. So this is where she lives when there are no customers. I take my time to get used to the dim light inside, especially after the abundance of light outside. I see a reclining chair pretty much in the middle of the space; a few small end tables host lots of odds and ends. What is most striking is that there are many iconic figures of Orthodox Christianity, all over the place. I never saw so many in such a small place before. My mind wanders to 17-18 years ago when I had visited my brother who was then a cultural attaché in Comotini in Northern Greece. In our travels we had gone to a famous monastery. I had seen a multitude of such artifacts on the way to and at the monastery. But what left an unforgettable impression on me during that trip has been the beautiful, young British nun, who was working at the gift shop at the monastery. Recognizing her British accent, I had asked her about her history. For a split second, her eyes had shone with excitement, and had started telling me she was from Britain. But before, almost the end of her sentence, the sparks in her eyes had faded away and our mutually exciting conversation ended with “there is no life for me before the monastery, this is my home.” It was so clear that this wasn’t fully what was in her heart. I felt a burning desire to convince her to take my hand and walk out to freedom and safety. Certainly I had questioned myself about this “safety” concept. Did I even know what brought her here in the first place. That encounter has been one of the profound moments in my life related to “If you can’t get in the shoes of someone else, how can you judge them?” To date, I have been wondering what had made her flee her country and find refuge in that confine. I had walked away forcing myself to resist the urge to go back to snatch her out of the gift shop.  

Lenea’s voice motioning me to the reclining chair clears away the memory of that beautiful innocent face. She gives me the reclining chair despite my benevolent protests. This is the expected dance in this half of the world. The hosts to give the best of everything to their guests and guests not to accept offers too readily, as a sign of humility. We both do our parts. We both feel at home. We both know this dance, we’ve done it all our lives. Of course, she insists as expected and I finally submit to her. I am now in her reclining chair. She pulls a stool to the entrance of the shack and sits right across from me. As we start sipping our coffee, she starts asking me questions. She is leaning forward on her stool, very interested in what I will say. She’s got sharp eyes, fully focused on me now. She asks me what I do in “Ameriki”. I tell her, I am a professor at a children’s hospital, I am a “yatro”, a kid’s doctor. She can’t believe it, I am so used to this reaction. With my 5’2” and 115 pounds, I could never impress anybody at the first encounter I could be a doctor even when in appropriate attire, let alone this outfit I have on now: hiking pants, hiking boots, a loose shirt with a bandana around my neck and a safari hat on my head. I don’t blame her, I don’t look like a doctor at all. I remember my father seeing me in scrubs at the hospital mumbling “My daughter, why don’t you get dressed like a doctor like your fellow doctors?” He was right, most Aegean female doctors like to dress up in high heels with make-up and all even when they are on-call. I was an outlier among Izmirite women in that regard all my life.

I finally manage to convince her and she is now very impressed that I take care of kids who are beaten by their parents, I don’t know how to say abuse and neglect, I have to describe the kinds of kids I see. She understands, I can tell she likes me, she has a kind heart.  And the more we talk, the more I like her, too. I am delighted that I stopped here, that I decided to linger around and to try to chat with her. She is smart, I start a sentence, as I try to find words, she figures out what is to follow and completes my sentences, how sweet, she has become my teacher already! The more I try, the easier it becomes to find words and I can use words I have already learned over and over including those I’ve learned from her.

She asks me about my husband “I don’t have one.” She pretends to sulk, a woman without a husband has a hard life to say the least in her mind, I know. I ask her about hers. She doesn’t have one, either, I learn, he had passed away a few years back. She asks me about my children. I tell her I have one. She is in medical school, she lives in “Ameriki” with me, but not in the same house. “Is she married?” “Ohi”. She is shocked “in the same city but not in the same house and she is not married.” Not something she can comprehend. Fifteen years ago, I would not have comprehended that, either. It is my turn to ask her questions about her children. All of a sudden her face clouds up, did I say something wrong and offend her inadvertently? I catch the word “son”. But why does she look so depressed all of a sudden? As I start feeling anxious, I get shaken with the word “apothane”. I know this from my grandmother. That explains the dramatic shift of expression on her face; from joy to despair. Death does that to all of us, doesn’t it? At least for some time if we have the resources, courage and strength to face grief and to befriend it for as long as we need to until we reach a new normal as they say. Especially the death of a loved one. Especially the death of one’s child. “He died.” lands on my face like an unexpected punch. I am shaken up. “My goodness, so she had a son, but he died.” I am still trying to process the information. She continues without hesitation and helps me understand her son drowned in the Aegean. It is my turn to get depressed. The amount of pain she must have endured and still must be feeling.

A scene from 25 years back reappears before my eyes. I am traveling on a bus from one province to another on the southern coast of Turkey for vacation. My daughter with her 2 year-old plump body is sleeping on my lap. After couple of hours of sleep, I’d like to get up and try to wake her up. She just doesn’t want to wake up as if she is in a stupor or deeply sedated.  With the shallow knowledge of an intern I feel my heart turning upside down in my chest with panic “what if she never wakes up, what if she has encephalitis?” Of course in a little bit she does and gives me the most beautiful smile after having slept such a deep deep restful sleep. The explicit memory of that split-second horror is still with me, to date.

I know from that day, the worst thing that can happen to a person must be losing a child. I look up. Her eyes have darkened, but no tears. I can tell, she roughed up her pain, covered it with layers, perhaps the wells of her tears dried up. I see a hand reaching out, it is mine, I hold her hand, she is leaning forward, allows me hold her hand. Hands do the talking now. They understand each other, the hands of two women, the hands of two mothers. From different levels of education, from the opposite sides of The Water, speaking different languages, living in opposite sides of the globe, but we are women, we are mothers, we know what it is like, what it must be like.

LENEA AND CRETE -4-

IV

As I look through the bags, I notice interesting details: She has a big, old, fading umbrella around a rough, thoroughly weathered round wooden table, over which she has a "caminato". “Hmm, what does she cook here?” Behind the umbrella is a tiny shack, 5x5 feet, perhaps, door is open. The blinding light of the Cretan sun outside makes the inside all the more darker, can't see any details of what seems to be her on-site residence, be it make-shift. To the left of the shack is a large bench covered with an owning, old and fading just like the umbrella. Four large posts support the owning, all around which bags of citrus are hanging over nails, she probably nailed in herself. In a split second, I recall the good old days when I loved working with my father, who was a carpenter. He would give me a small hammer to nail in small nails. I couldn't believe how competent my dad was, he never hit his hand as he was nailing his nails with 2, at the most 3 strikes when I hammered my poor fingers with every other strike. I was 4 or 5, what could I expect at that age, but didn't know that then, I thought I was incompetent. My father kept on saying “Skill is entering you each time you hit your finger!” I wondered why acquiring a skill had to be so painful, but I endured all the pain since I wanted to be like my dad really bad.  I wondered if she hit her fingers while nailing the huge nails.

To the right of her "yard", just before the steep slope down to the ravine starts is a make-shift sink with a make-shift faucet connected to the top of a water pipe, who knows where it comes from. Another car slows down. She is torn in-between the two customers. I encourage her to attend the new customers. I have seen enough around, I'd like to get to know this woman a bit more, if she is willing to talk, or rather if I can talk. There is clearly a life that is lived here and there must be a story behind this. Let's see if my "unborn" Greek will allow me get a glimpse of this woman's life. As she is attending the new customer, I choose a bag of oranges and a bag of tangerines. The fruit monster I am, I am sure I can consume half of each bag during my stay here, and I will share the rest with my hostess and with Peter, my colleague from the UI who will be teaching with me in Rethymno.

As I think of Peter, I can't help smiling to myself. I remember as if it happened today when I first met him at the Java House coffee shop at the hospital a year ago. He had heard and listened to Turkish music played by one of my friends in the hospital a month after his move to Iowa, then introduced himself to my friend followed with my friend referring him to me "I bet a child psychiatrist and a child abuse doc will have common things to work on". I had done search on the internet to learn about his background before meeting him. I had discovered Peter was the partner of the new president of a liberal arts college in central Iowa, the new openly gay president and ex-NIH veteran. Out had gone my vague hope of meeting a single man! Who cares, Peter turned out to be such a kind, fine, and fun soul. The moment we met, we gave each other a friendly and joyful hug. I invited them over to my house, introduced them and their two toddler children to my friends. They are now part of my circle, how heartwarming. Finally we cook up this plan of going to Crete together, where they have an old Venetian house in the middle of the island. I am so looking forward to seeing his house and spending time with the kids.  

My vendor is sending her customers on their way with her "Na ei sai kala" and now is back with me. “May you go to good” what a pleasant wish, quite compatible with my philosophy. I incorporate it into my vocabulary right away when I learn from my friend in Rethymno what it means and start using it with the first opportunity and beyond. The vendor is back with me, probably trying to understand why I am killing time there. I ask her what her name is “Lenea” is the answer. “Poli omorfo”, very pretty, is my answer. She asks me if I am from “Ameriki”. Yes, I live in America now, but I am originally from “Turkia”. She gets excited “Oh, esi eine apo tin Turkia”. Even with her rapid speech, I can understand her. I can’t believe this, she speaks with the exact same accent as my grandmother’s. Already different from the accents I heard at the airport.

I continue telling her “my mother’s mother and father went to Turkey from Xania”, this I can say in Greek. I realize I don’t know how to say grandparents let alone both sets of grandparents. But this one sentence is enough to elate her spirit and bring sparkles into her brown eyes, for the first time since I arrived here. She is finally looking out, at me, with excitement and a bit of adoration? Definitely with warmth. She almost exclaims “Esi eine Elinida”. She is happy she found a Greek streak in me, for some reason I don’t mind, actually I like it! I chuckle and continue telling her “and my father’s mother and father went to Turkey from Xania”. Her joy is tangible, she is almost ready to burst into a delighted scream or something. I catch “Esi eine Elinida, 100….” I interpret the missing part to indicate percent. We start laughing together, I agree. Who knows I may indeed be 50-100% Greek after all.  

She changes one hundred percent with her discovery of me being 100% Greek. Her shoulders are loose now, her eyes are totally on me with loving looks, her mimic muscles soft, her smile is real, inviting. She says with contagious joy “Ela epaye, kachse…. Eliniko café”. She is inviting me to sit down and I guess she offered to make Greek coffee for me. Ah, that caminato, that’s what it is for. Sure enough, she reaches to the make-shift faucet, fills her coffee pot with water, adds coffee, sugar to my liking, lights the caminato and starts stirring the Greek coffee. I am already sitting on a stool she has offered me next to the round table thinking all the while not to make a mistake of calling coffee Turkish coffee. Peter had already told me “You never ask for Turkish coffee in Greece, that is one of the most offending requests.” She pours the coffee in a huge coffee mug, that is the difference between Turkish and Greek coffee, I guess, the amount served. Turkish coffee is served in espresso size cups whereas Greek coffee is served in American coffee size cups. I try to propose we should share it, she won’t listen, she says she’ll make coffee for herself as well. There is no way but I have to drink this coffee now, I’ll pay for it with palpitations in a bit, who cares; it is one of the best Turkish coffee I’ve drunk for a while, oops, Greek coffee. Good thing, I just thought the thought not uttered it out loud.