Thanksgivings

The last paragraph last week was about our weekly hike day.  Shortly after I wrote the blog, we headed to Lefkes in the center of the island and starting point for several of our hikes.  The end of the journey was to be a visit to the local olive mill press.  Vague descriptions such as “up and over Lefkes” “down through a valley” sounded quite pleasant.  Reality was totally different.  If you notice at the very top of the mountain there are 3 cell phone towers…guess who was level with them?!  2 1/2 hours straight up.  Then the promise that all was downhill from there.  Straight down a literal goat path.  I heard the bells around their frigging necks.  Then 10 minutes short of the promised land, my cheek met a local rock with a very resounding clunk.  10 miles of hiking and I end up at the clinic having a skull xray instead of sampling local olive oil.

I have so many thanksgivings about the event.  First and foremost is it was a smooth rock and I have an incredibly dense bone structure.  The purple eye, puffy green cheek, and black chin are a lovely color combination and are preferable to anything broken.  I am grateful for the Greek health care system.  The nurse was delightful, the doctor pragmatic (stop the icing after an hour, it doesn’t do any more good.  You will be ugly for at least 10 days, it’s ok.)  The technician was gentle and the radiologist quick and efficient.  All for $0.  You will have a hard time convincing me that universal health care is not the most humane and moral way to live.  No insurance forms to fill out.  No gaggle of back room employees trying to fill out all the forms needed for a multitude of carriers or filling out financial forms.  Just frontline response teams.

Other thanksgivings I’m not so sure I’m thankful about, but were necessary.  It was a wake-up call to appreciate each day because something simple like losing footing can be disasterous.  It was a reminder that I’m not as young as I think I am – but I would rather be taken out on a hike to an olive mill than tripping in a senior care center!  I’m thankful for the teachers and students here at the Aegean Center who have been so helpful and caring.  And of course I am eternally grateful for that angel who was flying faster than I could fall, so her hand cradled me on the way down.

This week’s hike, for me, was to take the ferry to Antiparos with the group who did another rockclimbing expedition.  I stayed in town and took pictures, sat on the beach for an hour listening to the Aegean and bathing my cheek in the healing Grecian waters – ate lunch and then took the ferry back in time for a nap.  The rest arrived 3 hours later and were still sore last night.  Wisdom is another thing I am thankful for!

We are going to have a grand Thanksgiving Dinner here at the school on Friday – our Hike Day will be a Turkey Trot.  Everyone is bringing something – I am in charge of stuffing.  No oven, but I have fresh sage and thyme from my hikes, plenty of butter, bread crumbs and chicken broth.  It is surreal to look at pictures on the internet of snow in the Midwest, think of all the Holiday preparations, and contemplate Christmas.  There are no decorations at all on Paros – Christmas is not the big holiday, Easter is.  Another culture shock waiting to attack me when I get off the plane on December 15.  My nice serene, quiet bubble is about to be burst, I fear.

I went to the Supermarket early this morning and passed by these hungry goats.  It’s not your normal walk to Ingles or HyVee when you check to see if the chickens are in the vineyard and the goats are at the fence or at the feeding trough.  But it is also not normal to see a sign on the store which says today they don’t open until 10, instead of the posted 8, because it is the feast of the assumption or something.  So I walked back past the goats and roosters, cats, and neighborly gentleman sitting in the sun and decided to write this blog instead.  I will miss this life.

Yesterday I went on the tour of the big Church of the Hundred Doors.  Jeffrey gave lots of history which was pretty fascinating.  There was a chapel here around 315 or so when Helen stopped to pray on her way to the Holy Land to find the wood of the True Cross.  When she died, her son Constantine fulfilled her vow and built a larger church next to the chapel.  Justinian expanded it.  It is the oldest continually used church in Christendom.

What I found particularly meaningful was that this weekend was a big Mary festival and there were hundreds of small metal stampings attached to many of the icons.  These all symbolized prayers and requests.  We all have stories and hurts, don’t we?  One woman came in and talked to Jeffrey – she is his landlady and is 89.  Every Saturday she comes in and prays at each icon, kisses it and then goes to the next.  He said this is her job now that she has high blood pressure and can’t work the farm as much as she did.  She keeps the family safe by her prayers each week.  Isn’t that wonderful to have faith and prayer so important that it is a sacred job to come into town and commune with God and the Saints on behalf of those you love? 

It’s now time to see if the store has opened properly.  If not, well then it doesn’t and I go tomorrow.  I have a sketch to prepare for the next painting, cleaning to be done, and a Sunday nap also beckons.  I will miss this life.

Thankful for my family and friends.  Thankful for life.  Thankful for beauty.  Thankful for safety.  Thanks be to God!