A Day Off

.
Today is the big day for Demetrios. It’s his high school reunion, Class of 1957. The reunion is a guys only thing. Why? Because it was a boys’ school! Schools were all segregated by sex in those days. And wives? Not invited. That’s good, because although Greece is much more fun than Virginia, still, one unpleasant thing is to be the only non-Greek speaker in a group of enthusiastic conversationalists. They tend to forget me, as is only natural, and even Demetrios needs frequent prompting to translate for me. And he no sooner begins than someone interrupts him, and then it turns hopeless. I just have to pick up the Greek as soon as I can!

Demetrios is at his reunion right now, and I am left to play Happy Housewife. And that is just what it feels like, too – play! Somehow, keeping this little dollhouse does not feel like work.

I’m alternating playing house with writing. I’ve now written the seventh chapter of the book I’m working on; only one more chapter to go! The preceding chapters are about sin and what God has done to save us from it and from its consequences (two different things). The last chapter is going to be entitled, “What Must I do to be Saved?” and the answer is not going to be, “Nothing and anything you try to do will be sin.” Nope. The answer is going to be biblical: Believe. Repent. Be baptized. Live by faith. (Everybody in the world in fact does this anyway, but of course we mean, live according to faith in Christ!) The chapter is going to be a description of living the life of faith in Christ. And obviously it’s going to be the hardest one to write, being the subject with which I’m unfortunately the least acquainted.

Having dusted my whole house and mopped the floors and washed the dishes and tidied, I’m going to sit here at the kitchen table, where my laptop is, and blog for a while before tackling the bathroom (which will take all of 10 minutes!). No laundry today; we’re having spits of rain now and then.

A dove has been wandering into the kitchen as I sit here. She comes right through the open door. She is aware of my presence, but doesn’t seem to mind. While I love having this visitor, I’ve had to shoo her away twice, for fear she might come so far in it would be a problem finding her way out again! I also had to shoo her (very quickly!) off the top of a pile of freshly dried laundry I had laid on a kitchen chair! I can see her still there on the balcony, just outside the door, sheltering from the occasional showers. I have fed her, so I expect she will come back from time to time. With luck, I may turn her into a regular visitor. This is a lone dove, not the pair we used to know.

The gypsy has also come around, crying his wares, so to speak. These days that means he has a pick-up truck with a loudspeaker. And he isn’t hawking his wares, but his services. He will cart away any of your old items, everything from old clothes to old mattresses to old refrigerators. He will sell them on market day out of the back of his truck.

The Albanian woman who does a similar thing has also been around today, crying in her plaintive voice: “Old things, old things!” She comes by foot, pushing a cart. The cart is a heavy, large, cardboard carton mounted on a child’s scooter.

She looks more Greek than she used to. She used to wear an ankle-length calico skirt, a calico blouse bearing no relation to the skirt either in pattern or in color, and a long, bright scarf over even longer hair. Her hair is shorter now, and so is her skirt. It’s plain black, with a white blouse. (Black is the fashionable color here this Fall, judging from the store windows, black trimmed with any of the colors in the scarlet to grape range.) There’s no scarf any more. You can only tell for sure it’s the same woman because of her very distinctive voice.

A busker, street musician, has been by, too. After years of painful practice on his accordion, he appears at last to have mastered, “O How we Danced on the Night we were Wed.” Alas, it is the only tune he plays. I don’t yet throw money down from the balcony for him. I always toss a Euro or two for some other strolling minstrels, though, whose singing and playing is incredibly, hauntingly beautiful.

Oops, here’s Demetrios now, and it’s only 2:30. I really didn’t expect him back much before supper. Must pause to hear how it all was.

6:15 p.m.

“Wonderful!” is how it all was, naturally. Only a few of the classmates were still recognizable. “But many of them brought pictures from those days. All those fresh, innocent, youthful faces!” Big sigh. “But the good thing is, those faces were still laughing, as if they had never stopped laughing!”

The memorial service was moving and Fr. Peter had some good things to say. Yes, they got into the old school building. They ate at the yacht club. Somebody collected all the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses and is going to mail everybody the list. Somebody else had brought little souvenirs for everyone: pens in a case whose lid, on the inside, is a calculator. The name of the high school is printed on the case, too, together with, “1957-2007”.

But then Demetrios spent most of the rest of the afternoon in bed. A huge fatigue has descended upon him these last few days. It gets temporarily relieved by coffee, but he didn’t drink any today, saying he was tired of it. He has suffered from this off and on since I’ve known him, which is 21 years now. I think it is depression. Depression doesn’t always involve sadness; sometimes it shows up in forms such as fatigue. When I ask him, he says, “It may be.”

Kostas had a couple of fainting episodes before we got here and put off going to his cardiologist until Demetrios could go with him. So that is where they are going tonight, Mena driving them. Yes, doctors here close their offices around 2:00 for siesta and return by around 6:00 and keep hours until about 9:00. Then they eat a light supper and enjoy a long, long evening and night.

I told Demetrios last night that Kostas' name ought to be Leonidas; he resembles a lion, with his flowing, white mane (although he had it cut for the wedding yesterday). Picture an aging Anthony Quinn and you pretty much have Kostas. I love that man. Sure hope the cardiologist won't have bad news.

I am going to watch some Greek television. Maybe I can find an American movie with Greek subtitles. That way I can pick up a little Greek and distract myself from the worry for a while.