My day yesterday started with a devastating discovery: one of the surviving kittens of a feral mama we call Tiger was dead. Lifeless on the concrete floor of the covered garage, a trail of blood drying beneath her. One of the two cars that park there must have run her over. Not on purpose, I’m sure.

Cats are very good at being exactly where you cannot see them.

Still. There she was. And suddenly the ridiculous, infuriating, exacting circus of cats that has taken over our lives didn’t seem so ridiculous. I cried as I moved closer and saw her still little body that had just that morning run up a tree onto the tin roof of the storage units.

Somehow, we have become a cat family.

Not intentionally. But they are everywhere. They meow at you and beg for food. Some pick apart items in the garbage bins with the dexterity of a Cirque d’Soleil acrobat. Nobody in Greece intends to become a cat family. Well, of course, some do. But like us, some are just suckers for those begging eyes. You put out a bowl of water. Then some food. Then another bowl because someone keeps stealing the first one’s food.

Some put out a cardboard box under an eave because surely a cat needs somewhere dry to sleep.

And before you know it, you are running an outdoor branch of the Cat Rescue from your patio. Except instead of a Mississippi plantation, we’re in Greece.

Instead of a family inheritance, the great prize is a bowl of kibble or a can of mushed-up stuff with salmon (supposedly).

And instead of everyone drinking bourbon and lying about their marriages, everyone is sitting under the bushes, waiting for dinner.

First, there is Big Daddy. If not, how would we keep having kittens? Big Daddy patrols the perimeter. He checks the food bowls. He keeps an eye on the other males. Occasionally he sits beneath the neighbor’s lemon tree, on another tin roof, surveying his kingdom with the grave expression of one contemplating the decline of civilization.

Which brings me to the rest of the family.

There is Mama.

Mama is tiger-spotted, although our calling her “Tiger” seems almost cruel. She is so thin you wonder how she keeps going, let alone gave birth to five or six other lives. We have no idea if this is her first litter. When she first appeared, she was skin and bones. There was no swollen belly. No waddling. No obvious sign that a maternity ward was being constructed somewhere in the neighborhood.

Nothing.

And then suddenly a few days later I noticed one nipple. Then another. They seemed to pop out like flower buds in spring.

Oh. You’re a mother.

My own motherly instinct kicked in immediately. If she had babies somewhere or was about to give birth —and if she was going to keep those babies alive—she needed to eat. So she ate. And ate.

But unlike Williams’ wallflower Mama, ours lives where she can’t be found easily and can scream louder than a Greek grandmother who has discovered someone moved the furniture. But when the kittens appeared, she was fierce.

Motherhood is universal, apparently.

Even among feral cats.

Now she expects her food on time.

And if it isn’t there, she lets us know. Mama has the loudest meow I have ever heard from a cat. It comes from somewhere deep inside that impossibly thin body and sounds less like a meow than a formal complaint filed with management.

Where is my food?

Why isn’t it here?

What, exactly, have you been doing all morning?

And then there is Belle, who is like Maggie in Tennessee’s world. We call her Belle because, unlike Mama, she was clearly not born feral and she came with a bell on a pink collar. (click link for that story)

She was discarded. There is a difference.

A feral cat looks at a human being and calculates the distance to the nearest escape route. Belle looks at a human being and wonders why the hell we haven’t taken her in and why she’s still sleeping outside.

Belle is a beautiful orange tabby—soft and loving—while Mama is all angles and bones—and from the beginning, she seemed to know exactly what a house was for.

She wanted one.

Our house.

More specifically, inside our house.

She has followed us ever since.

She jumps up out of her hiding places as soon as she hears us. Sometimes she makes a dash for the elevator and won’t get out. We’ve brought her up to the balcony. She looks through the screen door. She cries to come in and eventually gives up and finds a nice, shady spot to snooze. She has often jumped into the car and refuses to leave.

So we do what we can.

We feed her.

We talk to her. We buy her toys. We’ve taken her to the vet, who diagnosed that she had pneumonia. We gave her antibiotics that seem to have helped. Now she just sneezes sometimes. We make sure she has somewhere safe to sleep. In every practical sense, we have accepted responsibility for her.

Belle does not consider this sufficient. Belle wants a home.

And as far as she is concerned, this is it.

Which explains what happens when other cats show up.

Belle becomes Maggie. Not just any Maggie. Elizabeth Taylor’s feisty Maggie in the movie version. Beautiful. Entitled. Determined. A woman who has looked around the room, assessed the competition and decided that whatever happens next, she will be getting her share.

Preferably all of it.

The minute another cat wanders into her territory, she is transformed.

This is her garden.

Her food bowl.

Her people.

She was here first.

And really, she is the center of this entire production.

Mama may be the mother.

Big Daddy may be the patriarch.

The kittens may be the chaotic offspring.

But Belle is the one who knows what she wants.

She wants inside. She wants to be loved. She wants the other cats to understand the hierarchy. And she wants us to stop making excuses about the landlady.

And then the kittens, the supporting cast. They look at you with enormous eyes that say:

You are responsible for me now.

Which, of course, you feel like you are.

They discover the food bowl at some point.

The strange thing about feral cats is that they aren’t really pets.

They are squatters. Freeloaders. Independent contractors. Tiny four-legged members of the community who have somehow turned your property into a branch office. And yet you love them. Even the ones who won’t let you touch them.

You anthropomorphize them. Talk to them like they are people. Neighbors. Because there is something about earning the trust of an animal that has every reason not to trust you.

Which brings me back to yesterday.

After finding the dead kitten, I searched for Mama. I looked for the others. I found no one. I keep wondering if she knows or even cares that her babies are gone.

But today the bowls are still outside. Empty.

I freshened the water. Belle first, of course.

And later in the day, I saw Mama, thin as a shadow, eating around lunchtime, 2pm here.

Because this is Greece.

Cats do not ask permission. They arrive. They reproduce. They survive.

And sometimes, despite everything, they let you love them.

Perhaps that’s the real family story. Perhaps that’s the Tennessee Williams connection.

We don’t choose all the people—or cats—who end up in our lives.

We don’t get to keep everyone we love.

And we certainly don’t get to control the plot.

We keep putting out the food.

We keep the water fresh. We throw out the trash.

We play sometimes. Because in the end, that’s what family does. Our cat families live on those tin roofs, under bushes, in cardboard boxes and abandoned, overgrown plots and beneath what looks feral is a drama of manners, secrets, resentments, power struggles and fights. Nonetheless, our feral friends, our feline families, have four legs, a tail, and the ability to meow; they have absolutely no intention of ever paying rent.

With love,

Karen in Kalamata

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There are so many advice blogs for marriage, children, blah, blah, blah. No one asked me for this, to add to the plethora, but I feel I want to share something with those nascent empty nesters. Those who may fear they may never be the same. It’ll be okay. I say, “Bring on the goofy.” Here’s what goofy can look like, why it matters and what sometimes gets lost under decades of parenting. This January we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

We aren’t trying to reignite a marriage; we’re trying to rediscover the person we fell in love with—and the person we were when we fell in love with them.

I think I knew I had found the right man when, dating, I stood on my mattress and belted out a song into a hairbrush acting as a microphone. Actually, I think we were engaged. Which means he had already seen enough of me to know he wasn’t returning me for a newer model.

I think the song may have been my rendition of Aretha Franklin’s This Will Be (An Everlasting Love). Or maybe something from The Sound of Music. Anyway, it was something that was on TV at the time.

The important thing is that I sang. No inhibitions at all. Total “give it your all” voice. I don’t even recall whether I had clothes or pajamas on.

I was being goofy.

And he laughed.

Not a polite little laugh.

He laughed really hard.

And I loved it. I can’t even explain how much it meant to me.

Because I wasn’t trying to impress him.

I wasn’t trying to be sexy. Well, maybe a little.

I wasn’t trying to be sophisticated or interesting or mysterious.

I was just being me. In my purest sense. In front of a man.

And he thought it was funny. There is something extraordinarily intimate about discovering that you can be completely, gloriously stupid in front of another person and they don’t look at you differently.

They make you feel safe.

And I can’t forget the kayak incident. I was testing him prior to our engagement period.

I loved kayaking. I’d kayaked in the Everglades and around Miami Beach, where we lived. So one day I asked him if he’d like to go. Frankly, I don’t think he’d ever been in a double kayak before in his life.

He said yes.

Just like that. No fuss.

No, “I’ve never done that.”

No, “Are you sure?”

No, “That sounds dangerous.”

Just yes. So we went. And somehow we were in sync.

We paddled together.

Turned together.

Glided through the water together. Marveled at the sea life below.

It was almost miraculous. I remember thinking:

Oh. We can do this.

Then we reached a little island in the bay and wandered around. He said something funny. And I did what I can only describe as my Elaine Benes impression. I gave him the little two-handed push and yipped, “Get outta here!” The problem was that it caught him totally off-guard, and my beloved boyfriend fell over on some leftover shards of beer bottles.

There was probably a moment when we both wondered whether this relationship had taken a terrible turn. And yet we had a wonderful day. Twenty-six years later, we still tell the story.

The kayak. The island. The stupid push. The beer bottle glass. The blood.

The fact that somehow, despite all of this, we kept having fun.

And I think that’s the part that matters.

Because after twenty-five years, a marriage isn’t made up only of anniversaries and vacations and photographs.

It is made up of stories.

Those are the little pieces of glue.

Somewhere along the way, marriage gets in the way of goofy.

We have children.

We become parents. Grandparents, even.

Mothers know where everything is. They remember appointments.

It’s 8:42 on a Tuesday, and your kid comes and says, “I have a project due tomorrow and we must have a tri-fold.” You're the one who first panics and then goes out to get all the materials, and helps all night, even though your son knew about it for a month.

We pick up socks, dirty underwear and moldy towels left wet on the bed.

We pick up toys.

We pick up the same things over and over again because apparently gravity has a special relationship with mothers and children.

We become chauffeurs, cooks, nurses, counselors and disciplinarians.

And somewhere underneath all that responsibility are the people we used to be.

The person who stood on the bed with a hairbrush.

The person who was up for any adventure and who said, “Sure, let’s go kayaking.”

The people who laughed at each other’s silliness.

The person who did something stupid simply because it seemed like fun.

And sometimes, after years of raising children, those two people are exhausted.

Not gone. Just exhausted. And a little forgotten.

And then the day comes: the children leave.

Maybe it’s your first child. Maybe it’s your last. Maybe you’re one of those lucky people whose children leave and then come back and leave again and come back again, keeping you in a permanent state of emotional whiplash.

But eventually there is a moment.

The bedroom is empty. I remember sitting in my son’s bedroom, smelling his pillow, crying into it. Time passed without my awareness.

Nobody yelling from the bathroom that there is no toilet paper. Or staring into a packed refrigerator telling you he’s starving and there’s nothing to eat.

And you realize:

Oh.

It’s just us.

For the first time in years. Maybe for the first time since you had children.

And this is where I think we need to be careful. Because we have been told that the empty nest is freedom.

And it is. But it is also grief. Even if we are thrilled for our children. Even if we are proud. Even if we are secretly delighted that nobody is telling us there’s nothing to eat in this house. You can be enormously happy for your child and deeply sad for yourself at exactly the same time.

That’s not contradictory.

That’s being a parent.

And after the shock wears off—after the tears and the celebrations and the frantic texting and the sudden realization that you don’t know what to do with Tuesday evening—you may look across the room. It may take days. It may take a couple of years, even. But there is a point of no return.

There is your spouse sitting across from you at the dinner table.

The person who has been beside you through all of it.

And perhaps you suddenly see them differently.

Not as Dad.

Not as Mom.

Not as the person who takes out the garbage.

Not as the person who remembers the passwords.

Not as the person who knows how to reset the Wi-Fi.

But as the person underneath all of that.

The person you fell in love with. And maybe you realize something rather uncomfortable. You’ve gotten good at being parents. But you may have gotten a little rusty at being a couple.

I’m not talking about “spicing up your marriage.”

That phrase makes me want to hide under the bed.

I’m talking about something much more fundamental.

Finding the person underneath the parent you had to become.

And doing it when you’re exhausted.

So what do we do?

We just need to find our silly.

Start by remembering.

Ask each other:

What did you love about me when we first met?

What did we do together?

What made us laugh?

What ridiculous things did we do?

What did you think I was going to be like?

And, perhaps most importantly:

What did we used to do that we stopped doing?

You may be surprised by the answers.

Be ridiculous.

This one is harder than it sounds.

After years of being responsible, ridiculousness can feel almost irresponsible.

Try remembering what that felt like.

Flirt.

Not the way you look when you’re wondering whether they remembered to buy milk.

Look at them the way you did when you were dating.

Touch their arm.

Hold their hand.

Send a ridiculous text. Send a nude if you are up for it!

Tell them they look good.

We don’t stop needing to feel desirable simply because we’ve accumulated years.

In fact, we may need it more.

Tell the old stories.

And don’t worry that you’ve told them before.

Tell them again. And again. Make each other laugh out loud.

Those stories are the private mythology of a marriage.

They remind you:

We survived that.

And look at us now.

Look at the person beside you. Really look.

And then, for G-d’s sake—

Do something goofy.

With lots of love and encouragement to you new empty nesters,

K in Kalamata

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Is magical thinking in adults a disease in the DSM, as some believe?

Does it have to go away? I was thinking about this after reading a Stack about people who think it’s unbelievable to have sex in their 80s. To find love as octogenarians. So how are these related? Isn’t love magical?

We tell our children about the Tooth Fairy and Santa. We tell them everything will be alright, even when we aren’t certain about life or the hardships they may encounter, realizing that some things hurt and cannot be fixed.

We “grow up.”

We become adults.

We become practical.

We learn to make appointments, pay bills, meet deadlines, save money, buy houses, build careers, raise children and worry about retirement.

We become very good at reality.

Mortgages and menopause.

Even death.

And somewhere along the way, we lose something.

Or perhaps we put it away.

Because there is a particular kind of magical thinking that I don’t believe has anything to do with the clinical definition of magical thinking. I’m not talking about the belief that your thoughts can control the outside world. I’m certainly not talking about schizophrenia or any psychiatric condition.

I’m talking about something much simpler.

Something I think many of us were born with and then trained ourselves to ignore.

Wonder.

The ability to look at something ordinary and think, My God. Look at that.

The willingness to be surprised.

To be delighted.

To believe, even briefly, that life might contain more than what we can measure.

And after sixty, I think we have earned the right to reclaim it.

Maybe especially after sixty.

Because by then, we’ve spent decades being told what matters.

Work.

Money.

Achievement.

Possessions.

Titles.

The house.

The car.

The marriage.

The investment account.

The number on the scale.

We are constantly encouraged to accumulate evidence that our lives have been worthwhile.

And none of it is particularly magical. A bigger house is still a house. A more expensive car is still a car. A better title is still a title.

I’ve never equated money with successful adulthood. The one time I took a job for money was a disaster. Sure, it’s nice to have, but it cannot make you gasp when the mountain suddenly appears through the morning haze.

Watch the cardinal return to nest nearby every year.

It cannot make the person sitting beside you look at you in exactly the right way.

And it certainly cannot explain why, after sixty, you can still want someone.

That one might be the biggest magic of all.

Sex after sixty

Let’s talk about sex.

Because apparently that’s where it all started. Our bodies change. Our reactions slow down. What defines beauty to us emerges in ways we didn't understand before.

The Stack I read referred to a movie about a woman in her 80s finding love and excitement with a man in his 60s. It made me think about how astonishing society thinks this idea is—not because people in their eighties shouldn’t or don’t have sex. Quite the opposite. It’s astonishing because so much of the Western world quietly tells us that sexuality belongs to the young.

Youth is desirable.

Youth is energetic.

Youth is beautiful.

Youth is allowed to want.

And then, somewhere along the way, women in particular are expected to become invisible.

We are supposed to graduate from desire.

As though sex were a subject we studied in our twenties, became competent at in our thirties, had complicated feelings about in our forties, survived in our fifties—and then retired from in our sixties.

Except the body doesn’t necessarily receive the memo.

Neither does the heart.

And neither does desire.

There is something almost fantastical about believing in sex after sixty.

Not because sex suddenly becomes perfect. It doesn’t. Bodies have opinions. Bodies make demands. Bodies occasionally betray us at precisely the wrong moment.

There are aches.

There are hormones.

There are medications.

There are mirrors.

There are moments when you look at yourself and think, Who is that person?

And then someone touches you.

And for a moment, none of that matters.

You are not sixty.

Or sixty-seven.

Or seventy-five.

You are simply a human being who wants another human being.

That is magic.

And perhaps the most magical part is that it can still surprise you.

You can still blush.

You can still feel that little electrical charge when someone looks at you in a particular way.

Your heart can still behave like an adolescent idiot.

You can still want to be kissed.

You can still want to be desired.

You can still desire.

And perhaps, most importantly, you can still be intoxicated by it.

Bewildered.

To be bewildered is to admit that you don’t understand what is happening.

And perhaps that’s where magic begins.

The magic of being somewhere else

I live in Kalamata, Greece.

And sitting on my terrace in the early morning, I sometimes look toward the mountains and wonder how something so ordinary can look so extraordinary.

The light arrives slowly.

The mountain is there, as it has always been, but the color keeps changing. Sometimes it shimmers. Sometimes it seems almost transparent. And then the sun moves, and suddenly the whole mountain is there again. In the early morning it looks a purplish-gray. Then green. Blue. Yellow. And before the day closes, pink.

I can sit with my drink of choice and watch this happen. Over and over.

Nobody is paying me to watch it. But somehow it feels productive. It feels joyous. Mesmerizing. Twenty minutes doing absolutely nothing except looking. And thinking:

Oh. Look at that.

Tell me that isn’t magical.

The sea does the same thing.

On a calm day, it can look almost indifferent—a huge expanse of blue stretching toward the horizon.

Then the wind comes.

The surface changes.

The water gathers itself into patterns and breaks them apart again. The sea seems to change direction, rhythm, personality.

The same sea.

The same place.

Different light.

Different wind.

Different color.

Sometimes I watch the light bounce off church domes and rooftops.

A flash of gold.

A sudden white brilliance gleens from a metal vent, spinning atop the roof across the street, its light blinding.

A shadow moves across a craggy stone wall.

A bell tolls somewhere in the distance.

A cat meows then disappears.

A woman wrapped in a towel hangs laundry from a balcony.

Someone calls to a neighbor across the street.

None of these things is extraordinary.

And yet, together they spark the simple joy of recognizing life as magical.

Not believing that I can wish something into existence.

Not believing that my thoughts control the universe.

Quite the opposite.

It’s realizing how little control I have—and how much beauty there is anyway.

Maybe Peter Pan was right.

We don’t have to grow up.

We don’t need to shed our magical thinking.

We don’t have to be so determined to be correct that we forget to be amazed.

Maybe that’s when we can finally learn to value things that were never on the list.

A mountain in sunlight and haze.

The smell of coffee.

A swim in crystalline water.

The sound of children laughing in the next room.

A hand reaching for yours.

A kiss that lasts longer than it needs to.

The first tomato from the garden.

A cat who has decided you are acceptable.

A glass of wine at sunset.

The sea changing color.

A conversation that makes you think differently.

The sudden realization that you are happy.

Not successful.

Not productive.

Not impressive.

Happy.

Because sitting on my terrace in Kalamata, watching the mountain shimmer in the morning light, watching the Mediterranean change under the wind, watching the sun catch the domes and rooftops, I don’t feel particularly rational.

I feel lucky.

I feel astonished.

I feel alive.

And if someone wants to tell me that the light is simply refracting through the atmosphere, that’s fine.

I know.

I understand the science.

And I don’t care.

It can be science and magic at the same time.

Maybe that’s the trick.

Maybe after sixty we don’t need to choose between knowing how the world works and being amazed that it works at all.

Maybe we can have both.

Maybe we can still believe in fairies.

And goblins.

And mountains that shimmer.

And seas that change their minds.

And impossible love.

And sex.

Especially sex.

Maybe we can allow ourselves to be bewildered again.

Because perhaps bewilderment isn’t what happens when we don’t understand life.

Perhaps magical thinking is what happens when, for one brief moment, we understand just how extraordinary it is.

And I certainly don’t intend to give that up.

How about you? What is magical in your life? Join the conversation.

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“Me? Personally?” I asked. “What exactly did I do?”

“Your whole generation.” That was harsh.

The conversation lingered with me, though. Not because I agreed with all of it, but because it made me realize something. Besides that it’s too much to pin on one age group, it’s not entirely wrong. Each generation passes on changes with consequences they will never live to see.

The whole world seems to be upside down right now. There are those in our generation who can be blamed for the economy, the housing market, cooking the planet, inventing helicopter parenting, handing over our privacy to Silicon Valley, and electing enough questionable politicians to keep late-night comedians employed for decades. We also managed to saddle the next generation with student debt, social media, and an attention span measured in TikToks. I’m probably forgetting something.

If you’ve been following, i beg to defer, you may notice my voice changing a bit. I still find Greece endlessly entertaining. Bureaucracy remains an Olympic sport. Greek pharmacies still stock products I never knew existed. And I will probably never stop writing about the peculiar joy of living in a country where common sense and chaos somehow coexist quite happily.

But lately I’ve found myself asking deeper questions and my husband tells me I’m getting grumpier. Maybe I am getting grumpier. Part of it is age. Or maybe I’m just paying closer attention.

Fifty-five years ago, songwriter Gil Scott-Heron wrote, “The revolution will not be televised.” He meant it was behind closed doors, on the streets, in people’s heads.

But today, that’s no longer the case. The revolution isn’t being hidden from us. It’s being edited, curated, personalized and fed to us 24/7. It’s happening on our screens. Every day we’re handed another outrage, another crisis, another villain, another hero, another billionaire, another scandal, another catastrophe demanding immediate emotional investment. Before we’ve had time to process one, the next one arrives. That’s the revolution.

Nothing ends anymore.

It simply slips down the feed.

We’ve become spectators of our own civilization’s downfall. The irony is that we have access to more information than any generation in history, yet somehow certainty has replaced understanding. We know everything instantly and almost nothing deeply.

And if my son’s generation is right about one thing, perhaps it’s this:

Maybe the world they’ve inherited has the potential to destroy itself with unlimited data and push notifications. Maybe my son is right.

Not about the whole generation being at fault. No generation gets all the blame, just as no generation gets all the credit. History is far more complicated than that.

Our parents—Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation”—raised us after surviving depression and war. They believed in sacrifice, duty, and institutions. Then along came Dr. Benjamin Spock, encouraging parents to trust themselves, to replace fear with understanding, and authority with kindness. It was revolutionary. In many ways, it was also exactly what the world needed.

We embraced it.

Perhaps we embraced it without fully understanding that freedom without responsibility eventually becomes something else.

We wanted our children to think for themselves. To question authority. To speak up. To have choices and access to information we never had. But while we were giving them more freedom, we may have been paying less attention to the world we were handing them.

Somewhere along the way, politics became performance. News became entertainment. Outrage became currency. And our attention—the one resource none of us can replenish—became the most valuable commodity on Earth.

So maybe the revolution isn’t being fought in the streets.

Maybe it’s being fought FOR our minds.

If that’s true, then Gil Scott-Heron got it wrong.

My generation wrote one chapter. Their generation will write the next. The question isn’t whether they’ll do it differently. The question is what kind of story they’ll choose to tell.

Because someday, their children will look at them and ask the very same question my son asked me:

“How did you let this happen?”

With eternal hope,

K in Kalamata

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This post is free, but nothing says, “Keep up the good work!” like a paid subscription. It’s how I make a living these days. Or if you don’t want to commit, but this made you laugh or think, another way to lend one-time support is to buy me a coffee with any amount: ko-fi.com/kdaviskalamata

I guess because I’m living in Greece that I think about and reference Greek prophets, philosophers and gods more than I ever would have imagined. I didn’t even study philosophy until I got my Master’s degree in my fifties. So one could say I’ve started a whole new education.

Right now, half of Greece is losing its collective mind over a movie. Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” opened a couple weeks ago to a quarter-billion dollars worldwode and rave reviews, and depending which corner of Greek commentary you wander into, it’s either a triumphant return of Homer to the big screen or a full-scale desecration of sacred national property — wrong helmets, wrong casting, wrong sandals, wrong settings, wrong everything.

Many of the loudest critics probably haven’t even seen it yet, which somehow makes their opinions even more ridiculous. Remember: in Greece, everyone has an opinion they share with ease and super confidence. The classicists, meanwhile, mostly shrug. Every generation rewrites Homer, they remind us. That’s what we’ve been doing for 2,700 years.

Everyone else is treating costume choices like personal attacks on their ancestors. Watching all this unfold, I realized something.

I finally understand Plato. (Well at a certain level!)

Not because of Nolan’s movie. Because of the reactions.

There’s a wonderful Yiddish word: plotz*. It means to collapse from disbelief, frustration, or sheer emotional overload.

I picture Plato plotzing daily, for different reasons than the movie, of course. What he must feel like watching the rest of us. Not rage, exactly. Something closer to exhaustion of having spent your entire life getting a thing right and watching the world argue passionately about something else entirely. I live only a couple of hours from Athens. Close enough that I could drive to the ruins of the Academy, stand among the stones where Plato taught, cup my hands and yell,

“WE KNOW! WE DIDN’T LISTEN!”

The echo would probably answer in a very stoic but steadfast, “Obviously.”

In The Republic, his famous work, Plato laid out how democracies rot — not through some dramatic coup, but through comfort. Imagine spending your entire life trying to explain — and going so far as to write it all down—how democracies can unravel if people stop valuing knowledge, reason, and education, only to watch humanity — over roughly 2500 years—keep making the same mistakes with newer technology.

Sound familiar?

He warned that societies eventually stop asking, “Who’s most qualified?” and start asking, “Who’s the most entertaining?” He even predicted what happens when thoughtful people decide politics is too messy and opt out:

They end up being governed by their inferiors.

Now before anyone points it out, yes, Plato had some spectacularly bad ideas, too. Censorship was one. Ηe was an elitist and believed society should be ruled by philosopher-kings—a separate class educated from childhood to govern. But on one point, he absolutely nailed it:

A society that stops respecting learning eventually starts celebrating ignorance.

That’s a dangerous trade.

Which brings me back to Greece.

While everyone’s arguing over whether Odysseus’ helmet buckle is historically accurate, I’m imagining Plato standing in the background waving his arms.

“No! Not Homer! Read my book! The sequel explains what’s about to happen!”

Nobody listens.

They’re too busy debating sandals.

Perhaps that’s humanity’s greatest talent. History keeps handing us the answers. We keep arguing about the costumes. We didn’t get where we are by accident. We got here by skipping the reading. At this point, I think Plato has earned two things:

An acknowledgement that he was correct about democracy…and whatever the afterlife serves that’s stronger than hemlock.

Here’s to better days!

K in Kalamata

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*plotz: to explode in aggravation https://www.yiddishslangdictionary.com/word/197939/plotz

Inspired by real people and extraordinary true events from my own family, Impossible Choices is an emotionally charged novel of survival, ambition, betrayal, and moral compromise. Spanning nearly a century—from the fading splendor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Depression-era New York, from Stalinist Romania to the battle for Israel’s creation—it follows three intertwined branches of one family whose fates collide in ways none of them can escape.

Available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle only on Amazon worldwide.

STOP AND SHOP!!! On almost every other corner in Greece, you’ll find a farmakeia, or to us non-Greeks, a pharmacy. But not your ordinary pharmacy the way we think of them, like CVS or Duane Reade in the States or Boots in the UK. Yes, you can fill a prescription. But you can also emerge forty-five minutes later with an armful of products you never intended to buy and are suddenly convinced you can’t live without. These shops carry treasures, and the employees actually know what they are talking about. Greek pharmacies are part delightful emporium, part drugstore, part beauty boutique, part wellness spa, and part “How did I survive without this?” Who needs a doctor when you have a pharmacist who knows every product?

Need sunscreen? Of course. 50 mostly.

A miracle cream for mosquito bites? Naturally.

A shampoo made with Greek honey? Right over there.

A fig-scented shower gel that somehow captures the smell of a fig tree on a hot August afternoon? They have that too. (And yes, it smells exactly like figs ripening in the sun.)

If you’re visiting Greece, leave room in your suitcase. Trust me. From fig-scented body washes that actually smell like figs as they are blossoming to the ultimate insect-bite remedies, you’ll wish you had an extra suitcase.

Now I found it very interesting that I wrote a similar piece last year that got maybe 200 views and a bunch of likes. I thought that was good until I saw an Instagram post from a fellow world traveler last week touting many of the same products that got 23.5K LIKES — that’s 23,500 thousand —and over 600 comments! Come on. What is going on here?? Bots? Sponsorships?

I have no bots or sponsorships, and on Substack, about 400 delightful and curious subscribers. On Instagram, I have 2 accounts— “quackcomm” and “Summerplace Art” — which have about 500 followers combined. She has about 683K followers on Instagram. It’s hardly a fair comparison, but there must be something else going on here!

So I thought I’d take another stab at some of the top products this ex-pat, living in Greece, must have, and I think you’ll want to seek out if you visit. Besides every Swiss or French or Korean product, two Greek companies stand out: Apivita and Korres.

Forget olive oil soap. It smells awful and never works well. Don’t even take it home as a gift to show you actually were in Greece. But these products are luxurious and unique.

Here are some pharmacy treasures you’ll see Greeks buying over and over again:

• Frezyderm Velvet Sunscreen — Legendary for its silky, primer-like finish. Even people who hate sunscreen rave about this one. Comes with or without tint.

• After Bite X-Treme and Fenistil Gel — Because Greek mosquitoes apparently skipped charm school. Fenistil is undoubtedly my absolute go-to—immediate

  relief from these nasty gnats.

• Panthenol Extra creams and sprays — The cure-all for sunburns, irritated skin, minor burns, and just about every summer mishap.

• Apivita Express Beauty Face Masks and Body Washes— Single-use masks made with Greek ingredients like pomegranate, aloe, cucumber, royal jelly, and grape.

• Apivita Orange and Honey Shampoo — yum. Between this and the fig body wash, you’ll think you were in the Garden of Eden.

• Korres Body Butters, Eye Cream and Black Pine Plumping Cream — Rich, luxurious, and available in scents that somehow smell like you’ve wandered into a Greek garden.

• Pulvo 47 is one of those legendary Greek pharmacy products that seems to cure everything from scrapes to blisters. A little white spray that’s practically a national treasure. Greeks use it on everything from scraped knees to blisters and burns. When someone first told me it was made from horses, I rolled my eyes. Then I checked the label. Sure enough, one of the active ingredients is horse liver catalase. I don’t pretend to understand the science, but I do understand results. Every medicine cabinet in Greece seems to have a can, and now so does mine.

You’ve been warned! If you’re planning a trip to Greece, don’t just visit the Acropolis. Plan time for a farmakeio…or two…or three. You may not leave with better health. But you’ll definitely leave smelling like fig blossoms, protected from mosquitoes, carrying a can of horse liver extract, and wondering how on earth this became the highlight of your vacation. Oh, and pack lightly.

Welcome to Greece.

Lovingly,

K In Kalamata

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The Brits Are Here! The Brits Are Here!

This is what he would be saying if he were to ride through the small, pristine Ionian island of Paxos this summer.

We’re told every June, right on schedule, the ferries from Corfu and Igoumenitsa on the mainland start disgorging them. Boat after boat. There is no airport on Paxos, but we did see a couple of helicopters heading over, too, dropping off eager jetsetters on their super-yachts, with names like Seventh Pleasure and Super Sexy.

By July, there are a hundred of them for every islander. A population of maybe 2,000 souls, quietly absorbing a summer invasion of 200,000. We are, technically, still in Greece. But you wouldn’t always know it from the queue at the bakery, the blond ladies hissing at the waitresses for more water, the volume at the next table, or the fourth round of beers arriving before the first round of food.

Okay, to be honest, I’ve been trying to work out why it actually bothers me, because “there are a lot of them” isn’t quite it. Paxos gets Italians too, some French, and a boatload of Algerian mafiosos in their black Range Rovers, looking scary enough that you wouldn’t want to cross their paths. Nobody’s writing this post about them. So let me be a little more specific.

I watched an English tourist speak to a nineteen-year-old kid working a six-hour shift in 35-degree heat (95 degrees Fahrenheit) with the patience of a two year old, scolding him for the delay in their food. There’s the beer — always more beer, always right now, an entitlement to service that seems to switch on the moment they step off the ferry, as if a Greek island is a resort chain and not somewhere actual people live and work. A couple kept flagging a packed restaurant that had only 2 waitresses, for more ice. This isn’t something typical for Greeks and the ladies were trying desperately to get everyone’s food on the table first, to the increasing annoyance of the couple, who kept smiling, as if that would make up for their rudeness. And then there’s the noise. Paxos’s whole reputation, its whole point, is quiet — the kind of quiet you can hear the goat bells through. That quiet gets harder to find every July.

I should state this clearly: we were visiting too. So we were tourists as well. Yes, we live in Greece, but Paxos isn’t home — same as anyone stepping off the ferry. So this isn’t really the locals-versus-invaders story I’m making it sound like. It’s something closer to: we wanted to visit an island that still felt like a Grecian one and found that some tourists come in packs and are really annoying. Didn’t they used to say that about “the ugly American”??

It’s not like I’m saying “twenty years ago there was no tourism and now it’s overcrowded and overburdened” because that’s not really it either. What’s at stake is the loss of culture and uniqueness that separates us. Santorini is like a Disney version of Greece these days. It’s a cruise terminal with a view. Mykonos went the same way years ago. Paros and Milos are halfway there, sprouting the same infinity pools and helicopter transfers. Paxos, so far, had resisted. No five-star resorts. No chain hotels. Just houses, rented rooms, family-run suites above someone’s actual kitchen. The wealth on the island hides itself — a few mini-mansions tucked into the verdant hills and limestone cliffs, invisible unless you happen to be out on a boat and catch one through the trees. These days, more people are: the yachts have started finding the blue caves too, nosing into coves that used to belong only to fishermen.

So maybe that’s the real dread. Not that the visitors are loud, or thirsty, or occasionally rude to teenagers carrying trays. It’s that Paxos is one of the last islands still beating to its distinctly local habits and that’s what we went for.

The one time it went genuinely, eerily quiet was during a World Cup match — England against Argentina. We braced. We expected the kind of noise that cracks plates. Nothing. Not a cheer, not a groan. Just silence, which is its own kind of scoreboard. England had lost, and for ninety minutes plus stoppage time, the island got its quiet back for free, no questions asked.

I don’t fully know what to do with any of this yet. I’m not sure it’s fair. I’m not sure it isn’t. I just know that some July afternoon, standing in a queue at the bakery listening to four different conversations about the ferry schedules back to Corfu and the mainland, all in the same accent, I thought: whose island is this, this week?

We’re planning to go again in October, with the last vestiges of summer still hanging on, just before the water gets too cold to jump in without a wetsuit. Paxos has survived Romans, Venetians, French, and actual British rule. It survived being fought over, occupied, and shot at. It will survive this too — a fortnight at a time, one ferry-load, one yacht, one extra round of lagers at a time — because that’s the thing about an island: it doesn’t have to win the argument.

We’re just hoping it’ll be quiet again.

From Kalamata,

Karen

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How many of you have been in elementary school or camp talent shows singing:

“I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee. Won’t my mommy be so proud of me? Yes, I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee...Fuzzy wuzzy. Ouch. He stung me.”

Of every single one of us who acted that song out, complete with the cupped-hands, miming, along with the fake scream, not one of us thought, " This is foreshadowing.” We should have. Because fifty-some years later, that ridiculous little tune turned out to be prophetic.

Did you know that bumblebees and carpenter bees have smooth stingers, allowing them to pull the stinger out and sting repeatedly without dying? And wasps are “social” or “solitary” beings - and either way, they sting? I had no idea about any of that. I thought they all died once they stung. Wrong.

What actually happened —no embellishment necessary—the universe did the comedy writing for me this time.

Nick and I were cruising up the mountain on one of our beloved Messinian roads — the serpentine kind that was designed by the Spartans in 400 BC and hasn’t changed much since. We were voyaging, as we often do, windows down, sun out, some summer wind blowing, not a thought in my head beyond maybe “It’s getting really hot in here.” Peak happiness and sweat. And then I felt it: a flutter. Not a breeze. An odd flutter, right up my shorts, uninvited, like some tiny airborne intruder had decided my private parts were prime real estate.

I did what any reasonable, dignified adult woman would do. I shrieked as loud as I could, like I’d seen a ghost and started swatting at my own thighs with the kind of frantic, full-body violence usually reserved for putting out a fire. My husband, who was driving at the time and had done absolutely nothing to deserve this, screamed at me as he swerved the car to the side, nearly plunging us over the edge of the gorge into the olive groves below. To his credit, we weren’t killed. He just gripped the wheel and said, “Don’t ever do that again!!”

And then — the pain started. Sharp, immediate, unmistakable. “Oops,” I thought, coming out of my shock, with the calm clarity of someone whose body had already accepted its fate before her brain caught up. “He really stung me.”

My middle finger — of all fingers, the one already best suited for expressing my feelings about the situation — began to swell, turn red, then white and hard up and down, and I couldn’t move it at this point. I inspected the scene of the crime. There was a hole in my finger, but no other remnants on the seat or in my shorts. A tiny, rude little entry wound. But no stinger left behind, and no culprit anywhere in sight. No bee. No wasp. Nothing. I jumped out of the car, as did Nick. Whatever it was that stung me had committed the crime and quickly

fled through the same window he entered, leaving me to do the caretaking.

Nick shouted his advice. “Pee on it.” “What? No!!” Then I waited a beat. “Well, you pee on it. It’s easier for you!” “No!!!!” “You need ammonia!!” Huh?? So I poured what we had—water — on it. It did nothing. We got back in the car and continued with our day, me in throbbing agony. He swears I am exaggerating. I swear I am not.

This is, I’ve come to learn, extremely on brand for Greece.

Because Greece does not do things halfway. No complaints. Toughen up, Buttercup. This is a country that has wasps the size of small birds, mosquitoes with the tenacity of debt collectors, gnats that you can’t see, but they notice you, especially when you sleep, and — I did not know this was a sentence I’d ever type — actual hornets that arrived from Asia and decided, you know what, this checks out, we live here now. Vespa orientalis, the oriental hornet, is just casually part of the ecosystem here, cruising around like it pays rent. We’ve referred many times to things that aren’t in the fancy, alluring brochures. This is one of them!

And the Greek response to being stung is a cultural event in its own right. Tell a Greek husband you just got stung, and he will not say, “Oh no, honey, are you okay?” He’ll remedy it the same way he’d remedy it if it were a jellyfish or an urchin in the sea: “Pee on it!” A grandmother might tell you a story about her uncle who was stung by 17 wasps in 1974 and lived to be 98. There is no injury in this country that cannot be reframed as either character-building or, somehow, a new addition to your circulatory system, making you stronger, more immune, better.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there with a finger growing to the size of a small sausage, waiting to Google “what stings but leaves no stinger in Greece” when I get home. Meanwhile, my husband, still slightly traumatized from the near-catastrophe, asks very reasonably whether next time I could scream a little less? I don’t think he said “please.”

No promises. If something with wings decides to stage a surprise attack on me while I’m in a moving vehicle, I cannot guarantee my composure. I can only guarantee volume and action.

So consider this my public service announcement, decades late: that bumblebee song wasn’t a warning about bees. It was a warning about how to act in Greece. Don’t get too comfortable, windows down, wind in your hair, thinking you’ve got it all figured out. Somewhere out there, something small, angry, and airborne is planning to ruin your afternoon. In my case, the three days that followed.

But now that it’s healing, I can laugh and sing! “I’m cruising with a baby bumblebee. Won’t my husband be so proud of me? Oh-Oh, cause I’m cruising with a baby bumblebee... Oh no! Ouch. He stung me.”

Stay safe out there and don’t forget to bring ammonia with you.

K in Kalamata

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For eighteen years — eighteen — we were governed by two Yorkies who together weighed less than a Thanksgiving turkey and were absolutely convinced they were lions in terrier bodies. Well, the female was, at least. She ruled for thirteen years. The other became the Alpha when she died and clocked eighteen, which means he outlasted several presidential administrations and a few of our twenty moves.

So when we finally, decidedly, became a no-dog household and moved to Kalamata, Greece. We told everyone — smugly, repeatedly — that we were done. No more taking orders from something that fits in a purse. I had done my time on poop patrol. No more.

Here is the part where I explain what nincompoops we are but some relief from , some real numbers, because nothing makes a person feel better about their own poor decision-making like discovering statistics.

The setup. Kalamata’s cat population hovers somewhere around a million. (Okay, that is an exaggeration, but it must be near that many. Just go with me on this one.) The human population is roughly 58,000. Do that math, and you get about 20 cats for every person, which is less a “stray cat situation” and more a hostile feline occupation with a small human minority allowed to exist in their proximity. We live in a lovely, gated stone plot with a garden and five-apartment building at its center, and an elevator that I’m fairly sure some cats have also figured out how to work.

Enter Belle. She showed up wearing a pink collar with a bell on it — hence the name, because we are not creative people, we are simply people who notice bells — and she had the unmistakable manner of a cat who used to have a sofa to stretch out on and a name and possibly a small child who dressed her in outfits. She wasn’t feral-skittish. She was indoor-cat friendly, the kind of friendly that says “someone loved me and then someone else made a terrible decision.” Our working theory: an indoor/outdoor cat, dumped by a family who moved, gave up, or simply stopped noticing her. Belle did the sensible thing and auditioned every household in our five-unit building until she found the suckers. That would be us.

We did what an alarming number of people apparently do, which — again, delightfully — has been measured. Fewer than one in five people who feed a stray cat ever go so far as taking it to the vet, so at first we were just going to be responsible, boring, undramatic feeders. Food on the step. No names. No feelings. This lasted about as long as it takes to type that sentence.

I was delighted to find surveys on this exact phenomenon, because it means somewhere a researcher had to write the sentence “why do people feed cats that are not theirs” with a straight face. Estimates of how many households feed cats they don’t technically own range anywhere from about 9% to 47%, with feeding rates ranging from about 15% of households in New Hampshire to 47% in Texas. That’s apparently where this behavior runs wildest. In our case, it was zero percent of households, and then — six weeks later — it was one hundred percent because of us. No stops in between. We started feeding her properly. That means real cat food in a dish. And a water bowl. But we also noticed that she was having trouble breathing, sneezing a lot with yucky…well enough said. She was clearly miserable, and then she started doing the single most effective manipulation tactic in the animal kingdom: every time we opened the car door, she leapt in and sat there, meowing, staring at us with the unmistakable body language of “well, take me to the doctor now, and I will not be discussing this further.”

We went. It was pneumonia.

The bill. I will not print the number, because my husband reads this newsletter, but I will tell you it exceeded the combined cost of an MRI and two of my own doctor visits. This, too, it turns out, is a documented human failing and not just a Kalamata-specific one — surveys of American pet owners regularly find that somewhere between a quarter and nearly half of them spend as much or more on their pet’s healthcare as they do on their own, and roughly a third say their monthly pet costs outpace their monthly self-care budget entirely. So at least I am in excellent, well-researched company. Americans are so gullible!

Here is what nobody tells you about the gap between “we are absolutely not getting another pet” and “we now have a pet”: there is no gap. There is no threshold, no signed contract, no moment of formal surrender. There is just a bell around a cat’s neck, a sneeze, a leap into a car, and suddenly you are standing in a Greek veterinary office paying more than you pay to keep yourself healthy.

Ten years from now, I fully expect to write a companion piece to this one about our years of feline dictatorship, at which point I will have officially replaced one dynasty with another. The Yorkies, wherever they are, would be very unimpressed with how little we’ve learned.

Belle is currently draped in the shade like the diva she is, waiting for her midday snack. The pneumonia seems to have cleared. The fleas are gone. Someone, please, give her a proper home! Please! We beg of you.

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There should be a sign at every street corner.

When we moved to Greece, everyone warned us about the bureaucracy. The language. The heat. The traffic. The shouting. The driving. The white asbestos paint. The roads that look like they could only fit a tricycle but were two-way for cars. My husband had left 30 years ago for America for some of those reasons.

Not one person—not one—mentioned the lure of the bakery. Greece’s true sirens’ call. Those dastardly destinations of delectables. Impossible to miss and devastating to your waistline. You cannot avoid them, no matter what city, village or hamlet you’re in.

This was either a massive oversight or a carefully orchestrated, real mythical plan.

Forget what you know— baklava, spanokopita, powdered-sugar-covered walnut cookies. Those are for amateurs. You cannot walk anywhere in Greece without stumbling upon one with its own specialty. Sometimes two. Occasionally, three on the same block, each fiercely defended by locals who insist theirs is “the best one.”

There are no chain bakeries, like in the States. No Panera with its thousands of stores, Au Bon Pain, which is anything but “bon,” or processed desserts like Entenmann’s or Debbie’s in the grocery stores, where everything arrives boxed, wrapped in plastic or frozen, baked by someone you’ve never met, and somehow tastes the same from coast to coast.

My sister-in-law found the best diples in a gas station mini-mart. Diples are delicate ribbons of dough rolled paper-thin, fried until crisp, folded into beautiful rolls and generously drizzled with honey before being showered with chopped walnuts and cinnamon. They somehow manage to be both feather-light and ever-so indulgent. Turns out the ones she found are actually from a baker in Kalamata who ships them all over the country…including gas station marts.

Greek bakeries are family businesses.

Real ones. The grandfather or grandmother still comes in every morning. The daughter works the register. The grandson makes deliveries. The recipes are older than most countries.

One of my favorites is here in Kalamata. The third generation now runs it, yet every day the patriarch—a nonagenarian papou—still sits proudly in the shop, greeting customers as though they were old friends returning home.

Ask him about the bakery’s famous γαλακτομπούρεκο (galaktoboureko), and don’t expect a short answer. Galaktoboureko is pure Greek magic: silky custard wrapped in delicate layers of clarified phyllo pastry and baked until shatteringly crisp, then soaked in a fragrant lemon-cinnamon syrup. (We have a chef friend who owns a local foodie heaven callmakes it with spicy rosewater. Not for everyone but I really love his special take on it.) The contrast is almost impossible to describe—crackling pastry giving way to warm, velvety custard in the same bite. Then he’ll smile and tell you that every time President Bill Clinton—or Hillary Clinton—visited Athens, one was delivered to the American Embassy because word of his father’s recipe had traveled that far.

And then comes the treasure, if he likes you.

He stands and carefully produces an old leather-bound recipe book, its pages yellowed, frayed, and barely holding together. Every recipe was written by his grandfather by hand decades ago. There are no computers. No digital backups. No corporate headquarters.

Just flour, butter, honey, memory and time.

That’s Greece.

Of course, there’s more!

One of my favorites is μπουγάτσα (bougatsa), perhaps Greece’s greatest breakfast temptation. Flaky phyllo surrounds fillings ranging from creamy vanilla custard dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar to rich cheeses, spinach or savory meats. Every region insists theirs is the original.

Then come the irresistible λουκουμάδες (loukoumades)—small golden dough balls fried until crisp on the outside and airy inside before disappearing beneath rivers of warm honey, cinnamon, and sometimes crushed pistachios or sesame seeds. Think doughnuts, but not. These are not Dunkin’ delights and must be eaten warm. There is one place in Athens that magically gets the honey inside the dessert in a way we have never been able to detect. No shot through the skin. How he does it is a mystery. He’s off Ommonia Square, if you care to find him and figure out the mystery.

Don’t be confused with λουκούμι (loukoumi), Greece’s famous soft confection made from starch and sugar, delicately flavored with rose, bergamot, mastiha or citrus, then dusted with powdered sugar until each piece resembles a tiny jewel. (Really, this comes from Turkey, but don’t say that to a Greek.)

And no Greek bakery would be complete without κουλουράκια (koulourakia), buttery twisted biscuits scented with vanilla or orange zest. These come in all shapes and sizes now. I made the mistake of thinking they were low-cal because they are very plain. But somehow, I know I was wrong! Kalliope, my favorite baker of these in Kalamata, I swear, uses butter, and that’s what makes her so delicious. I just walk in, and she knows what I want. I just need to decide how many.

Depending on the season, you’ll discover μελομακάρονα (melomakarona), spice cookies soaked in honey syrup and topped with crushed walnuts, or κουραμπιέδες (kourabiedes), rich almond shortbread buried beneath an avalanche of powdered sugar guaranteed to decorate your shirt before your second bite. These were always meant for Christmas, but now you see them all year round, covered in chocolate, too.

Every bakery has its own specialties, depending on the season.

Every village has its loyalties.

Every Greek has an opinion. Or two. Or three.

Then there is the bread. Oh, the bread. Bread here isn’t something you buy because you’ve run out. It’s something you anticipate. ANd the shopkeeper will tell you when and when not to buy. “No, she will bring fresh tomorrow.” And then she hands you a cookie for the inconvenience.

Breads come in many sizes and shapes. Country loaves with crackling crusts. Wood-fired sourdoughs with deep, tangy flavor. Barley bread. Whole wheat. Multigrain. Olive bread studded with Kalamata olives. Rustic breads scented with oregano or thyme. Sesame-crusted rounds still warm from the oven.

None of it processed.

None of it needs butter. In truth, that’s one habit I can’t lick. I still love it with butter, even if I get scolded. Break off a piece while it’s still warm, and you suddenly understand why bread has occupied such a sacred place throughout history.

I’ve learned that walking in Greece is less about exercise than temptation management.

You set out intending to buy toothpaste.

You come home carrying a loaf of bread the size of a canoe, six koulourakia, two loukoumades, a slice of galaktoboureko and something filled with pistachio because, well…it seemed rude not to when the baker offered you a free taste.

The baker doesn’t judge.

She smiles.

They’ve seen this happen thousands of times.

In Greece, bakeries don’t just feed people.

They preserve families.

They preserve recipes.

They preserve stories.

And occasionally, they send a slice of galaktoboureko to an American president.

As for my waistline? It’s becoming increasingly omni-coordinate.

What’s your favorite dessert? Post it in comments!

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All the best,

Karen in Kalamata

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Sorah instinctively knew she was pregnant when they boarded the ship in Hamburg, Germany, bound for New York. She hadn’t told anyone. Hearing rumors of rat-infested quarters, the ubiquitous smell of excrement permeating the whole compartment, engines that rattled day and night, not to mention the constant rolling of the sea, Sorah had so many doubts. She wasn’t sure how the three-week trip would treat her, if she’d survive it, or even if she truly were pregnant. She hadn’t been sick at all, as she was with the others. Her body was just used to it at this point, she assumed. What’s one more? She wasn’t showing, and she didn’t want Solomon to worry about her. She would see what happened when they, G-d willing, got to their destination. They both worried enough about Josele and Chaim, who were left behind to continue their studies. Yetta, her eldest, would help her if she got sick.

When the Paukers finally stepped off the overcrowded steamer at what everyone called Kesselhill or Kesselgarten—the mud-slicked wharf where the authorities herded new arrivals like cattle—Solomon Pauker carried two-year-old Gheorghe, who would soon be Americanized as George, bundled against his chest, the boy already squealing in American air. They stood in line for hours, Yetta holding Morris and trading with her father.

“This is as good a time as any to tell you,” Sorah said to the family. Mike would be the only one of their children born on this side of the ocean, a fact she repeated like a prayer as they shuffled through the lines, clutching their single battered valise. She and the baby growing inside her made it through the long journey. A miracle, she thought.

He was born on March 13th. In Jewish belief, the number 13 is considered a symbol of good luck. Even strength. She named him Eliahu ben Shlomo Lev, meaning in praise of the Almighty, as a tribute. All the others, they claim, were born in Austria. At least that’s what they told the officers. In actuality, like the Steinmans, they were in another part of the Habsburg dynasty-- Bukovina. It was common practice for Eastern European Jews to list Austria as their default place of origin, since they were subjects of the Emperor rather than citizens of Romania or the Pale. Austria sounded better than a shtetl—a small, impoverished village — in Romania, anyway.

In New York, he became Mike. His mother, Sorah Razel, was now known as “Rose,” and Shlomo Lev was more commonly called Sol or Solomon Pauker in the new world. The Paukers, like the Steinmans, were steeped in the stubborn pride of the Habsburgs, especially with their two scholars left behind to study at university with the esteemed Professor Mandel. Back there, in 1896, ethnicities still merged. On a single street, one might hear Romanian peasants bargaining with Ruthenian farmers, a cluster of German officials discussing taxes in clipped tones, a Polish priest hurrying past an Armenian merchant, and Jewish students rushing toward their lectures at Franz-Josef University in the province’s main city of Czernowitz. Czernowitz—“Little Vienna”—was like a thriving empire in miniature. The cafés echoed with heated conversations about Zionism, socialism, and love. It was the heart and soul of the Emperor’s dream. Newspapers appeared in half a dozen languages. The air held the sweet arrogance of a city convinced it stood at the center of something modern and promising.

And unlike neighboring lands ruled by the Russian czars and King Carol—where pogroms were state-sanctioned, and the Pale of Settlement cast a long, suffocating shadow—Bukovina extended an unheard-of dignity. Jews were a separate race, a people with rights and civic standing. Not equal, perhaps—not truly—but visible, counted, and allowed to imagine a future. Doctors, lawyers, scholars, professors.

For families like the Paukers, this difference was everything. It meant one could walk the streets without shrinking. It meant a child might dare to dream beyond the boundaries of fear. It meant that, for a brief and fragile moment in history, Bukovina felt less like a corner of empire and more like a promise. Solomon and Rose, like Isaac before them, knew in their bones what was coming. Safety was not guaranteed.

Mike’s oldest brother, Joseph, was born in 1878, followed by Chaim, then Becky, Molly, George and Morris(Meyer). They spoke Yiddish at home, German in school, and later, perfect English. His sisters doted on him as if he were their own child. Yetta, most of all. She had had her own married life and family and was more like a mother to Mike. Her first husband and child died from tuberculosis in Czernowitz. She had nothing left there, so she journeyed to America with the rest of the family. On the boat over, she met a man, whom she quickly married once they got to New York. They had a small apartment in the Bronx. It was difficult for them to learn English, but the younger children helped. In America, all but Yetta lived together on Willet Street in the Lower East Side. Mike was their “American boy,” their Yankee Doodle Dandy. Their hope.

Because Mike was born in America, he was a curiosity to his older siblings and a promise to his mother, who said it like a blessing whenever she was afraid: At least one of mine was born free. Regardless, he grew up amid pickled herring and unpaid bills, whispered Romanian arguments that slid under doors at night, and talked about his brothers, left behind in Czernowitz. The older ones clutched memory like a prayer shawl. He could only guess.

Rose ruled the house with worry and economy; Yetta offered sanctuary. Mike often chose her tiny apartment over the Willet Street tenement, where warmth came from her kitchen rather than the radiator. She had an uncommon tenderness for a woman who’d known hard choices and harder men, and she never mistook discipline for love. Her life was not without sorrow, but she refused to let bitterness unpack and stay.

IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES: WHEN SURVIVAL IS LEFT TO CHANCE IS A SEMIBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL STARTING IN THE 1870S FROM ROMANIA TO NEW YORK TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL. THREE BRANCHES OF ONE FAMILY ARE PITTED AGAINST TIME, CONVICTIONS AND BELIEFS IN THIS IMMIGRATION STORY LIKE NO OTHER. NOW AVAILABLE ONLY ON AMAZON. HARDCOVER, PAPERBACK AND KINDLE.

I think estrogen hijacked my thermostat years ago. For women, there’s our monthly cycle that controls temperature and mood. Then comes perimenopause, which is a real twister that hits you like a thunderstorm when you least expect it. And then the biggie comes: menopause.

“There is something wrong with you,” says my husband often enough to make me growl. He has informed me of this on more than one occasion. Usually, while he’s sitting comfortably in an 80-degree house wearing his usual track shorts and GAP tee-shirt.

Meanwhile, I’m dissolving.

Not glistening.

Not perspiring.

Dissolving.

Sweat is running down my face. My glasses have slid right off my nose. My shirt has become a soaked, wet towel. I definitely will leave a moisture ring on the sofa.

“It’s not that hot,” he says, giving me a dastardly side eye.

Easy for him to say. Swiss engineers apparently designed his internal thermostat. Mine appears to have been assembled by a committee during a heated labor dispute.

After hearing “There’s something wrong with you” often enough, I started wondering if maybe he was right. I’m old enough to be well past menopause and those nasty head-to-toe hot flashes. And then I look at the thermostat, and it’s nowhere near my comfort zone.

Just in case, I did what every woman eventually does after being told she’s imagining things. I went straight to various sources: Claude, my new friend; ChatGPT, my older friend; and even Google, my long-time buddy and go-to.

And, to my immense satisfaction, science took my side.

It turns out there isn’t something wrong with me.

But there is something different. Research consistently shows that women start shivering at a higher experimental temperature than men, feel colder and less comfortable under the same cooling conditions, and perceive their shivering as more intense. On the reverse side, as women age, so do their estrogen levels, which lead to heatwaves —just like we’re experiencing in Europe this summer—only it’s IN our bodies.

Scientists actually call it a narrowing of the thermoneutral zone—the comfortable range of temperatures where your body doesn’t feel compelled to either cool itself down or warm itself up. Claude looked that one up for me.

Before menopause, that comfort zone spans about four degrees Celsius.

After menopause? Less than one.

One.

Which means the temperature that feels pleasantly warm to my husband can feel like I’m standing inside a convection oven.

Suddenly, I wasn’t crazy. I was estrogen-deficient.

And then I discovered something even more fascinating. When estrogen levels fall, these neurons become hyperactive. They mistakenly tell the body it’s overheating, even when it isn’t. Blood vessels widen. Sweat glands leap into action. You experience the full glory of a hot flash.

Then, because your body wasn’t actually overheating in the first place, it overcorrects.

Now you’re freezing.

So within ten minutes, you’ve managed to experience Death Valley and Antarctica without leaving your living room. It’s basically your brain calling the fire department because someone lit a birthday candle.

The funny thing is that for generations women have been told they’re “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” “always cold,” “always hot,” “always touching the thermostat.”

Perhaps we weren’t difficult.

Perhaps we were simply operating an entirely different heating and cooling system.

It also explains something I’ve noticed over the years.

When my husband says he’s comfortable, he’s comfortable. He can remain that way for twelve uninterrupted hours. His body apparently selected a temperature sometime around 1976 and has refused to reconsider it ever since.

Mine, on the other hand, hosts microclimates. Heat waves. Cold fronts. Flash floods. Then chills. Shivers. Imaginary snow in the house.

And while I realize there are people in the world facing real hardships far greater than mine, there is something strangely comforting about discovering that what felt like a personal defect is actually biology doing what biology is supposed to do.

So the next time my husband tells me, “There’s something wrong with you,” I’ll smile sweetly.

“I think not, dear. There isn’t. My hypothalamus misses her estrogen.”

Then I’ll lower the thermostat three degrees while he’s not looking.

After all, science is finally on my side.

And if he gets cold? He can always put on a sweater.

I’ve already taken off everything socially acceptable.

Here’s to summer! If this resonates with you, please tell your own story in the comments!

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Love,

Karen in Kalamata

This post is free, but nothing says, “Keep up the good work!” like a paid subscription. It’s how I make a living these days. Or don’t want to commit, if this made you laugh, another way to lend one-time support is to give a tip of any amount: ko-fi.com/kdaviskalamata

Some people have told me that when I enter a room, I fill it. Not because I’m physically large, but because my personality precedes me and refuses to leave quietly. I can’t even argue with this anymore. I’ve heard it too many times. And yet here is my secret: I am, at my core, an introvert who learned how to perform extroversion seamlessly. Maybe I do it too well.

I love my family, but yes, the woman who “fills rooms” would, on many days, prefer a room with no people in it whatsoever. Ideally, in a villa by the sea. A light breeze. Cheese and crackers. A few good books. Classical music and musical classics. No talking.

Being an introvert perceived as an extrovert is a conundrum anywhere. But when we chose to live in Greece, a country where solitude is viewed less as a preference and more as an early symptom to be monitored, we didn’t really think about this. From conversations to socializing times, it’s sometimes quite a challenge.

The evening begins at ten for most people here.
I would rather be snuggled in my cozy bed by then.

New friends do not simply greet you. They conduct a comprehensive emotional intake assessments, including follow-up questions, neighborhood comparisons, and unsolicited recommendations. Greece doesn’t run on electricity. It runs on conversation, coffee, a little tsipouro and lots of opinions. The electricity is just there as a backup.

And we moved here voluntarily. With my introvert soul fully intact. In America, I thought my husband was an introvert. Here, he’s outwardly focused all the time.

Let me clarify something before the extroverts seize control of the comments section: introversion does not mean shy. It does not mean socially awkward, unfriendly, or sitting in a corner reading Joyce while avoiding eye contact. Well, maybe a little of that. It simply means your focus is inward, reflective, in your own thoughts. And sometimes people—even lovely people—can drain me. Solitude rejuvenates me. Painting and writing restore me. Music makes me flow.

Somewhere early in life, I was alone, a lot. I carry the weight of that with me at all times, no matter how much therapy I have had. I realized as I got a little older that if you don’t control the energy in a room, you disappear into it. You become bored, boring and isolated. Even my mother, on her deathbed, told me I was boring. So to overcome this, I talk too much. Because if you don’t, you’re not even pretty wallpaper. You’re just…there. And I wanted to be part of the conversation. I also realize that sometimes it’s way too much.

So I learned to enter with a different mindset. A little alcohol helps. But couldn’t do that at work!
Tequila shot.
Martini.
Wine, if that’s all that’s available.

Here, in the spirit of solidarity with others who may feel similarly or who Myers-Briggs has assessed as an Introvert-Extrovert, are a few things I suspect most secretly crave (not all the time, mind you) — and what happens to each of them when you live in Greece:

Walking alone in a new city. Heaven.

You go where the street takes you. New sights, new smells, new sounds — and no one asking “where do you want to eat?” for the fourteenth time. No consensus. In Greece, however, walking alone is considered mildly suspicious and possibly sad. Someone may stop to ask if you’re lost. Someone else will ask if you’re okay. A third person will invite you to join their table. They mean it kindly. It is still exhausting.

Not answering to anyone. About anything.

The exquisite freedom of existing without being accountable to a single other human being is something I will never take for granted. In Greece, this freedom is theoretical. Everyone within a three-street radius has a general sense of your schedule, your mood, and what you ate yesterday. This is not surveillance. This is warmth. I know. I know.

An empty house.

Not because you don’t love the people who usually fill it. You do. Deeply. But when the door closes, and the silence lands — that specific, particular silence of a house that is entirely yours — something in your nervous system exhales and then shouts “Woo Hoo!” Every introvert knows exactly what I mean. Non-introverts think this sounds frightful. Greeks think it sounds like a cry for help. I have had to explain, more than once, that I am not lonely. I am recharging. The distinction apparently does not translate.

Scrolling in peace.

The internet is one of the great introverted inventions because it allows you to engage with humanity while remaining safely separate from it. Without someone watching over your shoulder. Without anyone asking what you’re reading, who that is, or why you’re laughing at that. The internet is one of the great introverted pleasures of modern life — you can be deeply, sincerely interested in the world and still want to do it entirely on your own terms. Alone.

The paradox is real.

But I suspect there are far more introverted extroverts walking among us than anyone realizes. We don’t announce ourselves because we’re too busy performing enthusiasm while secretly calculating how soon we can leave without appearing rude.

In Greece, unfortunately, leaving early is considered an act of aggression.

And then there’s another strange contradiction: the same people who say I “fill a room” will often tell me I’m too much once I do.

Too opinionated.
Too loud.
Too present.
Too involved.

So let’s see if I understand correctly: I am expected to be warm but quiet.
Interesting but not overwhelming. I’m not supposed to tell my whole backstory in one go. Interested in others, but don’t ask too many questions.
Present but somehow invisible.

How exactly does one accomplish that? I truly ask sincerely. Please give me some tips.

To be fair, some of the best nights of my life have happened around loud Greek tables where nobody lets you leave, and everybody insists you eat more.

But the paradox is real. I am many things. I contain many facets. Many faults. Many aspirations. And often, every single one of those multitudes would love to be left alone. Preferably somewhere quiet. Preferably with the door closed.

And if you value your life, please don’t knock. But please feel free to slip a comment under the door. Quietly.

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Thanks for reading and making it this far! Are you an introvert, an extrovert or a little of both?

Best,

K in Kalamata

P.S. And if you like historical fiction based on real people and real events, my debut novel Impossible Choices: When Survival is Left to Chance drops on Amazon on June 26th.

This post is free, but nothing says, “Keep up the good work!” like a paid subscription. It’s how I make a living these days. Or don’t want to commit, if this made you laugh, another way to lend one-time support is to give any amount: ko-fi.com/kdaviskalamata

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In Key West, Florida, every evening, people drift toward the same place as if summoned by some ancient god. Boats pull into the harbor. Drinks appear—many drinks. Mostly Margaritas. Tourists and “Conchs” alike lean against rails with anticipation. Strangers began speaking to each other like survivors after a shipwreck.

Then the sun lowers itself, and the crowded throng reacts as if witnessing a miracle.

People cheer. Cannons fire. Bells clang. Someone blasts a foghorn.

Certainly not only there.

African sunsets over Namibia, in the heart of Etosha National Park, are said to be breathtaking and among the most photographed in the world. And then there’s Santorini, here in Greece, the #1 spot. In a restaurant in Methoni, Greece last week, every single person hopped up at some point during the final few minutes of sunset to take one last glorious photograph of the day. Me included. I rarely miss the chance to capture a great sunset.

The other day, I went down that rabbit hole. Maybe people are just grateful for another day. Or an excuse to drink. And somehow, when I joined in, it did not feel ridiculous.

That is the strange part.

Because logically, sunsets should lose their emotional impact around the same time children stop believing in Santa Claus. We know the Earth rotates. We know the sun is not “setting.” We know it will do the same thing tomorrow.

And yet we continue gathering for it like worshippers. Turns out the Bible, Shakespeare, Byron, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology all have theories.

Scientists studying awe have discovered that sunsets trigger something psychologically unusual called the “small self.” For a few moments, the brain stops placing itself at the center of existence. Bills, politics, vanity, unread emails, swollen ankles, grudges, mortality — all temporarily downgraded because the sky has decided to perform.

Research suggests awe can reduce stress and increase feelings of connection and meaning. Which sounds overly poetic until you stand shoulder to shoulder with strangers watching the horizon catch fire and feel your nervous system recalibrate in real time.

But I suspect this obsession goes much deeper than psychology.

The Bible understood humanity’s relationship to light long before neuroscience did.

The very first act of creation in Genesis is not land, animals, or even people.

It is light.

And G-d said, “Let there be Light.”

Not sunlight. Not stars. Light itself.

Ancient rabbis puzzled over that distinction for centuries because the sun does not appear until later. Meaning this first light was understood as something larger: order against chaos, consciousness against emptiness, divine presence entering darkness.

Throughout the Torah and Bible, light is synonymous with wisdom, truth, holiness and life itself.

“Your word is a lamp unto my feet.”

“The light shines in the darkness.”

“The soul of man is the lamp of the Lord.”

Light illuminates us.

And before electricity, this was not abstract theology. Darkness was genuinely dangerous. Night meant exposure, predators, uncertainty, vulnerability. Light meant warmth, safety, community, survival.

Maybe that is why sunsets still feel ceremonial to us. Somewhere deep in the nervous system, the departure of light still registers as an event that matters.

Shakespeare understood this, too.

He used light obsessively, though less as divinity and more as proof of human fragility. Romeo sees Juliet and immediately transforms her into a sunrise:

“It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

But Shakespeare also knew light disappears. In Macbeth, life itself becomes “a brief candle.” In Sonnet 73, he describes aging as twilight after sunset. Beauty becomes more powerful because it is vanishing.

That may explain sunsets better than anything else.

A sunset is beautiful precisely because it cannot be held.

Byron took it further. The Romantics distrusted harsh daylight certainty. They preferred twilight, moonlight, storms and the emotional instability of changing skies. Byron’s famous line —

“She walks in beauty, like the night…”— does not even separate darkness from illumination. Beauty exists in their coexistence. Stars inside darkness. Light against shadow.

And in his terrifying poem Darkness, Byron imagines the extinction of the sun itself. Civilization collapses almost immediately. Humanity burns forests and cities trying desperately to reclaim light.

Which reveals something unsettling: we do not simply enjoy light. We depend on it.

Maybe that is why people around the world applaud sunsets. Not because the day ended, but because it ended correctly. The universe kept its ancient appointment one more time.

In an age where almost everything feels unstable, manipulated, monetized, digitized, accelerated, or broken, the sun still rises without branding itself and sets without asking for subscribers.

It asks nothing from us except attention.

And for six or seven minutes, people give it willingly.

Even the loud ones.Especially the loud ones.

Perhaps sunsets are the closest thing modern society has left to collective prayer — a temporary gathering of strangers facing the same direction, silently acknowledging something larger than themselves.

Or maybe humans are simply ancient creatures with nervous systems still shaped by firelight and dawn.

Either way, whether it’s over the Methoni castle in the Peloponnese, the village of Oia on Santorini, the plains of Africa, when the bells ring out in Key West, and several hundred slightly drunk strangers cheer because the sun slipped beneath the horizon again, it suddenly seems less absurd than deeply, almost embarrassingly, human.

All the best,

K in Kalamata

P.S. And if you like historical fiction based on real people and real events, my debut novel Impossible Choices: When Survival is Left to Chance drops on Amazon on June 26th.

We met in the United States, online, which confused both of our mothers across continents and oceans. Yet here we are, twenty-five years later. Together we raised a teenager and a newborn and spent 23 years bouncing between Florida, New York, California, and back to Florida. What I did not realize until we moved to Greece two years ago was that my husband had two operating systems: US Version 1.0 and Greek Poseidon Version 2.0.

Clearly, the man needed to reboot his system. This, I believed, could only happen in his natural habitat. So two years ago, after our sons were on their own paths of adulthood, we moved to Kalamata. Yes, where the olives come from. No, he was raised in Athens and had no connection to the Peloponnese. But that’s for another Substack.

AT FIRST

When you marry a Greek man, you think you’re marrying the man you fell in love with. Handsome. Flexible. Passionate. Easygoing. And you are.

But buried deep in that other operating system is an entire civilization running quietly in the background. You are not marrying a person so much as inheriting a 7,000-year-old unresolved group project that needs therapy and a lot of ouzo or tsipouro.

You inherit Byzantines, Ottomans, Romans, Romaniotes, priests, fishermen, philosophers, amateur historians, cousins who you can’t talk about, and at least a dozen relatives still emotionally processing the fall of Constantinople. (Never say Istanbul.)

At first, it’s intoxicating.

The accent.
The confidence.
The storytelling.
The poetry written during business trips as if he were exiled at sea during the Trojan War. So beautiful. So exotic. So intoxicating.

You think:
How did I live this long without him?

I sang in the shower. Smiled until my cheeks stretched out. Floated through life like someone in a Parisian perfume commercial. Laughed together until it hurt.

Then came the first Greek family gathering. That’s when you realize every single person has an opinion, none of them are shy, and several are prepared to present evidence against you.

Also, sarcasm that works beautifully in New York can cause an international incident in Athens.

Greeks Are Loud

A Greek man can tell a story at a volume usually associated with airport emergencies.

But if you become loud, a complete stranger may politely inform you:
“Skasmos, s’il vous plaît.”

Which means:
“Please shut up.”
With French added for diplomacy.

Your husband may interrupt you constantly. This is considered normal conversation.

If you interrupt him, however, you are suddenly aggressive, emotional, and “creating tension.”

Often it sounds like he’s yelling.

You assume anger.

He is not angry.

This is not schizophrenia.

This is simply being Greek.

Greeks are emotional multitaskers. One minute he sounds like he’s declaring war at the United Nations, the next he’s peeling fruit for you with heartbreaking tenderness.

Or bringing you coffee exactly the way you like it, using a special milk frother he researched for three weeks because “the foam matters.”

Then there are the jokes.

Greek humor makes absolutely no sense to outsiders.

Half the jokes involve villages.
The other half involve a man named Kostas who apparently disgraced himself sometime around 1987.

Then come the idioms, which completely collapse under translation.

“He sat on a banana.”
Meaning: Things went badly.

“We ate the donkey, now we have the tail left.”
Meaning: The hard part is over.

“My eyes became fourteen.”
Meaning: He got furious.

None of this clarifies anything.

Eventually, you stop trying to understand and simply nod while eating grilled fish. My son and I spent years exchanging silent looks across the dinner table, having absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

It truly was all Greek to us.

And nobody warns you about the gossip.

In US Version 1.0, men barely know their neighbors.

In Greek Poseidon 2.0, they operate like emotionally invested intelligence agencies.

Greek men claim to hate drama while personally distributing about 82% of it.

He knows:
who divorced,
who cheated,
whose son became a dentist,
why Giannis no longer speaks to Dimitris,
which cousin secretly has money,
who buried an uncle incorrectly,
and where to buy designer shoes at a discount.

You ask:
“How do you know all this?”

He shrugs:
“People talk.”

And somehow, against all logic, you fall in love with the tumult.

The midnight conversations.
The overfeeding.
The impossible relatives.
The dramatic exits followed by immediate re-entries.

Because Greek men often love with their entire selves.

They laugh whole-heartedly and smile so genuinely that it melts your heart.

They carry groceries like returning war heroes.
Drive three hours to help someone move a couch.
Defend family members they spent all afternoon criticizing.
Insist you eat.
Insist you rest.
Insist everyone come inside immediately because “what kind of people are we otherwise?”

There is loyalty there.
And bravery.
And warmth.
And adventure.

Also mild emotional instability, but in an oddly charming way.

So yes, marrying a Greek man may be hazardous to your peace and quiet.

But it may also ruin you for ordinary life forever.

If this resonated at all with you or made you laugh, please leave a comment and a like!

Leave a comment

Best,

K in Kalamata

This post is free, but nothing says, “Keep up the good work!” like a paid subscription. It’s how I make a living these days. Or don’t want to commit, if this made you laugh, another way to lend one-time support is to with any amount: ko-fi.com/kdaviskalamata

It is June 2026.

Two years ago, we landed at Athens' Venizelos Airport with too many suitcases, racing bicycles, some All-Clad, and absolutely no idea what else we were carrying. Mind you, this was in addition to the 24 boxes we had shipped from our home in Florida that arrived a few months later. And a storage unit full of things we thought our son could use. No furniture. Not too many books. However, even so, it turns out that people drag entire former lives across oceans without realizing it.

So, in honor of two years in Greece, here are ten things I’ve learned — some profound, some ridiculous, and some involving new kinds of alcohol before noon.

1. I learned the Greek alphabet.

This sounds more impressive than it is. I still occasionally confuse letters and stare at signs like they are coded wartime transmissions, but the day Greek stopped looking like hieroglyphics felt like crossing an invisible border. Suddenly, symbols became sounds. Sounds became words. Words became tiny victories. This was the first of many victories.

2. I now possess the vocabulary of roughly a two-year-old.

I can discuss coffee, weather, some specific fruits and vegetables, and various forms of existential exhaustion. I wave my hand and say “Po,po,po!” But if someone suddenly asks me about taxes, philosophy, or plumbing in Greek, I revert to smiling like a confused Labrador. Still, toddlers learn by embarrassment and repetition. Apparently so do expatriates.

3. Spoon sweets are magical.

What are they, you ask? Spoon sweets are fruit preserves that differ from jam and marmalade mainly in texture – oozing with thick, transparent syrup, unlike the soft, pulpy texture of jam, jelly, and marmalade. In the “olden” days, spoon sweets were literally served in a spoon when a gentleman went to his loved one’s home to ask for a hand in marriage. Sour cherry, quince, whole walnuts, and lemon rinds all make perfect confectionery delights. Nowadays, I've learned that they complement Greek yogurt even more than honey does. They also make you put on about ten pounds.

4. Mastiha has secret properties.

Mastiha is made of pine resin and comes from the island of Chios. My first taste came out of a glass bottle and looked like white paste made from Pine-Sol. My son wrapped a dose on a spoon, dipped it in some water, and made a kind of lollipop out of it. Taste it, he urged. Oh, good Lord, was it gross. Little did I know that it soothes stomachs, fixes moods, improves evenings, and somehow turns ordinary conversations into philosophical symposiums after midnight. I now have mastiha pills to help with digestion. But the best part: mastiha liqueur. Sweet, powerful, and pungent. Greece has known all this for centuries. I was simply late to the party.

5. You can leave a country for another, but you don’t leave yourself behind.

People imagine immediate reinvention when they move abroad. Sunlight, sea air, ancient ruins — cue transformation montage. But the truth is stranger. Don’t believe for a second that just by arriving, you’ve passed through some ancient portal that will transform you into a nice person if you were grumpy to begin with. Or will erase all your problems overnight.

You arrive in a new country, you unpack old griefs right alongside your winter sweaters. Adaptation takes time. Reinvention isn’t something geographic. It’s a long, arduous process of really looking at yourself from the inside out. And some days, it will make you cry. That’s normal.

6. History is tangible in Greece.

In America, we are just celebrating 250 years of existence. In Greece, ancient ruins dating back to 6000 BC can interrupt a grocery run. Political arguments casually reference invasions from five hundred years ago. You must never say "Istanbul" when referring to the Turkish city, even though the name changed in 1453 from Constantinople. Family memory extends backward in ways Americans often cannot comprehend.

The past is not over here. It simply changes stones and insignia.

7. I learned how little I actually need and how accommodating Greek manufacturers are.

Not emotionally. Materially. You discover quickly what matters when your life is reduced to what fits inside what you brought and whatever IKEA or another furniture store could deliver within three weeks. And by the way, there are plenty of furniture stores here with Greek-made products. You want a longer bed? Sure, we can do that in our factory. Your couch centimeters shorter? No problem. A return? Of course.

Oddly enough, fewer possessions created more mental space, not just physical, which leads me to the next one.

8. I’m inspired every day.

I don’t know why exactly, but it’s important to find a place that really inspires you to be your best you. Somewhere in these two years, the stories I had carried for decades finally demanded to be written. Was it the light that inspired me? That I had a room of my own to work in? What began as fragments of family history became a novel. Then readers arrived. Then conversations.

And now, 300 pages later, impossibly, Impossible Choices: When Survival is Left to Chance will be published this month. June 26. Amazon.

9. Reinvention is exhausting.

Nobody talks enough about this part, which is why I’m noting it twice. Starting over sounds romantic until you’re trying to open a bank account in another language while wondering why every document suddenly requires three additional documents. Some need signatures from dead people. Or, suddenly, the name on your passport and your marriage certificate does not match.

Reinvention is paperwork.
Reinvention is bureaucracy. Reinvention means making sure your Social Security bill can be processed in your new country. Reinvention means relying on someone who understands how to navigate the system and its quirks. And most of all, reinvention takes patience. More than you’ve ever had to deal with in your life.

10. It’s different when you’re with a partner, and you’re both over 60.

When I moved abroad as a younger person — Mexico, Spain, Hungary, Venezuela — there was a bit of recklessness to it. Reinvention felt romantic then. I was untethered enough to disappear into new places and become someone slightly different each time.

This is not that.

Moving to Greece while married and older, with decades of accumulated life behind us, feels less like an escape and more like relocating an entire ecosystem. Not just belongings, but relationships, routines, losses, expectations, identities, histories, obligations, and versions of ourselves we no longer entirely understand.

We did not arrive empty at this stage of life.
We arrived layered.

Some call it “retirement,” but I believe it’s the wrong word entirely. Nothing about this feels “retired.” Just repurposed. And a lot less stressed.

So if you’re one of the thousands of people who want to move to Europe, think seriously about whether you want reinvention or just an adventure. If it’s an adventure, buy a round-trip plane ticket.

Best,

K in Kalamata

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I haven’t disappeared. I’ve just been ricocheting around the northeastern United States like a carry-on bag with emotional damage.

A few weeks ago, I embarked on my annual pilgrimage “home” to America. I still call it home out of habit, muscle memory, and because after six decades, it feels disloyal not to. Even though I’ve lived in 7 countries and 3 states, I've settled in Greece for the last 2. But each year, visits feel a little less like returning home and a little more like visiting an aggressively renovated museum exhibit called Karen’s Former Life.

This trip was particularly ambitious. Or foolish. Fitting everyone in is nearly impossible, and with everything I did, I still didn’t get to see them all. At my age, the line separating the two has become very thin.

My oldest sister graciously offered me her Manhattan home for the duration, in and out over the course of 2.5 weeks. We both acknowledged how wonderful that was, but it also came with some downsides. At 67, sleeping on a variety of couches for 2.5 weeks is less “bohemian adventure” and more “excruciating lumbar extravaganza.” Every morning began with a symphony of joint pain and me trying to remember where my phone charger, glasses, black tights, and other sundry items were. But I was also greeted by Michelin-level breakfasts that put Martha Stewart to shame, thanks to my brother-in-law.

The 2 1/2 week itinerary looked as though it had been planned by an overly-stimulated Type A person with unresolved childhood trauma (which, in all transparency, it was):

Athens to JFK.
Manhattan.
Woodstock.
Westhampton.
New Jersey barbecue at niece’s.
Back to Manhattan.
New Jersey again.
Then Boston for my 45th college reunion.

Somewhere in there: emotional confrontations, surprise reunions, an opera, a Broadway play, the Frick museum, a lot of driving, not enough sleep, three existential crises, and one truly wicked cup of clam chowduh, as they say in Boston. Whew. I’m exhausted just typing this. Still, so many moments hit me straight in the heart.

After an eleven-hour direct flight to JFK, I met my son at my sister Nancy’s beautiful apartment in Manhattan. We walked a few blocks and had a wonderful French dinner, which he paid for, shocking me so deeply that I briefly considered that a bot had replaced him. Then, naturally, by day three, we argued.

Apparently, as I’ve been told numerous times, I can be a lot. I don’t listen. I don’t change. And all the camps and schools and lessons were for nothing, according to him, for this fine young man who is coming into his own and doing great living and working in the Big Apple. It’s called, I’m told by friends, “individuation.” Separation. I get it, but it was harsh.

I prefer to refer to myself as “highly evolved with very strong opinions,” but fine. I heard him, maybe for the first time, because what he said later, after an apology for calling me out, made sense.

The strange thing about adult children is that they have to separate before they can come back and eventually become your friends, which is lovely until they start holding up mirrors you did not ask to look into. There were feelings. Accusations. Some emotional archaeology. Then apologies, hugs, and the kind of honesty families usually avoid until someone lands in either therapy or hospice.

Progress. We start now with a clean slate and acknowledgement that we are our own people and probably won’t change, but are aware of the consequences and truly do love each other. No one makes me laugh as my son does. No one has the exquisite taste in music and devotion to esoteric movies, food, and travel as he does. He amazes me with his talents, so I hope I can be chill enough for him to realize how much I appreciate him. And I pray I can keep my mouth shut and give him the space he needs.

Then came Kingston, New York — New York’s first capital and now apparently the capital of artisanal pickles, yoga barns, and Brooklyn refugees wearing thousand-dollar work boots. The old cornfields I remembered are disappearing. Tourists have arrived. Housing prices are astronomical. The Sears kit homes lining the streets, once just humble little houses, are now spoken about the way Italians discuss Renaissance frescoes.

Everything familiar is still there, but with better branding, culinary refinement, and impatient transplanted city folk.

My sister Jane, meanwhile, runs what can only be described as a luxury canine commune out of her home in the town of Kingston. Alongside her own dog, Baci, there were five visiting dogs underfoot at all times. I spent several days being lovingly herded from room to room by creatures with better hair and lower blood pressure than mine.

But a secret was brewing underneath.

The surprise she had been planning for months. A belated gathering with some of my oldest and dearest friends. I was gobsmacked - completely unprepared for how emotional it would make me. There they were: People who knew me before divorces, illnesses, triumphs, grief, reinventions, grandchildren, disappointments, and survival tied us all together in a strange melange of memories. Friends and relatives who remembered the rollercoaster in our backyard, the neighborhood pranks, the Colgate commercial my cousins were in.

We hugged longer now. Nobody was pretending anymore. It was overwhelmingly wonderful and left me speechless.

Off to Westhampton for an overnight stay and a Mother’s Day luncheon. Then off to NJ to my niece’s house to celebrate motherhood.

And Boston? Boston, forty-five years later, barely resembles the city we once knew. The old rough edges have been polished into luxury condos and biotech laboratories. The students still look impossibly young, but now everyone else somehow looks older than my professors once did. Especially the men!

At the reunion itself, we all performed the same ritual:
Squint at the nametag, drink in hand.
Being in our sixties, we all did away with any pretension of recognition. Instead, it was “I have no idea who you are, but it’s great to meet you!” or “OMG, you look fantastic!” “You haven’t changed a bit!”
We were no longer comparing futures. We were comparing survival stories, health dramas, life, really.

By the end of the trip, I was physically overfed, emotionally wrecked, and six pounds heavier. I came back to Greece carrying too much luggage, too many thoughts, and the unsettling realization that the America I miss may no longer actually exist.

Or maybe it does.

Maybe home was never the cities, the streets, the cornfields, or the apartments and houses. Maybe it was just those fleeting moments around kitchen tables and restaurant booths where people who have known you forever look at your older face and still see every version of you at once.

A street corner in Manhattan.
A diner conversation in New Jersey.
A dog barking in Kingston.
An old friend laughing in Boston.
My son rolling his eyes at me in Brooklyn.

Here. There. Everywhere.

Scattered across geography, memory, and time.

Maybe that’s what happens eventually. “Home” stops being a place you return to and becomes a collection of people, arguments, meals, jokes, old stories, and ghosts you keep revisiting wherever they happen to appear.

Still, after 2.5 weeks of airports, couches, emotional breakthroughs, and enough driving to qualify as a long-haul trucker, I can report with certainty that nostalgia is absolutely exhausting.

Though frankly, next time, I may need orthopedic support and a decent mattress.

With love and gratitude for everyone who made this trip special, I’m glad to be sleeping in my own bed!

K in Kalamata

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I’ve recently stumbled into what I am now calling—without medical credentials but with great conviction—the Greek Trifecta of Health: mastiha, olive oil, and mountain tea.

Had I stayed in the United States, I would still probably be politely shaking my head at my friends, as they regaled about what is giving them energy, pretending to enjoy something involving kale and apple cider vinegar.

Let’s be honest. Back in the States, every friend had a “miracle” drink. There was always a mason jar involved. Apple cider vinegar with turmeric and cayenne. Green sludge with protein powder that smelled faintly of lawn clippings. Everyone swore by something. I swore at most of it. I was firmly in the “eat whatever and hope for the best” camp…until my body staged a quiet coup and suddenly my husband and I are reading labels like a detectives in a crime series.

Then we were advised to change our diets to the Mediterranean way of life, so we moved to Greece, where my husband grew up. Not Athens, but Kalamata, where there is zero interest in marketing funnels or influencer odes. Besides the ubiquitous olives everywhere, this new life has given me three things that have been around longer than most countries and said, essentially: Here. Try not to ruin this. This is healthy.

THE GREEK TRIFECTA

First: Mastiha. This is where things nearly ended between me and Greece.

Mastiha, this resin from trees that grow on the island of Chios, is technically edible, medicinal and, at first encounter, deeply suspicious. The first time I tried it was about twenty years ago when someone handed me what looked like a jar of craft glue and suggested I scoop it out with a spook, drop it in water, and then chew it.

Chew it.

It tasted like a pine tree filed a complaint. The texture? Somewhere between candle wax and a poor life decision. It did not go well, although my stepson swore by its flavor, remembering it as a child.

After our move, something happened. I was given some in liqueur form. What’s this delectable, sweet delight, I asked? Mastiha! And not only did I love it, its medicinal qualities have long been known to help digestion, acid reflux, breath freshening and a whole host of other internal maladies. And it works. It’s been used forever, and modern research backs up what Greek grandmothers already knew: this stuff handles gut issues like it has a personal vendetta.

But I still will not chew it.

Next up: Olive oil.

I thought I understood olive oil. I was wrong.

The supermarket EVOO version is polite, bland, sitting in a dark bottle pretending to be healthy. What I met in Greece, especially from our county Messinia, is something else entirely. Peppery, alive, slightly aggressive in a way that suggests it could fix things.

This is where words like polyphenols and hydroxytyrosol enter the chat, and while I don’t pretend to pronounce them correctly, I do understand the outcome: less inflammation, happier heart, smug glow. One oil producer swore a teaspoon in the morning cured erectile dysfuntion. So pour generously, live longer.

And finally: Mountain tea.

This one is the plot twist. I am not a tea person. Tea, to me, was for when I was sick. And then along I tried Mountain Tea. It comes in this wild, unassuming bundle of dried stems picked from places like Mount Olympus, and our very own Taygetos range.

You steep it, and suddenly you’re drinking something earthy, soothing, faintly floral—like Greece decided to calm you down personally. It’s packed with antioxidants, good for immunity, gentle on everything. No caffeine, no drama. Add a little honey, maybe a biscuit or two, and you’ve accidentally created a moment that must be repeated every afternoon around 4 or 5.

These three—mastiha, olive oil, mountain tea—are genuinely good for you. But there’s something else. In Greece, we take our time. We’re not choking down a miracle drink while answering emails and resenting the people on the other end.

People chew the mastiha slowly or sip their sweet aperitif.

They drizzle the olive oil over a salad or take a teaspoon a day.

They sit with the tea.

And somehow, between the resin that tastes like a forest deposit, the oil that could double as currency, and the tea I once would have mocked, I’ve become…healthier. Calmer. Slightly more Greek in spirit, if not in citizenship.

Because now when someone suggests a new miracle drink involving spirulina and suffering, I just smile politely and think:

No, thank you. I have my trifecta. Try it! And let me know how it goes.

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Starting this month, an international fleet of more than 50 tall ships and naval vessels will commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States—250 years ago. And it’s called a “semiquincentennial” celebration. They’ll sail from—dare I say it—the Gulf of Mexico, beginning in New Orleans, threading their way up the coast with some stops, arriving in New York Harbor for the Fourth of July, and then continuing on to Boston like it’s a victory lap two and a half centuries in the making.

The last time this floating pageant came through, I was not sensibly on land with thousands of others. I was my boyfriend’s crew on a 40-foot Morgan sailboat, bobbing in New York Harbor like an optimistic cork among giants.

It was the kind of experience that rearranges your sense of scale. These ships didn’t just land—they arrived in full regalia. Massive, deliberate, unapologetically important. Crews in full dress uniform lined the rails, standing at attention with the kind of discipline that makes you instinctively sit up straighter, even if you’re holding a red plastic cup filled with tequila or rum, wondering if the boat insurance is up to date.

Our captain—let’s call him Captain Nick—was experiencing what can only be described as a full-on emotional event. Equal parts exhilaration and quiet panic. The unspoken understanding among all of us: we were here for history, yes, but also very much trying not to become a headline. Seeing New York as a theatrical set where fireworks and lights in different buildings were planted all over the city was nothing short of spectacular and you wouldn’t be able to see that on land.

And yet—there we were.

By some miracle of seamanship or sheer collective will, we made it through the spectacle and ended up anchoring for the night, not far from the Statue of Liberty.

Sleeping in New York Harbor sounds romantic until you remember that the harbor does not sleep. It shifts, hums, slaps the hull with the steady insistence of something that has places to be. But still—there was that moment, lying there, the skyline blinking, the Lady holding her torch like she’d seen it all before and wasn’t about to comment.

And here’s where it gets a little absurd. Because that was fifty years ago.

Fifty.

Which feels impossible, considering I can still hear the rigging, still see Captain Nick gripping the wheel like a man negotiating with fate, still feel the quiet thrill of being very small in a very large, very American moment.

And now—I’m in Greece, where the locals have bragging rights that include bridges built two thousand years before anyone thought to declare independence from anyone.

Two thousand years BC.

In Greece, a shepherd casually leans against a stone bridge that predates the concept of a nation-state, checks his phone, and moves his goats along.

The Americans are sailing ships up the coast to honor their history.

The Greeks are driving over theirs on the way to lunch.

It’s not even irony—it’s perspective with a sense of humor.

And I find myself oddly loyal to both versions: the loud, triumphant, slightly chaotic celebration of a country still young enough to throw itself a spectacular, if ridiculously expensive birthday… and the quiet, almost indifferent endurance of a place where history isn’t commemorated.

It’s just… still there.

Where will you be from May to July?

With love,

K in Kalamata

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This post is free, but nothing says, “Keep up the good work!” like a paid subscription. It’s how I make a living these days. Or don’t want to commit, if this made you laugh, another way to lend one-time support is to with any amount: ko-fi.com/kdaviskalamata

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