The Sambuka season Has Started...
Ipsos seafront is changing by the day.... More bars are throwing back their shutters, more holiday makers are appearing.
Anadi and I ran eight miles at 7am this morning, and already people were swimming in a sea as still as an alpine... As it neared 8am, shops were already rolling up their metal fronts, and the bar tenders could be seen sweeping their floors, preparing for the day ahead....
This little island is starting to buzz and respond to the new energy... In January, Anadi and I ran down this same seafront, mainly in the rain...! When not a soul was about... Silent Ipsos, The whole island, empty, asleep, recovering and readying itself once again for this....
The Sambuka season....
Athena Jane and I drove to the airport to meet Giannis and return his car.... We had no horror stories to tell him...!
As we approached the busy airport, we crept along the entrance road, very slowly, to make sure we spotted him at the liaison point....
'There he is...' I said, just as he stepped out into the road, blue jeans, blue t shirt, his clipboard in hand, waving to us...
'Hello ladies...' he greeted us smiling....
'We've found you', I said 'We have been kerb crawling...'
He looked puzzled...
'Ah you don't know that English expression...?' He shook his head, 'it's a term used for men travelling very slowly along a kerb looking for prostitutes...' I explained...
'Very slow driving looking out for something gorgeous ...' Jane re-iterated..
'Yes ' I said... 'And we found you ...'! We both piped up...
He laughed... And stayed centred in the face of Jane and Julia in 'giggling like we did when we were teenagers' mode.... (not that we were teenagers at the same time!)
Jane and I had plan that we would enjoy a leisurely coffee and chat, before she went through... I was imagining the airport as I have known it - not much going on - the cafe open... And, I know the walk from cafe, to departure gates, to plane is just a hundred yards or so....
We walked through the doors to mayhem, people arriving, and a queue almost as wide as it was long, for the departure gates...
We changed that plan...!
I stayed with Jane until she went through the gate, surrounded by nine German 'Hell's Angels... '
And then walked back out of the airport, to find a taxi had just dropped off a group of folk.... 'Are you free...' He was...
'Could you take me to Sette Vente please....' I texted Anadi to tell him of my new plan, and then rode with the taxi driver telling me about the next four months ahead...
Very busy.... He relies on May, June, July, August and September to earn all the money he needs for the year...
'Apart from two Sundays each month, I work every hour available to me....'
The rhythm of this island.... When the sun shines, and the temperatures rises, everyone works all day, and often almost all night... And when the winter time comes, they rest and recover... Hibernation happens....
Some of the folk are thriving like this, some are reeling from the economic crisis and are more surviving than thriving....
Anadi joined me in Sette Vente, and after a late breakfast, we went on a 'sports fuel mission' to Smash Sports....
My products had been ordered from Athens and arrived today....
We chatted with George, the shop keeper, as I paid, and looking straight at me, he said...
'Did you run Kassios Dias last year...?'
It was at that moment, that I recognised that it was he who had sold me some new shoes from just half an hour before the race....!
He had remembered me and, very impressively, which shoes I bought too....
I reflected on the circles and orbits of our lives, how we cross paths with people, and then often meet again. It feels like we all weave a pattern together, creating our part in the great tapestry of life....
Sometimes of course, we dance in life with the same characters, often for a long time... But others there is a chance meeting, a coming together, an energy exchange in the form of shoes for money, or some such mission, and then off again until the next orbit....
The same happened with Dwight...
In September he helped us fill in our entry form for the triathlon at Ispos , and now eight months later, we wander into his bar, Calypso...
It wasn't until we got chatting and established he loves to run, that I recognised his voice and had a 'flashback ' to the start of the race....
The more open we are to connecting with one another, the more our world keeps expanding, and the more likely we are to notice the energetic patterns and pathways, in the form of the people we meet, unfolding as we journey....