I had a moment yesterday. Well, I had two. One was before I left home, when I had that half an hour between work and leaving for an appointment; that half hour where you can’t do much except hang around. I happened across a social media post where someone had asked a simple, legitimate question to which there was one simple and legitimate answer, but it took several replies before anyone had the decency to give that answer, which was ‘No’, but which, from a helpful human, also came with an explanation, and that was all that was needed. Before then, though, there had come opinions and unhelpful alternatives, several unnecessary pieces of advice, and then more opinions.

Why can’t people just answer the question? Why do some feel the need to denigrate the question, and thus the asker? The question was a very valid one, and was, basically, ‘Is there anywhere to leave luggage on Symi while you enjoy a day trip here?’ It also applies to anyone having to leave accommodation hours before a ferry, where the accommodation can’t accommodate your left luggage, as some can and some can’t. What do you do with your Louis Vuitton sac de voyage, steamer trunk and hat boxes? Okay, so not everyone travels with a husband like mine, but… No, there are no lockups as you find in cities and maybe on larger islands. The person posting this query also mentioned why they were after this service, and sadly, it’s this kind of detail that feeds judgmental commentators. ‘Why do you want to do that? Do this instead. We always do XYZ, and we’ve been there hundreds of times. Why do you have to bring luggage? You’re not going to enjoy doing that on Symi. You should do this instead…’ Atque ita porro usque ad finem temporis. (And so on until the end of time.)
Reminds me of Kevin Costner in ‘JFK’ reading trial transcripts and hissing, ‘Answer the question.’ Luckily, someone did, simply and without judgement or unhelpful helpfulness, and that was that. I scrolled on through other people’s lives and my moment passed.

The second started when I left home and headed down the KS to visit the dentist. By the time I reached our old shop, I was almost out of kalimeris and cheery greetings. In town, I called into the post office to collect a delivery, and as there was a queue, I went to check our PO box while I waited, and was hailed from behind the counter by, ‘Don’t go,’ and a few seconds later, my delivery was handed across the counter. This happens to all and anyone when there’s more than one person on duty there, so I wasn’t pushing in. And off to chat with the dentist and get those two temp fillings made permanent, and complete that massive opus, and off again to catch the bus. On the way, I had to restock the kalimera cupboard while weaving through the daily arrivals, and these greetings were from people I haven’t seen in months. Cheery greetings from taxi boat captains and their wives selling tickets to someone who last used their service in 2019; from a shop I haven’t needed to use since about the same time; a less informal greeting from Sotiris-the-supermarket that, as per, came with a risqué joke; and from young men and women who weren’t born when I landed here, and who are now running their own businesses. That’s when I had the antidote moment to the earlier one, and it put a smile on my face so much that I treated myself to a taxi home.

As the Baker’s Wife sings in ‘Into the Woods’:
Oh, if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one—!
But if life were only moments
Then you’d never know you had one.
Well, I had two; one virtual and not so pleasant, and the other, real.

Later came frappe hour in the square, which, as you can see, is currently a place for peaceful moments during siesta hours.