Summer 1989.
Me 6 years old and my brother 5.
Our parents are inspired to get a house in Halkidiki for the summer holidays.
While we didn't have our own house in Thessaloniki.
In a settlement of 70 houses that had just been completed.
A wise choice, as it turned out along the way.
We started spending our summers there.
From the day schools closed until they opened.
3 months of joy, relaxation and enjoyment.
Together with the holy creature of this world that is the Aunt Mary.
Our father's aunt who lost her husband somewhere near my birth, did not have children of her own but had HER children. Us.
The aunt is 98, lives alone and is self-sufficient.
I once told her that she would wait for her to iron my wedding suit and then she could leave if she wanted to.
A few days ago he hugged me and said: "He's been making fun of me, you know that?"
"Why;" I ask her.
"Why did you make this cohabitation agreement and I didn't iron your pants and I'm still waiting.
Laughed."
She laughed too.
You still have a way to go, I tell her.
And I gave her the youngest of her great-grandchildren, our 15-month-old Dioni.
Life is a strange thing.
Let the 98-year-old become one with the 1-year-old and communicate.
So in the summers we entered a parallel universe.
Many families gradually came to Trikorfos, the settlement filled up and we were more than 30 children.
Three cakes.
The "big ones", us and the "little ones".
The adults played basketball with opponents from the other settlements and we made a stand.
We also chased the balls into the sea because the barbed wire went in many years later.
We used to play a lot of those old games.
Long ass and the favorite "ayuto" (hide and seek)
In a settlement of so many acres, it could be hours before the game was over.
Sometimes we hid in our houses, we were already eating and they were still looking for us.
There was security.
There were not many cars passing by, then it was already pedestrianized.
The beach is a 1 minute walk away.
The sea is shallow, ideal for children.
And spotless since always until now.
We were with the children all day.
When we got a little older, we used to ride our bikes and go as far as Gerakini (3-4 km) from the "back road" to get bread or for a walk.
There was absolute trust from the parents.
And that wrote in us a lot.
Pure summer friendships.
For some reason that I never analyzed, the Trikorfos kids and I didn't hang out in the winter.
Neither were we (except 1-2 who were family friends before we went there).
It was like having our own Hogwarts where we went in the summers through a magical portal.
I vaguely remember some Dutch people coming and bringing various "illegal" dynamite and fireworks that we secretly bought from our pocket money.
There are so many stories from Trikorfos that deserve to become a book at some point.
Somewhere around 18, as students and constantly playing in summers in beach volleyball tournaments, we kind of left Trikorfos aside.
There have been summers where we may have gone only a few days away from seeing our mother.
Soon after we just had it for sleeping to go every day to beach bars all day.
Good times too.
It was there that we mainly lived with our uncles.
And Aunt Athena.
When she was at her best.
Before he slipped down the hard path he chose in this life and before he left us.
There we experienced love and disappointments and played "bottle" and "truth or dare" and had legal and illegal beach parties.
And now we go there with our children.
2 me, 2 my brother, from 2 Lena, Despina, Elsa, Maria who live in the neighboring houses.
We almost don't fit anymore.
31 years later.
It is so grateful to see them running in the square where we grew up.
To swim in the same sea.
Sometime this year I was explaining to my Nefeli at the beach what it was like when dad and uncle bathed there when they were little kids.
A tear dropped.
Joy, love and gratitude.
It is said that happiness is a collection of moments.
When these moments are in the same place the sum is not numerical.
Not even geometric.
It is exponential to infinity.
Gratitude to these 2 people who not only raised us and generously offered us so much love, but also gave us the opportunity to have this magical paradise of our own.
EN 
EL 
SEVEN DAY MARINA
September 2, 2020Alex great! Full of emotions, emotion and gratitude. Well done!!!