'We Do Not See Things As They Are...'
Yiannis made us a delicious lunch… It is an excellent occasion going to Agnadio’s for a meal… We don’t look at a menu, we get a surprise…
We do say, ‘not too much…’ The Greeks are generous and the plates are piled high; dishes appear for one, that could easily feed two…
But other than that, we sit back, with the stunning view below us and see what he brings…
There is always a huge crusty homemade roll, still warm, wrapped in a napkin in a basket which is brought with a flourish, and some tapenade… And today a round of juicy smoked cheese, grilled and succulent, a platter of grilled mushroom, covered in garlic, olive oil, aubergines in creamy cheese… and then a huge Greek salad, fresh and generous, tossed artistically in a big bowl….
The restaurant was full of the lively chatter of diners. The terrace which felt cool to sit in only a month ago, is now a welcome place to eat our lunch away from the hot bright Mediterranean sun… And below the sea sparkled and shone…
After finishing our meal with some succulent lamb served with a few potatoes, Yiannis brought us coffee and sat with us awhile…
We talked running, and shared our stories of Kassios Dias last weekend… I asked him if he would write 500 words reflecting on ‘How Kassios Dias was for me…’
I am asking a few people this question… will the answers be similar or very different…?
We can all have a similar experience, even the same experience, but have a very different experience of that experience… Different feelings, different emotions, a different physical response, creating a different memory…
This is true of going to see a play, a film at the cinema, a party… We can be there at exactly the same time watching the same play as the person next to us, and take from it something different, come away with a completely different slant…
However hard it can be to remember, and even to believe sometimes, we are wholly responsible for how we see things…
We do not ever need to feel that we are vulnerable and out of control of the world outside us, victims in any way. The more we look within and the more we clear our tension, it becomes easier to examine and challenge our beliefs and our opinions and our structure of the world as we see it. We come to recognize that our way is not ‘the way’…
Anais Nin is quoted as saying “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
But she did not take credit for the words, instead pointing to a major religious Talmudic text…
An example she gives of this is about how two characters named Lillian and Jay reacted very differently to the Seine River in France:
‘Lillian was bewildered by the enormous discrepancy which existed between Jay’s models and what he painted. Together they would walk along the same Seine river, she would see it silky grey, sinuous and glittering, he would draw it opaque with fermented mud, and a shoal of wine bottle corks and weeds caught in the stagnant edges’.
It is why asking different people to tell their story of the same event opens us all to know one another more, to understand each other more; to truly cross the bridge into the world of a person and to step into their shoes…
Yiannis had a different experience of Kassios Dias to me…!
He caught me up at the top of the first steep descent and, along with about twenty others, cantered past me and away down the ‘terrifying to me’ incline while I was clinging to a branch…!
As we approached the end of our long run this morning, we saw Anastasia - who was the third woman in KD last weekend - standing in the middle of the road we were running down, waving enthusiastically…
We first met at the Pantokrator half marathon last September… She is awesome on the rocks and downhills; but the half marathon back then played more into my hands, as there was about seven or even eight miles of road!
We stopped and had a long chat; I asked her how good her English is… ‘Very very good written’ she said ‘not so good speaking as I don’t practice enough…’
‘Would you be willing to be interviewed in writing then? I asked ‘About you and your running, and also about Kassios Dias…?’ she was very keen…
She asked me what I did as well as write and run….
When I told her, she said ‘I could tell you are a therapist from your energy, ‘I am a speech therapist’
‘Ah, we are the same in many ways then’ I said
‘Yes’ she said ‘We love people…’
I agreed
‘We love people, and that is why we love one another…’
We laughed in acknowledgement; and then she ran on up the hill we were coming down, with a promise to meet next weekend at The Metsovo race, and to go and drink some coffee together and look at the view….
