Joan Baez, Birthday Highs, Octopus w/Butter & Sore Feet
"Get dressed up, we're going out." Leonidas said, but wouldn't tell me where we were going. It was my 22
nd birthday, I was pregnant, nauseous and skinny as a rail . . .
dehydrated.
I put on a mini skirt to show off my sexy tan legs, a silky blouse and an ivory necklace he bought me from a Thessaloniki street artist the day before. I slipped on some heels, a big mistake.
Outside the American High School gates we waited for a bus to take us toward the city. It was midday, we'd eaten our big meal of tomato salad', stuffed peppers and octopus, and we'd had our siesta during the hottest hours, so now the sun was soft on the horizon over northern Greece.
We got off the bus in front of a gray round building and he led me to a chair inside the doors where a crowd of people waited before an empty stage. We sat for a moment as he looked around. Suddenly he reached for my hand, "Wait, wrong place!"
We were back on the streets again, my feet sore from running along the sidewalks in heels as cabbies jerked their heads up at us, in the familiar Greek expression of 'no!' and wouldn't stop to let us ride.
Running along a winding sidewalk beside a gigantic stone wall, shoes in one hand and his hand in my other, we soared past people strolling along the block - who spit out sun flower seeds & Greek words I could barely understand.
In the light of dusk, he pulled us through the castle wall gates and toward a huge amphitheatre over looking the Aegean Sea beyond the brightly lit city of Thessaloniki.
Brilliant oranges, yellows and deep red graced the expanse of sky above the ancient ruins of pirates and politics. We let night fall around us while standing in the first row of a stage set up for a concert.
We shared a smoke, and I stood beautiful in the warm breeze among the hotness of youth who waited also, for the stage to fill with rhythm.
"Who's playing?"
He just smiled and said, "Happy birthday Persefawnie"
Out came Joan Baez in flowing dress with eyes of deepest wisdom, speaking to us all in Greek and Turkish, singing Greek songs and telling us all we reminded her of the days of Woodstock.
"Diamonds and Rust" I cried as the crowd roared with pleasure over lyric and festivity. She smiled, but never played the song.
Giggling down the hill we stopped in at a bowling alley and played a game, before running off to catch the bus home again.