As I stepped off the train onto the dark streets of Monastiraki, it was hard to get my bearings. It was a part of the city where you could look up at night and see the Parthenon all lit up, and I used it as my north star.  

There was no one on the streets. I walked down the very center of the road.

No one would even know if I didn’t arrive in Lesvos, I thought. There is no one waiting there for me. Thia Mary and Theo Angelo would not know to worry for days.

No! I told myself. Shake those thoughts away! You are fine! Just find the hotel and you will be fine.

Aboard the Greek ferry boat named Poseidon Hellas, all I could see was bright blue sky above and clear blue water all around. I had ola, the Greek word for everything. In that moment, that statement felt true.

Both of my grandfathers had died before I was even born. So as a small child, I was always taught that my grandparents were all up in heaven, helping me when I was in need and sharing in all the good times of my life. It became a kind of myth, one I never stopped believing, even as an adult.

On our first beach day, we hiked from Plata Yialos to Paranga beach and came across a beautiful precipice for the perfect picture. There was a white oleander bush and a red-roofed church in the forefront with the blue water in the background. I sent Karin out to the edge, both of us giggling, "Keep climbing. One day you'll be happy we took this picture."

As I sat alone in that airport, between love and hate. Between Manuel and my father. The reality was that I loved my father, and I hated him. Both things were true at that airport, and I didn't know what to do with either one.

Papou Dimitri arrived in the United States from Plomari in 1909. A few years later, he sent a picture of himself back to the Greek church there with a letter on the back asking for them to send him a wife. The church sent Gus’s mother, Yiayia Irini, a 29 year old woman from the village. They met for the first time on Ellis Island and married nine days later in Rockaway New York.

Of course, the very next night was the first time Manuel kissed me, which only added to my confusion, since he’d just told me I was merely his “friend”.

Even though they were first cousins, my mom had never met Niko before. The separations across the oceans were vast in those years. We didn’t have as much connectivity as we do now.

My mom and I loved to dance to the tsifteteli, the Greek belly dance, so we sprang up from our seats and onto the dance floor. Estelle joined us. When we returned to our table, it was filled with drinks; three drinks each! Our waiter Yianni, an awkward, slender Greek with a goofy smile and mustache, had been busy it seemed. I guess everyone in the bar appreciated our dancing.

Chapter 1 is written in third person, a cinematic introduction set in the village of Plomari located on the island of Lesvos. You will notice the name used is Katerina eventhough my actual name is Katina. That’s because that is the name people chose to call me in Greece. There was some negative connotation associated with the name Katina in Greece - so some insisted on calling me Katerina. And it stuck.

As I waited in the security line, I was carrying three things with me – a leave of absence from Yale, a search for my grandfather’s birth certificate in his village, and the quiet hope of finding love.

As he moved and lurched around the dance floor, he looked up at the evening sky, closed his eyes and belted out the words of the ballad with sweet satisfaction.

Michael had never met a single blood relative until he met me in the summer of 2023 on the island of Lesvos.

My Yiayia Theone edited a Greek community cookbook and growing up, it was always used in our kitchen and our cousin’s kitchens.

What I didn't realize – until this year – was that it was published in 1966, the year I was born. And I had not yet read the full preface that she wrote.

She wrote about the islands she had visited and the food she ate there. The Lemonothasos — lemon forest — in Galata. The almond cakes of Mykonos. The sardines of Lesvos. The Froutalia of Andros. Plomari the birthplace of her Yiayia Dafne.

Thirty years later, in the summer of 1997, I went to those same places. I ate those same foods. And only afterward did I go back and read the full preface – connecting it to the places I had visited. She had described it all in her own beautiful words. Long before I ever arrived.

The cookbook was published the year I was born. She died when I was seven. I never really got to know her.

But somehow, she left me a map.

Called to Greece — currently seeking a publisher. More to come.