A morning short short, written after breakfast coffee along the Aegean.

Browsing an art gallery, on the way out, I happened to point out to a gentleman that I got a sense was part of the gallery, on a piece being, by the way, particularly stunning.

“Why, thank you,” he said.

I stopped in the doorframe. “It has such movement, it’s alive.”

He went on to describe its journey, with a particular enthusiasm I recognized finally as him being its creator.

“I didn’t realize you were the artist. My compliments are sincere, then.”

He laughed. He shared the attachments one sometimes has over a particular piece, one you know you will never be able to create again. Art that becomes beauty frozen in time. I have seen this with visual artists. For me, there are some prose pieces I know I would not be able to emulate again because of my maturity, shifting focus and interests. Because we are fluid.

He smiled. “You have the most beautiful black eyes.”

I had paid extra attention to my eyes that day, knowing I would not dip into the sea and arise as Racoon Charlie. My paintings and brushstrokes were just drapery to what stirred his comment, but that is also what the whole point of make-up is. Accenting.

He was an older gentleman, French.

“What a nice compliment coming from an artist who knows beautiful work,” I offered back (maybe those last two or three words are me giving myself literary license here, shhh that’s the fun of writing, not knowing what is exactly all fiction and what is truth).

“You don’t see black eyes, anymore,” he continued.

Truth is, this excited me. I can’t recall being called as having black eyes by a man in Greece, but really what excited me was that I finally had live reference to a song I know so well by Markos Vamvakaris. I began to sing it to him. Because much of my Greek was studying the music of 1920s onward, it is my reference point in much of my dialogue in metaphors.

“So I am like the song?

Μαύρα μάτια, μαύρα φρύδια, κατσαρά μαύρα μαλλιά…”

<Black eyes, black eyebrows, black curls>

There, the comparison stops in the description of the woman in that song, except for the next line about the “black olive” on the cheek, and the black olives he will never discover elsewhere on me.

His eyes widened. “You know Greek?”

Here is were I am unsure if he feared he stumbled upon the traps of a lurking Greek father who would set him straight, and it’s here I had to remind myself: I am no longer a girl, I no longer have a father.

He smiled and with a hand gesture presented me to the rest of the store, women.

“You just don’t’ see black eyes anymore, look at them.”

I smile though puzzled–in my world I see them everywhere–say goodbye, and really leave this time, satisfied.

He whispers to me: “Don’t ever change.”