Zorba! Where Did He Come From?
The guy tugs on one of the scarves around his neck. He closes one eye and tilts his head so far to the side it looks like he might fall over. I don’t like the way he looks at me. I think he can read my mind.
Slowly his head comes back to center. “Listen Boss.” Why does he keep calling me that? That’s the same name Zorba calls his friend. He’s creeping me out...
“Life is tricky business. How do we know who to trust and who to avoid? Little Red Riding Hood here has found the strand of golden goodness that runs through my soul. But not you. You seem concerned that I’m going to do you some kind of harm.”
Zorba the Greek has a place near and dear to my heart. When I was traveling and working on the island of Crete at the age of 19, my then British/Cypriot Greek boyfriend introduced me to Nikos Kazantzakis’ book Zorba The Greek. I felt as if I was living Zorba’s story; I was the bookworm and my boyfriend was Zorba. I longed to be that fully emotional, spontaneous person who danced with wild abandon when things went right or wrong. I wasn’t. But I listened and learned from Zorba. I learned to live each moment of life as if it were the most exhilarating moment in time. I am grateful to Zorba for opening my heart to that possibility.
How did Zorba find his way into Flip and Kaylee’s story? A dear friend gave Sliding Into Home a read back in revision/rewrite number 333, I believe. She suggested that Kaylee and Flip needed a bit more magic in their lives, “A wild character from the houseboat community perhaps.”
So I decided to try that on for size. The moment Flip and Kaylee stepped onto the dock of the houseboats Zorba jumped onto the page and took over. I did not write Zorba into this story, he wrote himself into it. His playful magical sense of wonder and wonderful felt like a cross between Willy Wonka and Robin Williams. In fact, because I have always adored Robin Williams and grieved the loss of him walking among us, I was thrilled when I saw him in Zorba.
Zorba of the houseboats became as important and special to Flip and Kaylee as Zorba the Greek had to me so many years ago. Kaylee who is typically more cautious than Flip abandons all caution when it comes to Zorba. She is immediately taken by him. Flip recognizes Zorba’s mental illness and feels wary, but Kaylee experiences Zorba’s unique way of being in the world as an expression of the possibility of the magical. Why wouldn’t she move open heartedly towards that?
I have had the opportunity to work with people who struggle with schizophrenia and other mental illness in both the group home and homeless shelter settings. I also went to school with someone who had severe paranoid schizophrenia and would become quite delusional at times. Sadly, several of those people ended up taking their own lives. The pains of mental illness are real, and schizophrenia is particularly painful because the medications that help calm the mind also, according to the folks I have known, take away the bright and vivid aspects of life.
Zorba may have schizophrenia, or he may be bi-polar, I’m not altogether sure. But the ways in which he is able to see and hear the children with an almost psychic sense of knowing outweighs Flip’s rational mind’s warnings, which gives Flip the opportunity to learn from Zorba how to listen to and believe in himself.
I love Zorba. I can’t imagine Flip and Kaylee’s story without him. I am so very grateful to have had people in my life who have helped me see that mental illness is not something to be afraid or ashamed of. Like Zorba, the folks I have known who struggle with mental illness as it sets them apart from others in society, have also been remarkably insightful, creative, and bright. Zorba is a teacher. May we all learn a little something about opening our hearts and dancing to the music of our emotions with abandon.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.. Did Zorba make you uncomfortable in any way? Explain why.
2. Could you relate more with how immediately Kaylee was drawn to Zorba or with Flip’s initial sense of worry and caution? Do you think the kids should have continued to visit Zorba?