Or should I ask you a question?
…
The smells filled the block before you even turned the corner and saw the oven. When you arrived from outside, it didn't fill your eye.
It had nothing to do with the brand new bakeries that are made with awesome design, imaginative packaging, have baked goods with special ingredients and presentation bordering on the artistic product.
No, this oven was more grounded. She had the cookies on the big baking sheets just as they were and when they were baked there was a simple tulle to protect them from the flies and everything in there screamed handmade.
But the queue outside was really impressive. Everyone waited patiently and cheerfully almost.
In front of us was a group of tourists with a Greek friend explaining to them in English that here they can find "authentic taste".
This was the reputation, the "authentic taste".
That's why we also waited in line.
As we approached, I began to notice the gentleman serving. He looked about 70 to me and was wearing a T-shirt from the Authentic Athens Marathon.
I would later find out he was 84, was the owner and had been doing this job for 70 years.
With each person he served, he exchanged 2-3 conversations, anything but typical.
He was svelte, smiling and of great clarity.
When the tourists ahead of us arrived to be served, their Greek friend quickly took over as interpreter.
Mr. Panagiotis, however, addressed them directly
"Good morning," he told them plainly as if showing them the way to say it.
"I didn't learn English, when I went to school they didn't teach us, when I grow up I will learn it"
We all laughed and the strangers in the group laughed after the translation of what the baker said.
The conversation came alive. The "how old are you?" questions quickly began. "how many years have you been doing this job?" "have you run a marathon?"
We were all shocked by his 84 years. No one expected it.
84 years old and said "when I grow up I will learn".
Not at all sure he said it for fun.
I asked him.
QUESTION: "Until what age can we use the phrase 'when I grow up'?"
He looked at me smiling.
"There is no age as long as we live. As long as we live we will say it"
We got out of there with a light. And with countless delicious sweet pastries.
We didn't talk to each other for a while.
We constantly complain that we are growing up, we talk about being repressed, about what we would change, what we would do otherwise, as if the opportunity had passed.
And there was an 84-year-old upright, cheerful, witty guy setting goals for the future.
An 84-year-old who had nothing to do with the gloom of old age, abandonment and loneliness. It was there present in his life. Without stopping to want and realize.
I started reworking the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?"
A question that stops too early, greatly limiting the time we have to try and be tested.
To discover us.
This question has always confused me.
But that morning, in that oven, I think for the first time the answer became clear to me.
When I grow up I want to be like him, like Mr. Panagiotis who no one has convinced him that everything happens until he is old and he continues to dream free and smiling.
*Photo cover: No. 7, Adulthood (1907) by Hilma af Klint / guggenheim.org