CATEGORY: Little Pieces Of Life

A Small Collection of the Most Spectacular Landings of My Life.

218 – Piraeus – Hymettus

Some stories have a curious way of staying vividly alive, no matter how many years go by. They neither fade nor shrink with time. If anything, they seem to grow richer, gathering warmth with every passing year. Whenever I remember them, I laugh with exactly the same intensity, as though they had happened only yesterday.

This is one of them.

Many years ago, I was standing at the back of a city bus, absentmindedly gazing out of the window. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. It was one of those ordinary journeys that unfold almost automatically—until, without the slightest warning, life decides to turn them into a story. And on that particular day, it did so in the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

Everything changed in the space of a single second. A deafening crash echoed through the bus as the driver slammed on the brakes after colliding with a car.

And I…

I took off.

Not figuratively.

Literally.

At full speed.

Without any intention whatsoever, I found myself flying across the entire length of the bus, desperately trying to regain my balance. For a few brief seconds, I fought a losing battle against gravity, which, as it turned out, had already made up its mind. My unexpected journey ended dramatically at the feet of an elderly gentleman, who looked at me with an expression balanced somewhere between surprise and amusement. I looked back at him, still trying to understand how on earth I had ended up there.

As if my rather dramatic landing weren’t enough, two other ladies—both noticeably overweight—had also been hurled forward, coming to rest right in front of the small door leading into the driver’s cabin, completely blocking his way out. The poor man wanted to get off the bus to see what had happened, but no matter how hard he tried, moving them was simply impossible. Ironically, the very passengers his sudden braking had launched across the bus had now trapped him inside it. The situation became so absurd that several men rushed over to help. Together they tried to move the two women so the driver could finally squeeze through the tiny doorway. It was far from an easy task, which somehow made the entire scene even more hilarious. Thankfully, no one had been hurt, and only a few minutes later, every single one of us was laughing.

People who, only moments earlier, had been complete strangers were suddenly sharing the same laughter. It was as though, for a fleeting instant, that invisible distance we usually keep between ourselves and strangers had quietly dissolved. One violent stop had transformed a crowded city bus into a small gathering of people laughing together at the same wonderfully absurd moment.

Many years have passed since then, and yet every time I think about it, I laugh just as hard. Perhaps because that day reminded me—without ever intending to teach me anything—that life never warns us before it hits the brakes. In a single instant, it can change our direction, throw us off balance, and leave us wondering how we ended up somewhere we never meant to be.

And yet, looking back, I realize that some of my brightest memories were born precisely in moments of complete chaos. Perhaps because those are the moments when, if only for a little while, we let go of the comforting illusion that everything can be controlled. And when that illusion finally falls away, it takes with it a weight we often don’t even realize we’ve been carrying.

Perhaps that is one of life’s most unexpected gifts: reminding us that the stories we treasure most are rarely the ones that unfolded perfectly. They are the ones in which we lost our balance, laughed at ourselves, and continued on our way just a little lighter.

Because sometimes, the most spectacular landings become far more precious than the most flawless journeys.

The Day I Was Defeated by a Plastic Ribbon

There are people who return from every journey with a small souvenir—a refrigerator magnet, a postcard, a pebble collected from a beach, or a photograph to remind them that they were once there. My own collection, however, is rather different. It isn’t made of objects but of… spectacular falls. Each one has its own story, its own personality, almost a life of its own. And the curious thing is that the farther away they drift in time, the funnier they become. It’s as though memory slowly erases the embarrassment, leaving only the laughter behind.

That day, I was simply walking downstairs to take out the rubbish. One of those tiny errands you do almost automatically, never imagining that anything worth remembering could possibly happen. And yet, the stories that stay with us forever often begin exactly like that—with a moment so ordinary it barely seems worth noticing. Then, without the slightest warning, I felt myself losing my balance. At first, I assumed I had simply stumbled. I stepped to the right, then to the left, desperately trying to steady myself, while my body had clearly decided it was no longer interested in following my instructions.

From the outside, I imagine the whole performance must have been delightful to watch. I’m almost certain that anyone observing me would have struggled to decide whether I was improvising to the music from Evdokia’s Zeibekiko or whether I’d had a little more than an afternoon coffee. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had absolutely no idea what was happening. Cars had already come to a stop, and the drivers were watching me with that unmistakable expression that manages to contain several thoughts at once: Is she all right? Should I go and help? Or… what exactly is she doing?

The answer arrived a few seconds later, when I found myself flat on the pavement. A thin plastic packing ribbon, abandoned from some cardboard box, had wrapped itself tightly around my ankles and followed me with every step I took. While I had been fighting to keep my balance, it had been carrying out, with remarkable determination, the careful choreography of my downfall. I looked down at it, and then I burst into laughter. Not the polite smile we offer to disguise embarrassment, but real, wholehearted laughter—the kind that folds you in half and leaves you unable to stand up.

The most beautiful part was that the drivers started laughing too. For a few brief moments, an entire street stood still—not because of frustration or impatience, but because of a shared burst of laughter. It’s remarkable how easily one small human mishap can dissolve the invisible distance between strangers. For those few seconds there were no drivers, no pedestrians, no traffic delays. There were only people laughing together at the same wonderfully absurd scene.

I often think that, as we grow older, we become increasingly determined to protect the image we have of ourselves. We want to appear composed, dignified, sensible. We don’t want to stumble, to make fools of ourselves, or to give anyone a reason to smile at our expense. It’s almost as if we believe maturity means never losing our balance. Life, however, has a magnificent sense of humour. It doesn’t always take a life-changing event to remind us how wonderfully human we are. Sometimes, all it takes is a forgotten plastic ribbon.

Perhaps that is its gentlest lesson. Dignity is not lost the moment we fall. It is lost only when we become afraid to laugh at the fall itself. Of all the tumbles I’ve collected over the years, this remains one of my favourites—not because I ended up on the ground, but because, for a few fleeting seconds, a forgotten plastic ribbon managed to make an entire street forget its hurry and laugh with me.

And every time I come across a discarded plastic ribbon lying on the pavement, I find myself smiling without even realizing it.

I don’t remember the fall.

I remember the most spontaneous zeibekiko of my life.

The Fall on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue

Of course, I could never forget that day on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue. I was walking carefree through the heart of Athens when, without the slightest warning, I slipped on the pavement and landed flat on the ground. It was one of those falls that leave absolutely no room for dignity. There is simply no graceful way to fall like that—only the raw truth of the moment, as sudden as it is absurd.

I stayed on the ground for a few seconds. Not because I was hurt, but because laughter had reached me first. It wasn’t the polite kind of laughter people use to hide embarrassment. It was spontaneous, wholehearted, impossible to contain—the kind that makes you forget where you are and who might be watching. People stopped and turned toward me. Some instinctively took a step forward, ready to help. Others simply waited to make sure I was all right. And I was. I was so perfectly fine that all I could do was laugh with every ounce of myself.

As I was getting back on my feet, a thought crossed my mind that surprised me even more than the fall itself. If this had happened when I was a teenager, I would probably have wanted the pavement to swallow me whole. I would have looked around in panic to see who had witnessed it. I would have convinced myself that everyone was staring, that everyone would remember that humiliating moment forever.

It took me many years to understand that growing older gives us more than experience. It changes our relationship with the eyes of other people. Little by little, we stop spending so much energy trying to appear flawless. We begin to make room for the person we truly are—for our awkward moments, our mistakes and, why not, our spectacular tumbles.

Perhaps maturity is nothing more than that quiet shift. The journey from hoping no one sees you fall to discovering the freedom of getting back up laughing. Dignity isn’t found in never falling. It lives in no longer being afraid of the fall itself.

If anyone still remembers that scene on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, I hope they don’t remember a woman who slipped. I hope they remember a woman who got back on her feet laughing. And as the years go by, I find myself believing more and more that this may be one of the loveliest ways to keep moving through life.

If someone asked me what I truly carried away from all those stories, I wouldn’t say it was the falls. Falls fade. What remains is the laughter that followed them. There was a time when a moment like that would have filled me with embarrassment. I would have searched the crowd to see who had noticed me and wished I could simply disappear. Now, when I revisit those memories, I can barely remember the embarrassment at all. I remember only the laughter. It’s as though time kept what truly mattered and quietly allowed everything else to disappear.

Perhaps that is one of maturity’s greatest gifts. Not that you stop falling—that probably never changes—but that, at some point, you stop counting your falls and begin counting the number of times you stood up smiling. Looking back, I no longer see a woman who kept taking clumsy tumbles. I see a woman who slowly learned to be kinder to herself. A woman who made room for the unexpected, the ridiculous and the beautifully imperfect. Perhaps that, in the end, is the gentlest form of freedom.

And every time I see a discarded plastic ribbon lying on the pavement, I find myself smiling without even realizing it.

I don’t remember the fall.

I remember the most spontaneous zeibekiko of my life.