Don't Worry, Bead Happy

[Guest guest]

Don't Worry, Prayer Bead Happy

Swap worry for handful of beads

"Here were four rooms full of beads: Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem,

Christian and Greek. Made from red and black coral, cedar and

sandalwood, glass, Bakelite, snake's bone or mother-of-pearl, some

strands held as few as 19 beads, others more than 100. Amber was

clearly the material of choice. Most pieces were dated between 1750-

1950."

 

By Mija Riedel

special correspondent

Posted July 6 2003

 

"They're plastic." Aris Evangelinos snatched the komboloi from

Peter's hand and put a match to it. The orange and yellow beads -- my

gift to Peter -- were wrapped in flames. Aris waited, put his nose to

the beads and sniffed. I scanned the beads' edges. Plastic would

melt, amber would burn; Peter's komboloi did neither.

 

We had bought Peter's strand of Greek "worry beads" in Crete a week

earlier, and ever since then we'd been worrying.

 

"Well," I said before Aris could light another match, "what are they?"

 

The komboloi was not the standard olivewood or monochromatic plastic.

Peter's beads looked like geologic tie-dye swirling layers of red,

yellow and orange. The beads, we had been told in the small shop

where we had bought them, were some mixture of amber and stone from

China.

 

"Plastic," said the owner of our hotel when he saw them. He pulled

from a pocket his own komboloi -- deep red, as if cut from a glass of

claret sitting in the sun.

 

"Amber," he said, "from the Komboloi Museum."

 

 

 

Over the past few hundred years, the Greeks have evolved worrying

from a lowly experiment to high art. Worrying became colorful,

rhythmic, sensuous. The komboloi all but cured anxiety. In many

countries, beads are associated with prayer, but on the streets of

contemporary Greece, a komboloi supplies companionship and a certain

chic.

 

Peter wanted one. He wanted an internal, rhythmic grasp of the

whirling or slow, drip-dripping komboloi that he heard everywhere

that sounded like the collective pulse of Greece. Komboloi twirled in

the hands of restaurant patrons waiting for tables. The beads dropped

slowly, one at a time, rapping on the bead below like secret code.

There were rhythms for every mood, lengths for every hand, beads for

every budget.

 

The komboloi, traditionally a male distraction, caught my attention,

too. There was something appealing about an ancient, aesthetic, low-

tech antidote to Palm Pilots, cell phones and the split-second timing

of the 21st century. Stroking beads sends an entirely different

message to the brain than jabbing at keyboards; even rhythms unlock a

portal to a place light years from the office.

 

 

 

Our search to decipher Peter's beads led us to Nafplion and Aris

Evangelinos. The Komboloi Museum is a candy store for the anxious.

One wall is covered in strands of cabernet red, amber orange and

saffron yellow beads. They are smooth to the touch and feel like

poetry to the fingertips. Some are translucent, others built of so

many layers that the eye loses its way before the center is

discerned.

 

In this tree and fortress-filled seaside town on the eastern edge of

the Peloponnesus, Evangelinos repairs older komboloi and sells

contemporary versions of traditional designs. Upstairs is a museum of

rosaries and prayer beads he has collected during 20 years of travel.

 

We did not make a good first impression. Arriving with a komboloi of

questionable quality, we were clearly too ignorant to be buyers of

consequence. I retreated to the museum. Here were four rooms full of

beads: Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem, Christian and Greek. Made from red

and black coral, cedar and sandalwood, glass, Bakelite, snake's bone

or mother-of-pearl, some strands held as few as 19 beads, others more

than 100. Amber was clearly the material of choice. Most pieces were

dated between 1750-1950.

 

By the display of Greek komboloi was a typed sign, heavily edited by

perplexed grammarians passing through: "The only country in the world

that never uses a komboloi for religious purposes. We have take this

habit from the Turks (Moslems). We made it little bit different than

originally was and it became like a toy in our hands helping us to

calm and also to have something to concentrate and gather. ... The

number of the beads is not specified. It depends on the size and the

length related to the size of the hand. The total number of the beads

has to be an odd one."

 

I spent more than an hour studying the beads and flipping through the

book Aris had written about the komboloi, his passion for the beads

passed down to him from his grandfather.

 

"The eyes alone cannot decide which is the best and most beautiful,"

Aris' grandfather had told him. "The fingers and the ears must agree

as well."

 

The most desirable beads, old and made from solid amber, are rare and

costly. Second best are beads made from faturan amber filings

combined with some sort of resin. This is where expertise comes in:

the color of the bead; its weight and shape that account for the

critically important, harmonious "click" of bead on bead. The edges

must be considered; the all-important, final "priest" bead; and the

tassel. What of the cord? Many choices are purely personal, but

certain qualities are unarguably superior to others.

 

I returned to the first floor. So thick was the ancient, mercantile

camaraderie, Peter and Aris might as well have been sitting on

cushions sipping dark, sweet coffee. Peter truly wanted one of Aris'

amber komboloi. But not too expensive.

 

"Do you have any komboloi as fine as the one that belonged to your

grandfather?" I asked.

 

Aris looked up, scanned my eyes. From a drawer under his desk he

pulled a strand of heavy, red, solid amber beads.

 

"This belonged to my grandfather," he said. Peter and I both knew

better than to reach for it. Komboloi etiquette is clear: Never touch

unless you're invited to. Some believe that the komboloi takes on the

aura of its owner, and it can wreck your inner rhythms if someone

else clicks your beads.

 

"Is this the piece that launched your life's journey?" I asked.

Finally Aris smiled.

 

He reached into a drawer hidden beneath the counter and passed Peter

a tangerine-colored komboloi. Slowly, Peter ran the beads through his

fingers. He listened. He rubbed the beads lightly and sniffed the air

above them. Aris went back to work. Eventually, Peter cleared his

throat. Might there not be one more komboloi he might see? Aris

scowled. Peter smiled. The whole process began again.

 

Aris studied Peter's original komboloi -- what combination of resin

and amber, plastic and stone might this be? For Peter, the enigma

only improved his feelings for his DayGlo komboloi.

 

I studied the monochromatic candy-colored komboloi in the window. A

deep claret strand of 19 transparent beads held my eye. For $6,

worrying had never looked so appealing. I took it from the hook,

allowed my fingers and ears their input, and decided these were the

beads for me.

 

Twenty minutes later, Aris slid a strand of faturan komboloi across

the counter. Twenty-one beads, both transparent and opaque, it

radiated a deep warmth and a faint, warm-earth scent. Peter smiled.

Here, at last, was his amber komboloi.

 

 

 

On a flight a few weeks later, we hit bad turbulence. Flight

attendants lunged for airborne breakfast dishes; the captain pushed

for seat belts; I fished for my komboloi.

 

In the seat next to me, an ophthalmologist stowed his Palm Pilot. He

glanced at the strand of symmetrical, crimson beads that I was

squeezing through my fingers. One glowing nugget softly clicked

another.

 

"Turbulence like this is enough to give me religion, too," he said.

 

"Oh, I'm not religious. I'm nervous. These are Greek," I managed.

 

The light in the beads or their soothing rhythm caught his 2-year old

daughter's attention. She reached for them.

 

His wife, arms clenched around the child, studied my technique. The

air got no calmer.

 

"Whatever they are," she said finally, eyeing my nuggets of sunny

claret, "could you work them a little faster?"

 

Mija Riedel's last story for Travel was on taking hula lessons in

Hawaii. She lives in San Francisco.