It’s Greek, to me!
THERE you are, sitting quietly at Portakali, on Saturday morning.

You’re reading Athens Views.

Miss T is at the table too, with you under the big tree outside.

She’s wearing her sage face under her curly salt and pepper crop.

She’s focused on a book, and her short-legged old dog is patrolling, scowling, growling.
Mellie the Marauder you want to call her, the way she acts before she gets to know you.

What’s with these Greek women and their anti-social, suspicious dogs?

They think nothing of making a run for your ankles, whether you are a local or not (the dogs, not the women!).

Gott!

Anyway, you’re just about to dip into A glimpse of life in the early iron age, a story about Exploring the unique settlement of Zagora on the island of Andros, according to the headlines, when Stuart walks up to you.

Stuart? You’ve never met him but remember, this is a tiny village you’re living in.

He’s interested in Vento, because he rescues dogs too.

He tells you a long story about how he and his wife — they are both regulars around here and let their house during the summer months — he tells you how they found two puppies dumped on the side of the road near Sigri, a village about 12km from Eressos; how some English fat cats paid thousands of pounds to get them transported to Heathrow Airport, two braks from Greece.

He waves his arms to demonstrate the size of the country property the dogs are running around on now.

Stuart wants to know about Vento.

You tell him that her name means wind in Greek. You’re holding a newspaper, so you must be intelligent?

He looks puzzled. No, it’s Spanish, he says, with indisputable authority .

Uhoh. You’ve trumpeted your ignorance in your blog. Drat!

There you were making assumptions again: a restaurant called Vento, run by two Greek women, who tell you the word means wind … it must be a Greek word, right?

Wrong!

Assumptions and expectations are not to be trusted. That much is clear.

Miss T raises her eyebrows and says ne? when you (humbly) say you should’ve checked your facts.

The next day, Sunday, you take Vento for her morning walk, and pop in at her place just steps from the gravel road.

You discuss accommodation, since you will be hiring her house for as long as you are in Eressos.

Out of this mansion of a place, with all its mod-cons and a CD collection you really like, into a typical village house: stone, wood, upstairs and downstairs; little wood-burning stove in the tiny sitting room.

You choose the bedroom above it, so you can absorb the warmth from the flue that runs up the wall to the chimaminee.

You’re thinking of when when the cold comes.

You’re very happy the house does not have petroleum heating — petroleum stinks.

And it’s super expensive to use, during winter.

It starts raining. You, Miss T and the dogs go inside.

She fans her face with a piece of paper, and crinkles her nose.

You’re also hit by the smell, since you’re on the sofa next to her.

Hmmm. Vento is living up to her name. Wind.

Thunder whips your ears, it’s so low.

By the afternoon, the sun is out and the Kaftan One is sitting (no, not on your face ha ha), she’s sitting with you on your larney verandah with the plants in pretty pots.

She’s enjoying the late Sunday lunch that you’ve cooked.

She tells you that in Norway they get rebates to dump petroleum heating systems.

They’re encouraged to change to eco-friendly ones.

You tell her about the house: a spacious yard with a big 10-seater table in it; plenty of place to plant vegetables and herbs.

It’s also got a terrace, a stoep at the top of the curling outdoor stairs. They take you, one step at a time, to a first class view of Skala, and the never-ending sea.

You’re going to be sharing this old old place for the first two months, from July 20.

A Turkish woman you have never met will move in, on July 16.

She’s a sanyasa, and will spend a lot of time, you suppose, at the Osho centre that’s plonked in some bushes a short distance from the village.

It must be karma, says Madame X, for she is also a devotee of this fringe cult, and sees karma and past lives in everything.

You were meant to stay with her. Is it karma that you are not?

Which reminds you.

You went to the centre too, once.

You watched Madame sway her head from side to side.

Her shiny auburn-burgundy-red hair (you loaded your suitcase with tons of henna from Fordsburg, Joburg, enough for a lifetime, she said) her hair, it was tied in a knot, a tennis ball size of colour in a colourless room. Six love?!

You saw them all jump up and say Wa, or something like that.

Okaaaaay …

You watched a bearded and bulbous-eyed Mr Osho sitting there, holding forth in a DVD.

He raised a right hand (verily, you bet) and he said I say unto you … well!

That made you do like a donald and duck.

You’re spiritual but you don’t need someone to tell you so, especially a copycat!.

Nor do you want to live by what anybody says, by dogma and cant.

There are certain universal fundamentals and, as far as you are concerned, they do not require the rigidity or control of a so-called teacher, saint or guru to manifest themselves in you.

No!

Life is your teacher. 

Not some Jesus, Buddha, Osho or whatever or whomever is cast in the mould of saviour and light.

You don’t hold it against people, though, the fact that they worship people who name themselves gods.

Since then, like yesterday, you’ve made up your mind about several things.

The Kaftan One, she encourages you, on all sorts of levels.

You get out your notebook and write down things.

What’s more, she and you know what it means to be out, as lesbians for one, since 19 voetsek.

You know what it means to try and be authentic. Real.

You’ve lived open lives. She is a one-breasted cancer survivor, for instance.

She doesn’t do falsies, like Angelina Jolie does. Not even naked on the beach.

No, you don’t do things like that, not if you’ve been in the women’s movement, since the 1970s!

And in bed for eight years with yuppie flu.

Today, her days start at 2pm.

It’s no secret, no shame.

You, on the other hand, have suffered severe and debilitating depression; you have burnt out and cracked up several times.

Each time you have come back lighter, with a newer more beautifully translucent skin.

Each time — and with therapy of course, loads of it — you’ve become honed to better handle this exquisite paradox, this thing we call life.

Living is not easy, no matter what the song says, not even if it is summer time.

The Black Dog bites. Hard. Anywhere, anytime.

Do not underestimate the power of this vicious and indiscriminate beast.

Manage it; keep it at bay. Admit, and submit.

It’s essential to do this, for if you do not confront his mental illness it will, as sure as the dawn breaks and the sun sets, it will manage you; it will bully you.

Jesus many not want Kurt Cobain for a Sunbeam, but the Black Dog sure as hell wants you for a rag doll. It wants you in its jaws, this monster, so it can shake you, break you, bring you down.

It makes breakfast of the brittle and eats the anxious for lunch.

For supper, it takes your soul.

Beware of the Black Dog. It wants to finish you off.

It mauls you even as you whimper, cower under your pillow.

It feeds on the fact that you’re fraught and afraid, terrified in your psychological torment.

You shrink from the beauty of life. You see horror, hostility. It’s everywhere.

You retreat into a cave. Nobody can reach you.

You hide behind booze, drugs, maybe even religion, whatever.

Busy-ness. Anything.

You do everything to not have to admit it. You are sick.

Depression destroys a person. It’s destructive too for those around them.

Your family, and friends, your ex-lovers, shame, they suffered too, for you could not feel love, no, not at all.

You were always blaming someone else! Ruining lovely things.

But that’s depression, it’s not you.

You take a pill because the illness is a critical matter: it is a matter of life and death.

Admitting you were not coping, and getting a diagnosis, and treatment, they were the first steps on your road to wellness; to an emotional equanimity, to a peace within.

It’s hard work getting better. But you have no regrets.

You know that Denial is not only a river in Africa.
You know that sometimes it takes years to climb out from Denial’s murky waters; to free yourself from its dangerous, damning depths.
If you stay there, you drown. As sure as nuts.
(ends)

Bye-bye, Miss Muscles

DARK, low clouds hiss and spit. There’s a gale-force wind and some random drops of rain.

It’s as if the sky is metres from your head, so low are the swollen, sullen heavens.

They match your unruly feelings, these moody mad blues so crazy they make you cry.

Definitely not weather for a barbecue, a method of open-air cooking that South Africans call a braai.

This chicken you’ve marinated for hours, this bird, it must go in the oven, Kaftan One’s little oven, at Skala.

It fits in, just. It’s lying on its back, open-legged, in red wine and olive oil.

Chunks of a whole fresh pear wallow in honey. Fresh thyme and oregano nestle in the fruit; they stick to it, they’re glued to a delectable dressing on a sheet of meat.

Pepper. Some garlic. A bit of this, and that.

The Kaftan One, from Norway, is keen to learn how to build a fire.

She wants to know how to grill and bake food on smouldering, shimmering coals.

But not tonight, Josephine.

Next week, you will give a lesson at Villa Sappho, the Kaftan One’s colourful cottage, down the road from the Kouitou Hotel, a unique establishment indeed.

You will demonstrate your prowess with flame and food.

On this occasion, tonight, Miss Muscles and Krolle, her dog, are the stars of the show.

They shimmer in the glimmer of goodbye.

You, the Kaftan One, Madame and Miss Muscles are just about to start dinner — your knives and forks are poised in mid-air — when there’s a knock at the door.

In walks The Grunter.

She sniffs and snorts as if she’s got no tissues to blow her nose.

WTF? What’s with this woman who’s taking over Miss Muscles’ flat?

She’s sitting next to you but you dare not look at her.

Maybe this is a Nordic cultural practice? Who knows?

Later you notice the snuff box on the table, between you.

Ah. So that’s what all the nose pnuematics is about.

It’s not a late night.

Miss Muscles, Krolle and the Kaftan One are driving to Mytline the next day.

The departing ones will stay at the Sappho Hotel in the island’s capital, and leave from the airport at the crack of dawn on Saturday.

You don’t go with them, as you say you will.

You stay at home, to gather yourself about you.

Two Albanian sisters are here. They’re cleaning windows, washing the floors.

They slosh water everywhere.They shake their heads when you proffer cloth upon cloth.

E5 an hour, each.

Madame pops in to make sure they’re doing their job, then she too waves and leaves.

She’s on her way to unblock her chakras, to paint them free in a village nearby.

You? You waddle around in words. And let them swamp you.

You must be careful not to drown.

(ends)

ps: I am finding that writing a blog every day is utterly exhausting, intellectually and emotionally.

I need time to assimilate and to integrate, to chill, and to not be preoccupied by its contents 24/7.

This is why I will publish Afrodykie’s blog only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, starting from today.

I have a lot of typing to do too, ie inputting reams of poems, pre-computer writing and so on.

After that, I intend to collate my life’s work, and to stack it in a coherent order: poems, journalism, interviews, short stories, film scripts, etc. It is published and unpublished work.

I also intend (please sweet Jesus, and all the gods and goddesses) to complete what I believe to be compelling stories, the ones I have started over many many years.

Retrospect and experience will make them rich, in texture and tone.

Please!

I will also need to do some journalism (maybe a feature a month?) for possible publication.

Hello. I take commissions. Hello. Can anyone hear me? Yooohooo!

So! This work is going to involve a lot of sitting around, and hours and hours of sweat in my office.

You know what they say, one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration…

I imagine I am going to need longer than six months to do this, and to complete it.

It may take the rest of my life. This lifetime! Whatever. It must be done!
(ends)

Summertime, almost

YOU wake to find your heart floating next to you, light and free.

You walk with Vento, who heads to the long grass at the start of the path on the way to the sheep shed.

She stalls, and sniffs the air.

Then you see the sheep, drinking at the water trough.

She’s very sensitive, is your Vento, attuned to your every move. And everything.

Intuitive.

She reminds you of your Rosie-girl, your beautiful cross-breed of indeterminate heritage.

Much like Vento, who is a hunting dog, says Madame X. And purses her lips.

You can’t argue with that!

Rosie-girl died when you were looking after your dad, on his death bed.

So you never had a chance to say goodbye, to hold her when her beloved head sagged to one side, still forever.

Shame. Poor Miss H, in Joburg, South Africa, she had to call the vet, and drag her lifeless body from the house.

It was a portent. You were absent from your father’s death bed, and his funeral.

Sometimes the soul shrinks. And there is nothing you can do.

Sometimes you curl in on yourself, to shield yourself from scarring, from being torn to shreds.

Feelings can claw the life from you.

You have to do this, from time to time, for living’s sake. For love. Of yourself.

There is no merit in turning yourself into a dart board; the target of things that stab.

Never mind. That’s the past. Goodbye pain, hello Eressos, Lesbos, Greece.

You walk into the veld here this week, past Madame’s sea rock, into the side of mountain on the other end of the back of the village.

Fennel, oregano, other herbs and plants you can use for tea and cooking, it all grows profusely along the side of the road.

The day before, you and Madame X go on a road trip.

It is the best day. A long day, together.

There is no blog about it because The Day of the Dancing Cloud has become a template for a story.

Madame, in the way she does, prompts ideas and this one, the route she takes, and the things she tells you, and shows you, they trigger a recognition that it’s time to write about something other than the characters of Eressos.

But never fear, dear reader, there are characters in this story too!

It will take some work, of course, to get this right: facts and poetic writing, but you’ll give it a go.

You look forward to it, for you are on a big learning curve, in more ways than one.

It will be good to get down to basics, to specifics. Seriaaaas mixed with levity.

In the meantime, she arranges to get a housekeeper for you. Pronto.

Gott! It looks like a bomb’s hit this place, she says.

Madame warns that you have to tidy up before the housekeeper arrives, tomorrow, Friday.

You don’t want people talking, she says.

Last night you intend to see what’s going on at the Tourism Board’s function: Painting the Turtle Bridge.

But you don’t get there, even though the Queen Bee organised it; Miss QB who’s lived here all her life.

She knows everything there is to know about everything, and everybody.

Miss QB and her Sappho Travel (Sappho everything, actually) the yearly September celebration of all things Sapphic, the Sappho Women International Eressos Women’s Festival. She rules the roost, she and her business partner, Miss Crew Cut.

Anyway, you land up at Vento again, Vicky and Lena’s place, where you found your dog or rather, the dog found you.

Yummy. Salad and ah, moussaka.

It’s mama’s moussaka you say, kissing your fingers in a bunch on your lips.

Yes, I’m your mama, says Vicky, who cooked it.

She’s smiling from behind the counter. You notice her soft eyes, for the first time.

The till jingles. The tourists are coming.

Today, you’re at Portakali, in Eressos, again. You’re here just about every day.

Arti, your Arti  … from the Kouitou Hotel.

She walks in and tells you about the South Africans who have been staying there.

There’s this link, she says, Greece and South Africa.

Yes.

The English women you met on the beach the other day walk in to Portakali, for old time’s sake.

Let’s call them Belle and Elle, for their names do chime.

They hold your dog while you write. You introduce them to Alexandra (the Great). They laugh.

We used to live here too, the say, and take over Vento’s lead.

Now they are talking to Miss T, the Miss T who tells you, while you’re sitting outside her house drinking coffee and smoking roll-ups yesterday, what you can do with the herbs you’ve picked from the side of the road.

You buy a chicken across the way from Portakali.

You make hand signs so the butcher. You want a flattie, as we call them in South Africa.

Yes, a spatchcock chicken.

Next door you get some charcoal.

You’re cooking tonight. A good old braai. For Miss Muscles’ farewell.

The meat must marinate, and you’ve got washing to hang up. No dirty linen, so far!

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wheelspin
THE style around here is haphazard and nonchalant — including everyone’s transport.
You’ve never seen anything like it, not even in Africa, and that’s saying something.
In Johannesburg, about 25 people can squeeze into a 15-seater minibus taxi, when the necessity arises, but four human beings on a tiny scooter?
You gotta believe it!
Yesterday you’re walking from Eressos to Skala, a distance of about 6km when you include the stretch to the Kafatan One’s nest at the Women’s Beach in front of Da Luz.
You realise you’re taking your life in your hands stepping out into this maelstrom.
The pace may be sedate in these villages but hang, on the road between Eressos and Skala Eressos, they certainly make up for it!
Not everyone though is hell-bent on getting from A to B as quickly as possible, with no regard for life or limb. Not everyone’s bike engine revs like crazy mosquitos.
One bloke comes chugging along with a hand on one handle bar. The other one clutches a fruit that’s heading for his mouth. Chew, chomp, chomp. Chug, chug.
Three chattering teenagers race by, on one scooter. Two of them, their feet hang loose, precariously close to the ground.
Off they go. Laughing. All the way to the beach. Their towels fly behind them
Then the family of four.
Daddy in front with his elbows out like wings, a mother hen protecting her chicks.
He’s leaning forward a little, as if to give the trip some momentum.
Two little ones in the middle, looking this way and that, and mama at the back.
Solid and sure.
These aren’t motorbikes or anything, just ordinary scooters, from tiny to only a bit bigger.
They come in various stages of dishevelment and sometimes you wonder how anyone could sit on a tattered old seat like that.
Just about every one of these two-wheelers is customised.
Plastic crates or baskets or any old something to carry things in are attached to them in various positions: front, back, on the part where they put your feet.
They never know when they might need to come to a sudden and unpredictable halt, and pick some oregano or wild spinach. Fennel, perhaps? Maybe they’ll stop. Simply to stare.
They don’t know when they’ll have to take their dog or dogs somewhere.
Yes, they have to be prepared.
The pooches sit wide-eyed, in their crates. Their ears almost blow back when the bikers race around. But the dogs don’t budge. They dare not!
The cars are another story.
Dusty, whether they are new or not, and dented — if they’re older than one week!
Or so it seems.
Madame X parks her cute car outside your house, where the car park is, for our area of the village.
You wash it, and suddenly it gleams. Pretty thing.
Then it’s time to find the sun visor, for the big front window.
Uhoh…. it’s a long search in that Pandora’s Box of a boot!
Perhaps it’s a Greek thing, or at least an Eressos thing (you don’t know), this carrying your life around in the back of your car.
Everyone seems to do it, even the ex-pats carry a hotch-potch of Gott knows What.
Sometimes this paraphernalia overflows onto the back seat: anything and everything clogs the cars. Ok, not all of them, but it’s not strange to see things, anything lying there, innate.
You see a man on a quad bike. He needs four wheels — the size of him.
He has a very formal and smart carrier tied to the back, the local yokel crate is pinned to the front.
It’s got the residue of some vegetable stuff in it.
You watch him take his right leg in hand to get off his quad. It rises about 10cm as he unseats himself.
Yes, they’re good at constructing mobile contraptions, the people in this area.
There’s even a giant-sized tuk-tuk — dishevelled and rudimentary — that parks in Eressos Square.
It reminds you of Snowy Struthers’ buggered up old Beetle that we used to ride around in at Mazeppa Bay, in the Transkei, South Africa, when we were kids.
One day, us rural types, Snowy and me, we took two Joburg girls for a spin.
We laughed like hell when we rode over a cow pat (on purpose, mind you).
It splashed and splattered onto their legs through the rusted floor of the VW.
Boy, did they shriek, those city girls from the fancy suburbs.
That ruined any chance of success in our amarous overtures.
So, we smoked cigarettes instead, and vomited behind the beach shack at Mazeppa.
You’re remembering this on the way to the beach yesterday.
Your feet in walking boots without socks squish mulberries.
The juice is blood, South African blood. Marikana — the big post-liberation massacre of striking platinum miners. A rape every four minutes too, in your blighted homeland. The murder of lesbians.
Poor thing. South Africa. It’s stuck in an apartheid paradigm — racial tyranny, brutal sexism, and a president who spends R225-million on his private home.
The liberators (sies!) are the opressors now, and the much-vaunted constitution pays lip service to human rights. You could cry, and sometimes you do, it disgusts you so. It hurts, yes it does.
Thankfully, there’s no lurking malevolance or the evil of sinister and indiscriminate violence here.
You breathe a sigh of relief.
The agrarian ambience soothes you; the smell of the earth, sheep shit; the swifts and the swallows go seriously tweet tweet. They’re swooping and soaring, singing with glee.
You love the way there’s always somebody busy on a piece of land, growing something, tilling the soil. The plants are health, so green.
There’s lots of cultivation going on. You see people dropping off fresh stuff at the restaurants, the vegetable shops, the mini-markets.
They park their scooters and walk in with the stuff, fresh and fullsome.
It’s sort of a culture here, this selling from a vehicle.
This doesn’t happen in Athens, says Madame X.
There are any number of trucks, some with loudspeakers, others without.
They carry anything from clothes, to pots and pans, fresh fish in a fridge.
Yesterday there was a van in the sqaure loaded with garlic, long strands of it.
It was a kind of makeshift campervan; garlic at the bottom and then a level above it, for sleeping.
You’re on your way to the butcher, after the beach, to buy a steak for the candlelight dinner you’re imagining for yourself.
It’s the butcher opposite Portakali, where you bought a whole chicken last week, for chicken soup.
You swear it’s free range, even without it carrying a contrived city label telling you so.
He slices a piece of meat for you, and you say Bones for Dogs, please.
Woof woof.
You imagine he will give you the gristle he has chopped off.
No! He goes to his freezer and comes back smiling.
Wow! A whole packet full of meaty bones, for mahalla.
Vento licks her lips. It’s her first bone, and she loves it.
Madame X’s little ones will get theirs soon.
Note to self: maybe it will stop the Yorkie going for the villagers’ legs.
(ends)
ps: You’re happy you’re not brushing your teeth every three hours anymore, in anticipation of Madame X planting a smacker on your loving lips.
You know it. She is never going to kiss you. Period.
pps: Yes, Afrodykie is clever but not clever enough to have come up with the name Afrodykie. That brainwave belongs to Gabrielle Bekes, who sat next to you at the Sunday Times in Johannesburg.
Thank you, Gabrielle, for this wonderful gift. A brand, at last! xxx
(ends)

 

 

Walking into the s-u-u-u-u-u-n

MONDAY May 26.

It would’ve been six weeks to go if you hadn’t behaved like a silly teenager and packed your bags the minute Madame X hugged a slim leggy leg leg. Heavens, it was cunningly encased in a black stocking.

She tilted her head, on Skype, and said you must be ready by now?

Ready? Jesu Maria! Has she heard of a spontaneous orgasm?

Your heart raced and beat faster than a humming bird bats its wings.

WTF, Afrodykie?

You’re not sorry though, that you made the decision to cast all caution to the wind.

Reckless? Daring?

Who cares?

It’s been a wonderful experience, seeing Eressos and Skala Eressos blossom.

They’ve transformed from colourful spring shyness, to the verge of the full-blown glory of summer.

If only love were as predictable as the seasons!

It certainly is as splendid, in its intensity. It spurs you.

Two weeks into a six-month visit to Eressos, and there is a lot more than Madame X to life on a Greek island.

Thanks gott, as she would say. For her, and me!

She proffers a slender neck. It’s laced with Dolce and Gabbana, and a flowering of mixed messages.

Of course, like a twit, you brush your lips along the vertical vein from shoulder to ear, and retreat lest you startle her.

You’re surprised. She actually keeps still long enough for you to complete the manoeuvre!

Enough of that. Let’s move on, please. To things that are not of the heart, nor of an unfathomable connection.

Her word, not mine. You like to call it luuuuuuurv. Ha ha.

So, you open your eyes and see the beach bars at Skala coming to life.

Tourists are wandering around, and here in Eressos, cyclists with pink legs say Kalimera every two minutes.

They nod their heads in their helmets. And smile. Their teeth are very white against their red faces.

You can see they are visitors also because nobody upon nobody around here wears a helmet; not on a bicycle, motorbike or quad bikes. 

As for you, you feel as if you’re in the driver’s seat again, on your bus to better days, around the bed to love, perhaps.

The Kaftan One and you are planning this, that and the next thing. 

Vento, too, is coming along for the ride.

We were fast out the starting blocks this morning, at about seven.

The Landlord’s music got us into a dancing mood:  Kandy Clasic the CD is called, and boy, did we get moving.

Yes, we actually ran, a bit.

Your right ankle is puffed up, like Miss Muscles’ party balloons, but that doesn’t matter.

You’re happy Vento’s your girl. Gentle, intuitive. Loving.

She goes with you just about everywhere.

And curls up at your side. She nudges you to let you know when she needs the ablution block.

Kewl bananas. There’s a relationship here.

She’s a hunting dog, says Madame X. 

You venture Vento may be a cross between a Beagle and a Doberman but no, she’s a hunting dog.

Finish en klaar.

You and Madame X (aka The Filly) are walking the dogs from the village into the Kampos.

I don’t think I’ve been here before, she says, looking around in her dramatic dark glasses.

You feel the tranquility there. Trees, pools of cool water, concealed by the foliage.

Look at those rocks, she says. They’re like sea rocks. The sea must’ve been here, she says.

You step out of the shade to walk further, but she’s had enough.

You notice baby fruit on a tree. 

Almonds, you ask.

She steps closer, and peers at the little blobs of green.

No, it’s a pear tree, she says. Pears

You wonder if she appreciates the pun.

You don’t say anything. Again, for you can sometimes see things where there is nothing.

It’s nice walking around with Madame X and the dogs. Her little ones love it, but one of them is anti-social.

She (not Madame X! though you wouldn’t be surprised) charges out to bite a villager who’s telling us about the old factory.

Yes, everyone speaks Greek to you here. Somehow, you can get the gist of what they are saying, for the language is not only about words and impossible tenses.

It is also about gestures, and facial expressions.

Intonation too. It’s important, and denotes meaning.

You’re keen to start learning Greek, and your vocabulary has improved. 

It consists of about 10 words now, and you can count to five.

From zero to not quite hero.

Miss T laughs.

You know what they say about learning Greek?

The first 100 years are difficult, and then it gets easy!

Like love, you suppose.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ed her chin on h

 

The earth moves but you’re asleep
PHEW. It’s not even 9am and it’s sweat-hot.

Vento and you walk up to the sheep shed in the mountain.

You have lots of company: any manner of insect, butterfly, ant and bird swarms around you — yes, there are even some persistent little critters that stick to your arms.

And then you stop in your tracks.

A trail of ants carries pieces of beige-white grass husk 10 times bigger than themselves, and they’re not mini ants. They’re big and robust. Shiny black, busy blighters.

They scurry, this way and that.

They make a pretty picture in the sparkling morning light.

The textures and colours of the blonde grasses, and the spruced up look of polished ebonite, they are too beautiful.

Magic moves on a pallet of grey volcanic rock, and speckled bits of coarse earth.

It reminds you of the long line of sheep you saw on the hill, opposite your terrace, on the other side of the village.

You are standing there, staring (it’s infectious around here, this staring).

You’re contemplating the wonder of the olive trees climbing to the top of the hill.

Then you notice movement.

Good grief! It’s a line of sheep snaking its way to supper. No, not your supper, their supper.

It is that time of the day. Dusk. They are in a hurry to feed.

You can see, even from a distance, that they are plump and bent on reaching their destination, so determined and dogged are they.

It’s single-minded, single-file endeavour.
The train of sheep, all dressed up in its light-coloured wool, brings a sigh of relief to the hill, and its dark moody green of Eressos, Greece.

Your Sunday morning today is as you like it. You’re in the zone.

It’s 9.30am and the fisherman is doing his rounds, an hour later today, than other days.

How different it is, compared to last night.

Miss Muscles’ farewell party in Skala made you feel on edge.

You don’t know what to say to strangers

You blurt out all sorts of inappropriate things.

Madame X looks at you and shakes her head. That’s not very clever, she says.

She’s resplendent, of course, in flamboyant attire. You rate her F for fabulous.

Miss Allergies, who makes a lot of money writing pulp, as she calls it, says she can’t talk when you ask her how much?

Her throat is sore, she says, and distractadly claws at the bottom of her throat.

It’s so bad, she says, it feels as if she’s got cats scratching around in her chest.

Miss Moneybags, who took you on quick trip to Mytiline and Thermi, is also the worse for wear. She wraps her throat in some big garment — no doubt a pukkah German thing — and sits inside.

General consensus is that the cause of their afflictions could be the olive tree flowers, or even a bug. Who knows. Something is going around.

But the topic that gets everyone goggle-eyed is the earthquake!

It’s even more compelling than the usual gossip.

Stories change according to who is telling them.

This one is true.

Yes. Early on Saturday, they say. So-and-so said the stock fell off her shelves.

I ran outside, says the Kaftan One. That’s what I’ve been told to do when there’s an earthquake.

Oh, my chair shook, says another woman, and rocks on her stool.

Everyone felt the earth move, but you.

You get advice from The Barehead, the woman with tattoos on her scalp.

She’s rummaging in the fridge just as you and Madame X are about to leave.

Madame X mind you, who’s told you to buck up she’s going, is now going around kissing everyone goodbye.

I give up, you say. All I can do is submit.

The Barehead smiles, a knowing smile.

Yes, in Eressos that is what you have to do, she says. To survive.

(ends)

 

Mohair and cotton

IT GOES together, like cashmere and silk.

You scratch your head. Hmmm….

Better not tell her that!

So, you keep it to yourself and watch. Quietly. Quietness works for you. Stillness.

You like to feel what words cannot say. You like to let resonance manifest, without the clutter and noise of words.

Ironic, yes, because you are a writer.

But it is so. Their is truth in silence, for then, the heart speaks. Loudly.

You listen what it says, and let it talk. It’s a universal language.

One that you understand. And revel in.

It feels good, where you want to be; where you are, with spaghetti boiling on the stove and the little dog farting next to you.

So real, and familiar, isn’t it? A fart? Kinda like home! No more pretence.

You sleep well, relaxed, after the late and unexpected invitation to dinner.

 You’re settled, after the storm, and a day of tears in the sand, and tea — thank God — with the Kaftan One.

You went there after your tearful trip to the beach.

The London psychologist asks you to please not say anymore.

She opens her book, and leans back, naked.

I’m a therapist, she says. But I’m on a week’s holiday.

You’ve poured out the pain, the confusion and hurt, to a stranger lying next to the Kaftan One’s beach nest.

It’s a coincidence, is it?

It happens like this, she says. You nod your head. Yes, angels are everywhere.

You’re at the Women’s Beach. The shrink has two towels laid out side by side.

You bury your face in the sand and wryly think of the toe jam of the ancients!

A weird thought but really, just imagine who has walked on the sand at Skala Eressos over the centuries.

Your tears dry up when the therapist’s partner bustles in with an attitude: no open arms here!

She literally turns her back on you!

But you feel much better, much calmer.

You’ve said what you’ve had to say, and cried what you’ve had to cry.

You feel grounded, whole and enjoy a coke at the Flamingo Bar.

Then you go to the Kaftan One’s cottage, Sappho Cottage.

She gives your organic Earl Grey tea, and some Norwegian biscuits, rye ones, with a Dutch cheese.

It’s mature, she says, when you comment on the flavour.

Yes, it’s intense yet subtle.

Maturity, like that delightful cheese, is the consolidation of one’s essence. 

You feel you are mature, and at last, you’re comfy in your boots again.

It’s not easy settling in. And your life needs structure, apart from the writing you are doing.

You decide to volunteer your services once a week, on Wednesdays.

You will go to Gaga Animal Care every week, and do what has to be done.

This mission is prompted by Vento, who is at your side again, and this time, you keep her on a short leash.

She’s getting used to you, she seems to like you a lot.

But, these rescue animals, these traumatised dogs don’t trust, at first.

They are a handful.

I know all about that, says Gerbien, who looks after the 30-or so dogs at Gaga, never mind the cats and horses under her wing.

This next week, on May 30, the vets from Austria are coming, again.

They’re on a neutering mission,and Vento is on the list.

She will also need her tick and flea treatment, deworming, and her innoculations, says Gerbien.

Yes, ma’am.

You will talk about dogs tonight, at Miss Muscles’ farewell party.

She’s leaving for home, for Norway, where she will spend the summer on her boat.

She does that, every year, and entertains the stars.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horseplay

THE Filly is more nay than yay.

But you’re getting a kick out of doing silly things that shall remain anonymous until further notice; silly little things that only a love-struck dolt could do.

They give you great pleasure, these banal goings on. They make you smile, at your honey sweetness; your child-like outpourings of what? Notice me? Love me?

Oh well, you don’t dwell on this too much … for today is the first day since you got here that you feel vaguely like somebody you know.

It’s nearly two weeks since you landed at Mytiline airport.

You stayed at the Kouitou Hotel and now you’re ensconced in a veritable palace. Grand, ek se!

You put in a load of washing this morning; sheets you know, and towels. It’s so hot here there are not many clothes spinning around in the fancy pantsy machine.

Twirly whirly working hard.

You feel normal today. You feel as if you’re you again. Calm and grounded, BUT there’s a frill of thrill dancing around you, enlivening your every cell. Good heavens. You’re so alive.

At last.

The dinner party turned into a rioutous assembly, of note.

We were kids again, reckless in a way. Yesterday we were all wide-eyed from lack of sleep and too much wine.

Organic wine, mind you. From the guy down the road.

The Norwegians brought it, more specifically Miss Muscles. She has a real penchant for the fruit of the vine.

She does not drink water!

No, no, no, she says, when you meet them at the beach yesterday, the women’s beach, where everyone lies around kaalgat.

The Kaftan One has her camp laid out, shaded by a big umbrella,.

Plastic bottles with sand in them keep her beach boat in place. It’s  one of those things you can recline on in the sea, if you want to, but she keeps it moored to the sand.

She likes lying there, and reading.

Otherwise I get bored, she says.

You’re floating around the Aegean singing on the top of your voice.

You’re kicking your legs, and making big splashes, for fun. For life. For everything.

You’re happy. 

Not only because one of the taxi drivers, Dimitria, teaches you to count in Greek, during the 4km trip between Eressos and Skala Eressos, summer’s sweltering Sin Bin.
You’re happy because, well, there’s potential, everywhere.
Or so it seems.
The seaside village is alive. Again. Pulsing.
You’re living in the winter village, where it’s quieter. More sedate.
You like to return there, to the quiet. To your home.
The place is for sale.
Maybe?
(ends)

All cut up

YOUR left thumb is lacerated. You were cutting too fast.

But the food was tasty, they said.

You didn’t eat anything. You’re not hungry for food.

Anyway, you make stuffed calamari; you have to clean it, and everything.

You fill it with traditional feta and dried oreganum, and slowly cook it in a pan that’s drenched in fresh garlic, butter and South African olive oil.

You take two whole fish, gut them, and leave the scales on. 

Inside you put chopped green pepper and onions.

And butter and lemon.

You wrap them in tin foil, and lay them side by side, in the oven.

There’s a green salad too: lettuce, lemon, apple, strawberries, some cherries.

Oh, and tomato. And walnuts.

It looks beautiful. It looks like love.

They eat. They go. And leave a melon gaping on the table.(ends)

Wake-up call

THE wind blows, like a Cape south-easter, but not quite.

You snuggle into your pillow. Good day for a little lie-in.

Fat chance.

The phone rings.

It’s Elizabeth, from one of the mini markets on Eressos Square.

The fish is here, she says.

8.30am.

You get dressed as quickly as you can, you’re in Eressos, so haste is not recommended. No sudden, quick moves.

You walk the couple of metres, about 100m you suppose, to the square.

And there it is; a little truck filled with all sorts of fish, including calamari. Their dead eyes see nothing.

Blobs of ink in cooling flesh. Right!

The sardines are from the Gulf of Kalloni. The best sardines in the world, they say.

You buy some, and calamari and another two fishes that also have a name, but you miss it. This time.

Next minute, there’s Vento.

She ran away last night when you took her for a walk, and then here she is this morning.

Very happy to see you. Drat. She runs away again, after a while, when you’re at home.

This dog. Really! Vento, Wind, it is a good name for her.

You wonder if you will see her again.

She has a brother in Skala, the village down the road. 

They’re feeding him at Parasol, Jill from Ireland tells you.

She’s sitting at a table on the square, also with a dog that was a stray.

You start chatting.

 

 

 

About the dogs, naturally.
You get another phone call. Two in one day, on your Greek telephone number.
Wow! You’re really settling in.
The handyman’s coming to fix the light in your writing room.
And to establish the cause of the strong pertroleum smell.
Ah. A big leak. What you had suspected.
I Did It My Way, the landlord, phones from London. Again.
You appreciate the way she and her agent handle things. Quick. Efficient. No stress for you.
I just want you to be comfortable, she says.
You can hardly be anything else in a home filled with luxurious furnishing, including a fridge the size of the Cango Caves
Yes. Life’s good.
Grisa, from the other mini market, tells you how to prepare the calamari.
You remember the chokka from Port Elizabeth, years ago. White gold, they called it, those fishermen with fingers sliced by their nylon hand lines, even through their rubber protectors.
Friends are coming to dinner this evening.
You’re putting the table on the verandah.
Summer’s asserting herself. The temperature’s rising.
You feel it. You can’t ignore it. No matter how you try.
Things are hotting up. Big time.
Phew.
In more ways than one!
Va-va voom. Bay-beeeee.
(ends)