Summer thoughts (take I)

Summer came and went, without a post, without a trace, really. Easily the fastest summer in a while. What happened? Why did it go so fast? Why am I back, my tan fading fast, trying to fight off the rain?But anyway...

This year it dawned on me that I live a double life: most of the year in Belfast, my second home, and in the summer and Christmas holidays, back in my first home, in Greece. This October it will be 12 years that I am away from Greece (a scary thought that I cannot really process most of the time), which means that the people I have back home are diminishing rapidly: my family, my cousins, my new nephews and nieces and old, trusty friends. When I go to Greece, I want to see them, but even more I want to have the illusion that I actually have a life there. A life where I can have someone to go out for a coffee with, or go for a drink with, or go to the beach with, or go shopping with, or go to an island with. I expect to have these people because I always did in the past: I am Greek, I have greek friends, right? Thing is, I am not there for these people, not in their everyday life. At best I am at the other end of a line, a fuzzy picture on Skype, and that when we manage to co-ordinate. But I'm not there there, am I? And still I expect to have these people on stand by when I decide to grace them with my presence for a month in the summer. And most of the time they indulge me, and they make me feel normal. As if they put their life on hold and just half-live when I'm not there and then when I come, we resume our life together. Sometimes though this doesn't really work. People are not available when I want to go on holiday. Or they have other things to do when I want to go shopping. Or they bring other people (OTHER friends) when we go to the beach. And then I get annoyed, or even worse sad. Because I know deep down that this double life is just a bunch of bullshit. I am a nomad, I always used to say, and I used to like this thought.

But this also means I don't have two homes.

It simply means I have none. 

Soundtrack to a Belfast summer

Since I haven't written a lot recently, I might as well post a couple of songs I've been obsessing with recently:



La la, la la la la la la la la la (Sam Smith is killing it this year, what a voice. Boy George anyone?)



These people are seriously funny (just keep looking at Pharell's face.... Priceless)



Another amazing summer tune -  and what a line for a tattoo: The ceiling can't hold us...

And finally, THE summer tune of 2013 (and it's only June)



Welcome back Daft Punk. And Pharell. And bonus another tatoo-worthy line: I'm up all night to get lucky...

Happy summer everyone! 

Survivor's guilt

These days I am suffering from extensive survivor's guilt.

I am Greek, I live abroad, and I live well. I have a house, a good job (that I love), a husband (who also has a good job that he loves). I am thinking of promotion (which I can get at some point).

I am travelling to Greece at least twice a year, I go on holidays.

I can afford nice things, for myself and for my friends. I buy beautiful clothes, my husband has an expensive bike.

On one hand, I deserve these things. I studied for 8 years, and I work hard.

On the other hand though, so do my friends in Greece. They studied too. They work hard too. And yet, they cannot afford half the things I do.

Suicides are up in Greece, drug use is up, HIV is up, violent, racist, hate crime is up. Violence against women is up.

But the story in the media is always the same: lazy Greeks start paying taxes and shut up.

I only have two words for anyone who thinks that: FUCK OFF. 

Sci-fi

I love sci-fi movies, I really do.

From the unbearably classic Blade Runner, to the dark Minority Report, from the Alien quadrilogy (or at least the first two) to Alice in wonderland in fancy leather coats, sorry I meant the Matrix, sic-fi movies make me cringe. Perhaps it's this archetypical fear of the unknown, the worry that death will come from above, from outside and not from within. Perhaps it's the dystopian future, that I adore in literature too (1984, brave new world, never let me go etc), I don't know what it is, just sci-fi fascinates me.

So, even Oblivion, which is not great, and whose script, as correctly pointed out in this Guardian video review, is a massive mishmash of other sic-fi references (a little bit of Matrix meets Mad Max meets Alien meets Ghost in the Shell meets a bit of Lost meets the Truman show meets of course a bit of Oedipus Rex -- every movie needs a bit of Greek tragedy, no?), I actually enjoyed. Tom Cruise is as stereotypical as it gets, and the storyline did have to get explained to me, but the questions the movie poses have been and will always be important: what makes us human? What makes a being a man, and not a machine (alien, clone or whatever)? Is it our subtle love for literature -- as it also happened in the "humanisation" of the Stasi operative in the lives of others? Is it just our inquisitive nature -- you know that when Vicky says "I don't want to know" that she is lost for ever? Is it simply our ability to love?

Oblivion does not pose any new questions, all the above, we've heard it all before. But isn't it worth it hearing it again, especially with such a beautiful set as a backdrop? 

The Godfather

Welcome to the world, you might tell me, but I watched the Godfather movies this week, for the first time ever. I know, crazy, right? But there is something to be said about leaving gems to be enjoyed later in life when you have a bit more brain to enjoy them. Or at least that's my excuse.

Every time I watch (listen to/read) a masterpiece, I think of my time wasted reading/listening to/watching utter and absolute shite. Truly a waste through and through. People tend to think (me included) that "light" movies/literature etc are good for one's tired mind, they take no effort and they are essentially harmless, a good time-passing device. But they give you nothing, NOTHING in return, that's the problem. Just wasted hours and a nagging feeling of annoyance.

Movies like the Godfather, now that's another story alltogether. The story, the subtlety of the "take home message", the acting, Pacino, my god Pacino is amazing. His face doesn't move. And yet he resonates pain.

I think I've heard somewhere that Michael Corleone reluctant ascent to the top of the Corleone family, in the first movie is akin to Hamlet's indecision to do what is expected of him in Shakespeare's classic. Two anti-heroes, one fate. To me though, the second movie, Michael's paranoia, total ruthlessness and utter descent to hell is really what turns this story into a masterpiece. Ah, and of course Robert de Niro's amazing performance in the parallel narrative of the, much less conflicted, Vito Colreone.

I don't have a lot more to write, besides what is there more to say about the Godfather. Only take home message from me (mostly to myself if to anyone) would be just to stop watching trash and focus on the masterpieces of this world. And there are plenty.

A good week

I am having a good week.

Like a really good week.

I wake up happy.

I am not stressed.

I feel normal.

Rare but nice and as such it needed to be commemorated through this banal post. 

Goodbye

I like to think that I avoid too personal posts, but then again isn't everything we write personal? And who knows me out here on the wild wild web anyway?

But I just feel the need to write it today: my grandma died this afternoon. She was 93, and had a happy life. I never really really loved here, but today I cry. I cry because my father is upset and because she suffered when she died. I cry because we saw her over Christmas and she looked so so old.

Apparently, she had everything ready for her funeral, in the chest at home she had her clothes ready, and everything she wanted us to put with her. We had never opened the chest until now and today I asked my mother what was in there. She had a little dress she wanted to wear; my grandfathers two sets of glasses, and her wedding crowns.

That's a blessing - choosing what to take with you in the other life, no?

She didn't come to my wedding this summer and she got so upset. In Christmas we gave her a picture of our wedding day, and she said "my children, you look grown up".

People say funny things, in poignant moments. Movies want us to believe that people actually manage to rise up to life's big occasions, but in end, sometimes, people just say funny things.

Cheers to the dead, then, today. To my grandmother and my cousins, wherever they are, if they are anywhere anyway.