The bang and the whimper

How do things end? Is it with a bang or with a whimper, as TS Elliott famously wrote?

I think this could be a "goodbye blogosphere" post. No big words, not really needed. No real goodbyes, who reads anyway?

Since I started writing online, 2007 I think, I thought it was such a psychotherapy to write and analyse your thoughts and feelings. I wrote about loneliness and Harry Potter, about new year resolutions and Zatoichi, I loved writing about movies, haven't done so in a while.

Then, my daughter came and life became different. As my friend Youkalli put it, love of a child is so overwhelming that it's all you want to write about. But then, you really don't want to make your blog into a mommy blog, and how many times can you write meaningfully about motherhood?

The recent political situation in Europe and Greece have made me think a lot and want to write about it all. But then my thoughts leave me, I forget, I never have the time to develop them and turn them into something tangible and coherent. I am busy changing nappies, I think.

So, all this leaves me with not many options I guess. I don't want to delete my blog, I always like to reread stuff I've written, and somebody else might too, but I don't think I'll be using it much more from now. Thanks to anyone that read the thoughts of a Greek linguist. I'm still on Twitter, although there I mostly curse about politics.

Middle class wanna-be MILF

An awful awful breed this is - the middle class class wanna-be MILF.

Working mum, no time whatsoever BUT with a need to look semi-respectable. And the delusion that she can even look sexy.

Need to be comfy, too many trainers and yoga pants and leggings (pretending that this is a fashion statement).

Always with some spot of dirt (often milk, or some other children's food concoction) and with holes on her t-shirts.

The dress code is also predictable - most clothes are from White stuff (which is almost getting granny chic by now, really), "trendy" colourful trainers or other comfy camper shoes, funky earrings, hair that desperately needs a haircut (And ofter some colouring. And a wash.)

I hate to admit it but this is me these days. I like to pretend that I am better than that, but really I am not...

One of these days I will find time to overhaul my wardrobe and accept the fact that I need better and newer clothes.

But today is not this day.

Today, I'm off to put on another dirty t-shirt and then I'll just have to go and make some baby food. 

Soppy

On my first mother's day, I feel unexpectedly soppy. Why do all clichés have to be so true? It's only when you live something that you really feel it.

Nine months a mother, and the love I feel for this little creature is immense.

On this day, my thoughts are also with another mother that lost her only-son from extreme bullying in Greece.  Why are people capable of such terrible things?

The change - part II

I suspect there will be plenty a post like this in the years to come. Essentially, my life will be made only of little lego pieces of change, one put neatly next to the other. Or one falling on the other, if you follow my analogy.

Today, was another big change for a small person: my daughter's first day (well, ehm two hours rather) in créche without me. Her first two hours away from us all, with strangers in a strange place. And apparently it went well. I, on the other hand was a bag of nerves, obviously, and now I feel such an amazing sense of relief...

Anyway, that's all folks, just had to report that.

(Perhaps, I need to rename this blog, "new mummy" bullshit?)

Ah, and happy new year!

A sense of achievement

What does our society regard as "achievement"? This time that I have away from work, on maternity, I have been asking myself this question a lot. I've spent six months with my daughter, raising her, helping her grow up, making her (hopefully) happy and yet I only get a sense of achievement when I do more conventional tasks like bake a cake for example;
or buy a gift;
or clean the bathroom;
or something like this.

Why?

Raising children is like doing a PhD: you strive like a slave day after day and on the short term you really have nothing to show for yourself; in the end, however, you get fantastically rewarded, if everything goes well :-)

Anyway, for the festive season I will also post a very non-festive but quite addictive song "I'm too hot - god damn"

Alone

Morning in bed.

Not much light outside, the winter has come.

P sleeping next to me.

Listening to the radio, having a second coffee.

Staying a bit alone with myself, with my thoughts. Getting ready for the day.

Καλημέρα. 

Birthday post

Aren't birthdays supposed to be some sort of taking-stock moment?

Mine is today, and am thinking of my life in the last year: I turn 36, and I still feel like so much younger sometimes. My husband always says to me that our ages sound "so adult" and it's true. I have a daughter now, you can't get more adult than that, no?

Last year on this day, I was pregnant and bopping it up watching Depeche Mode. This year, I snuggle with my girl in bed and it feels so good. We might be able to sneak a quick dinner later, who knows?

"Age is just a number" - why are clichés so true?

Although I have an adult age, a mortgage, a husband and a daughter, I often still feel like the young girl who first came to the UK 13 years ago, ready for a big adventure.

On for the next 36 years then, just bring on the anti-wrinkle creams and we'll be just fine :-)

The two selves

And just like this, you are no longer one, you are two, both literally and figuratively. Literally speaking, you, your body created and produced another human. Mind you, sure you had help from this other guy and all but at the end of the day, this new individual grew up inside you. So there.

Figuratively, there is the 'you' before baby, when clothes, job and friends mattered, and then there is the 'you' after baby where you feel utterly disengaged from the world. I mean, I still like clothes, my job and my friends but sometimes I just feel not entirely present. My brain is half elsewhere, don't know how to explain it really, but I can't focus and I often just don't care about what is happening around me.

It's not that I find my child as the most important thing in the world. It's just that suddenly you need to make certain choices about what happens in the life of another person, and this is time-consuming and profound, so suddenly some little detail at work is just not important...

Now that I am on maternity all this is fine and dandy, but what I am really afraid of is the reconciliation of these two selves when I go back at work. Part of me wants to come back and engage again with my normal activities, and find my old self again. Part of me however really doesn't care about all this at all and just wants to stay here and watch my small individual grow...

It's a tough life for new mothers.

Change

Change is always present. It's not good and it's not bad. It's just there, all the time. Despite this fact, people (including myself) find it very hard to accept it, embrace it, and ultimately know how to deal with it.

This summer for me has been a summer of change: I am a mother and adapting to my new role is a challenge. One of the most difficult aspects has been the change this has brought to my relationship with people: my husband, my parents, my friends. My friends here in Greece have been difficult to deal with this year because so much of us being together requires coordination, which is so much harder with a baby. I have felt bitter, angry, melancholic and so many other things. Most of all I feel that it is hard for me both to accept and to embrace the fact that things are different now. Perhaps I just don't know how to adapt.

I've always wanted to be stoic, blasé, wise. It's hard, more now than before. I guess though that the super emotion hormones are stepping in big time and are not going to let me do that. Not any time soon anyway.

But this is what life is about anyway (as Madonna knows all too well): adapting, changing, evolving, never being the same person twice "cause I'm a million different people from one day to the next" as my old favourite verve song says.

I'll do my best then to accept all this and change with the time. 

Two months a mother

On the 10th of August, I'll be a mother for two months. It's a surreal feeling that includes accomplishment, tiredness, excitement, worry, and always amazement at the miracle of life that was created, grows up and thrives.

For me the difficult bit has always been how to embrace this role and stay myself in the process. Not sure I figured it out yet, but is early still.

Little P is beautiful and funny, she looks like a cheeky baby, happy and content and that is so gratifying. Breaks my heart to see her cry whenever she does, which is not often.

Am enjoying my moments of peace and loneliness, when no-one talks to me and I don't have to do anything.

Being home in Greece is so easy, the sun, the sea, the help, the open space.

Scattered thoughts on an August afternoon. 

What are you doing today?

This is the curse of the modern mother, I figured it out. All your adult life, you spend it "doing something": wake up, go to Uni, have some studying to do; and later working, writing a paper, preparing for a lecture or whatever. Of course you spend some days doing nothing, being lazy, going shopping, being on holidays. But these are the exception, not the rule. These days you cherish, you feel sneaky, lucky for having them.

And then you have a baby. And you spend months dreaming of your glorious maternity. Of the time you will have to think, to maybe read a book, to look after this new human being. But no-one prepares you for the blending of one day to the next, of the repetitiveness of the task: feed, change, soothe, repeat. It's not bad, don't get me wrong. But it's funny when you think about it. You are not used to it, you wake up in the morning and you think: "what am I doing today?" and the answer cannot be anything you used ti do: write a paper, prepare for a lecture, whatever. The answer has to be something else, something you also did yesterday, definitely nothing worth noting per se, at least not like in your previous life.

And this, my friends, is the curse of the modern mother: it will take us time to get used to this new role, this new life where you have nothing to show for the work you did all day, nothing apart from perhaps the weight your baby put on, or the nappies you changed. And you need to learn to cherish that, you need to learn to get used to that. You need to learn to be that.

I just hope I learn to do all that before my maternity vanishes and I feel sorry that I never actually got into it, I never managed to go with the flow and learn to let go and enjoy looking after my child and clearing my mind of all the things I thought were important all these years. 

No time to write

No time to write, I am either feeding a hungry baby, or cleaning its bum, or sleeping.

But I still think, and I still want to write - only question I have is whether this should become a "new mother" blog? All (or most) of my thoughts are about adapting to being a mother, breastfeeding, redefining the self and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I'll just go change another nappy and decide what to do after that. 

Elitism

"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit." Thucydides, Pericles' Funeral Oration.

How do you find the quote above? Some of you might think it's elitist. Isn't democracy supposed to put all citizens equal opposite the law and the state? I know this may sound like a terribly scary slippery slope but I think not. Democracy only works if the people who vote are educated and can form an informed opinion about the matters of a state. Give power to a bunch of uneducated, oppressed, entitled idiots and what do you get? A disgustingly high percentage of a nazi party in Athens! The Greek media are fluffing about trying to make sense of it again. Some of them call it an "unfortunate surprise". My God, the word understatement was invented for a reason... They talk about people's anger against the older political system that needs to be channelled somewhere, or even people's financial uncertainty that turns them against immigrants etc. And I say: bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. People do not deserve their vote, because voting should come with some obligations: go read a book, open your eyes, read a newspaper, educate yourself on what these people stand for and don't just sit there repeating the bullshit the media are feeding you. You don't like reading about stuff, no vote for you, then. You want to remain an ignorant idiot? No vote for you. 

I am sick and tired of people talking about their "rights". In Athens, since we are taking the Athenian democracy as a model and an ideal, if you didn't participate in the open political discussions in the Agora, you lost your right to vote. Simple as that. If you cared only for the affairs of your "own house" (that is what being an "idiot" originally meant) then you could not vote. Being ignorant on political matters made you ineligible to vote, end of. 

You call that elitism? Then Golden Dawn it is. 

Kicking and screaming

I am not a maternal person, not at all. I like other people's children, but not all of them. I hang out with (some of) them, but in moderation. In fact I particularly dislike little spoilt creatures that have no boundaries and break everyone's balls.

I am about to put my money where my mouth is though: 31 weeks and counting. In about two months I'll have an alien of my own, keeping me awake at night, not knowing what to do. I haven't felt any fantastic maternal feelings kicking in during all this time, I'm just going with the flow and taking it one day at a time.

But there are mornings like this, sitting in bed, fooling around on the net, the rain lashing outside, and as I am sitting relaxed I get a funny kicks-combo inside my belly. It's a funny feeling, I have to say. I am often tempted to see too much into it: the baby responding in a movement I made, a song playing, or something I say. But perhaps it's just a way to simply say "hi I'm here". Or being squashed in my belly, wants to stretch about a bit. In any case, I have to say, cliché as it sounds, it's a little miracle, and I like it a lot. Makes me think it will be fun to meet this individual who kicked my ass off for all these months.

Two months and counting.

Scary, but exciting.  

Before Midnight, or romance for real

Finally got to see "before midnight" last night. For the uninitiated this is the third movie of the Linklater - Delpy - Hawke love triangle that started 18 years ago in Vienna, continued 9 years ago in Paris and now finds generation X's favourite couple in Greece, married with twins, exploring for the first time a different kind of love: not the "once in a lifetime" love of the first movie, not the "lucky second strike" love of the second movie, but the "love for real" that normal people, with normal love stories have to face, day in - day out.

This is the kind of love that people warn you about, the kind of love that gets you every day, with the good things and the bad things, the kind of love that makes you "wipe the pee off the toilet seat" and see your loved one naked, imperfect, boring, part of reality. They said that this movie was about the "melancholy of commitment" and I guess one couldn't have hit the nail in the head better.

What happens after the fairy tale ends, people ask, after Snow white gets the Prince and so on... With the danger of sounding terribly cliché, the answer is, life happens... Life takes over and fairy tales are put to the test. And I guess for the not-20-somethings-anymore among us, that's the question, at least this has been the one for me: how will we fare differently, us, the clever educated free self-conscious generation that does not have the constraints of our parents. How will we do? Will we all divorce? Will we manage? How will it be?

Jesse and Celine's answer is that we will manage, of course we will, but not without a small sad look in our eyes. Not without a pain in the heart, not without bruises. You manage to go through life but you really must "love [the other person] unconditionally" to put up with the pretentiousness of human existence, with the fact that people are boring, with the fact that sex can be boring, with the fact that the every day reality of family life can be boring, and really break through and keep romance alive. Not for one night in Vienna, not for one afternoon in Paris but for ever and ever, keep romance alive.

Bring it on!

The diary

Reading old diaries can be so depressing: the inadequacies of your older self, presented before you in magnificent glory; the terribly banal old "loves"; the intensity of the drama, even in cases where you now know how stupid it all was...

But most of all this fantastically clear understanding of the past in the comfort of the present: "in retrospect..." what a great phrase. What a great concept. We are all so wise, so cool "in retrospect". We are all insightful historians, we are all profound thinkers, in hindsight. We all analyse the past in such a clear way. What am I saying, it is clear!

And therein lies the drama: why are we all so so clever after all the drama has passed, but never during?

And why do 16(or even 17, 20, 25)-year old girls go through everything as if it is such a drama?

My 35-year old self cannot find a respectable answer to that.

And now back to my old diaries, perhaps they will give me another clue. 

No need to be blue...

And Pharell does it again! He brings us an upbeat song, catchy enough to rival the-one-that-shall-not-be-named (are you listening Daft Punk?),  and now nominated for an Oscar!

Most of all I love this song because it is a rare breed: it's beautiful, and poignant but not sad, desperate or desperately about love.

Clap along if you feel that happiness is the truth, he sings, and'd you know what? I am sure clapping along... 

Happy new year

Commonplace (and extremely belated) as it sounds, let us toast to the new year.

The year of the horse, my sign, the sign of success, prosperity and happiness.

Looking forward to another year of changes, (aren't they all?) a year of getting better, learning new things, and facing new challenges.

I'll be back soon with something interesting, but until then, Καλή Χρονιά σε όλους!

Things people say

People are funny. I mean, everyone says rhetorical things, commonplace expressions that carry no real meaning whatsoever, but some things are simply wrong. Take my longtime favourite (often uttered in despair by a Greek aunt or uncle, or even worse my mum):

"Have you put on weight recently?"

What do you respond to that? "No, this is just an illusion" or "Yes, I've been sort of eating like a pig lately"? Nothing just seems right…

There is no right answer, possibly because this question should not exist. Rude, intrusive, a truism, and just unacceptable, questions like this make my blood boil.

Other gems include:

"Don't you think this is not the way to do this?"

WTF? If I did, don't you think I would be doing it differently? I mean, seriously people, get a grip.

In general, I guess my point is that sometimes people really, really don't speak to offer any new information to the conversation, or the world. Sometimes people are just self indulgent idiots who speak only to make themselves sound clever or simply be a bit judgemental, for the fun of it.

One day, I will find a good way to respond to all of that, a way that summarises today's post in a way, but I guess until then a "fuck you" would just have to do.

Short

With Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize for literature this year, I thought I should go back to her, and try to read more of her formidable short stories. I was first introduced to her work by my Canadian friend who recommended her wholeheartedly when I asked him for a compatriot of his to read, apart from my steady longtime favourite, Margaret Atwood.

I bought Munro's "Selected stories" and started reading it. I enjoyed it, some of the stories I even found to be really brilliant, but I never finished the book. Now that I came back to it, with determination and gusto, I read one more story and stopped again. (It didn't help that Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" just came out at that particular time but that's another story). But the problem, of course does not lie with Munro, she is brilliant. The problem lies with me, or more accurately with my inability to connect to short stories. I never understood why, and of course Munro is not the only victim of my constraint: Tolstoy, Chechov (both of them so often compared to Munro herself), I have never managed to read and enjoy. In short, short is not sweet for me and today, I really forced to ask myself why, and I think I discovered where the problem lies.

Short stories (and poems to a certain extent, another guilty non-pleasure of mine) are extremely minimalist and apospasmatic: they offer really just a glimpse of their subject matter, like a beautiful photo of a fantastic small detail of a giant artefact. All works of art do require work on the part of the beholder: films and books often have open endings, details of the past of the characters are left out and are only implied for, but in short stories there is simply too many blanks to fill. In order to be gripped by a story, I need to get into it, deeply into it, stay there for a while and get properly involved. The fleeting character of the short story really doesn't allow me to do that, and that's why I simply can't get into them.

I guess this means that I am just too lazy for it all.