Grateful to the Tree

List-writing as therapeutic exercise

It’s been three months - twelve weeks - since I wrote last, the longest absence in the three-year life of this newsletter. For five of these weeks I was in Greece; not as glamorous as it sounds. The truth is I’ve had a rather hard time in Greece, mainly because of the vibe inside the Athens flat. That, and hours of frustration dealing with the byzantine bureaucracy for the sale. But I met old friends and relatives, and squeezed in a weekly break in my native island of Kassos. I stayed in a humble hotel by the sea, sat in the terrace, took these photos and journaled, the only writing I managed to do over the last three months.

I share these photos because as I looked out on to the sea, I thought of many of you, and contemplated the individual salty drops that make up the immensity of the sea.

(Above and below) The sun rises over Kassos. Karpathos is seen in the distance.

(Below) The sun sets over the Kassos port and the village of Fry, and night falls.

The sale of the Athens flat is still under way. It got delayed because of Greek everyday reality: the local authority would only provide floor plans and planning permit number in its own indeterminate, sweet time; then solicitors went on strike; then they were joined by notary publics who were on strike until 11 December and then decided to extend it until their next GM on 8 January, when they will decide when they return to work.

Every obstacle is for the better, the Greeks say. In this case, the delay is giving me the time to process what the sale of the Athens flat means to me, to reframe my relationship with it, and to let it go in peace. I tied a journaling practice which I found helpful, so I thought I’d share it with you as an example of a contemplative exercise towards healing.

I opened up the space to contemplate on what I am letting go and what I hold on to and cherish. I started with making two lists.

I am letting go

• The locus of dysfunctional relationships, the unexpressed intergenerational trauma and loss of Mama’s and Yaya’s homeland, Egypt, that I feel has seeped into the very walls.

• The locus of the emotionally unavailable mother and the physically absent father.

• The default behaviours of diminishing myself and silencing my voice: of reproducing Mama’s patterns of lack of attunement towards my own self, not only in the twenty-three years I lived there, but throughout all my life.

• The backdrop of Mama’s depression and Baba’s Alzheimer’s in their late life.

• The burden of clearance of the detritus of whole lifetimes and the navigation through the labyrinth of Greek bureaucracy for its sale that is still underway now.

• Deep down, the grief for a close relationship with Mama that never was.

I am keeping and cherishing

• The mementos I have brought to London: souvenirs from Baba’s travels (Japan, China) and Mama’s happy years in Egypt; photos, letters postcards, diaries; our old bakelite phone, our only long-distance connection through voice back then; the opera LP sets I bought with my pocket money.

• Memories with Eleni throughout childhood: our togetherness, our sibling rivalry, our listening to music together, and our coming even closer after the death of our parents.

• Memories of first listening to and experiencing the magic of opera.

• Memories of listening to and learning to sing the Kassos tunes, and then of beginning to learn to playing them on the lyra with Baba accompanying me on Grandpa’s old mandolin.

• Memories of my neighbourhood Kypseli, and of old schoolfriends.

• Memories of the first months of my acquaintance with Hossein.

Even as lists of rough notes, I found the exercise useful. The items in the first list have milled over (or taken over?) my head for years, but the second list I had never given much thought. As I jotted down one item, another popped up…then another, and another.

I am now grateful for what I had, and still have; for making it until now and for everything that happened: the heartache, the pain, the health conditions and for everyone’s role in everything; they were all the instruments of Providence/the Universe/God. Over the last two years, compassion for Mama and Yaya gradually replaced anger. In time, I hope to live more comfortably with the grief and to accept what was without regrets.

Have you had any similar revelatory experience with journaling, or any other practice that has helped you see a difficult issue in a more balanced way? I’d love to hear about it!

I started this essay with the image of an olive tree, on the path to our ancestral home in Kassos. At the end of October the olive trees were full of fruit almost ready to be harvested, only waiting for a good rainfall to fill their flesh up and to ensure a fruitful harvest. As I write these lines, the olive harvest is all in.

So one should pass through this tiny fragment of time in tune with nature, and leave it gladly as an olive might fall when ripe, blessing the earth which bore it and grateful to the tree which gave it growth.

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations 4:48

This year draws to a close with gratitude for everything that’s happened and anticipation for what is in store. At the darkest time of the year when winter begins, every day is imperceptibly longer than the one before it, a growing hope for more light that will certainly come.

The rest of the strands…

Stoic practice

Over this time I’ve also been away from The Stoic Salon, but Stoicism often surfaces in different guises. While in Athens, I went looking for the Poikile Stoa (The Painted Porch) in the Athens historic centre, where Zeno of Kitium may have taught. I squished myself among tightly packed restaurant tables, and positioned my phone camera between the iron railings to take these pictures.

Another day I came across a translation of the Meditations in Modern Greek, which I gave to a good friend. I hoped it helped her as it is helping me.

Memoir and Life Writing

My own work on the never-ending memoir has been greatly enhanced by Kathryn Koromilas’ invaluable input and book coaching support over this year. Kathryn, I cannot recommend you enough for your sensitivity, your presence and your wisdom. The journey continues, and (I hope) will be sped up after the flat is truly gone.

My submission to the Bridport Memoir Prize was not shortlisted, but funnily enough, I was not disappointed: I took it as a sign that the work is not there yet.

The Memoir and Life Writing group at The London Writers Salon, continues to meet up on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month, to get to know each other, talk about our work and share experiences and resources. We will continue to meet in the new year, and we’d love to see more writing friends join us.

If you would like join hundreds of other writers writing in community, join the Writers’ Hour; one of the four daily sessions and one Saturday session is bound to fit in with your daily schedule. We can’t wait to welcome you and to write together!

The heart meets the (left) hand in an embrace of imperfection