Well-appointed, sunny flat in Athens

hard to hold on to, hard to let go

This month’s post, already two weeks late, is more incoherent than usual, symptomatic of my state of mind and conflicting emotions. Regular readers of this newsletter have read about the Athens flat in previous posts. This month I go back there (not physically, not yet) to bid my own farewell to the place I grew up.

In estate agent-speak, the dual-aspect flat boasts a south-facing dining room and reception room with a balcony, airy rooms, large kitchen. It gets a lot of the luminous Attic sunshine. Let me correct this: it can get a lot of sunshine. The Attic sun always shines down on the just and the unjust, provided that they pull the shutters up, which Mama didn’t often do: the wooden parquet floors would be damaged by the strong sunlight. Also, these rooms always had to be kept clean and tidy for visitors, so if the shutters were open dust would come in, which meant more daily work. Not that we had many ‘formal’ visitors: her maternal aunts, uncles and cousins preferred to squeeze in our small family room.

On the rare occasions that the front balcony was opened, my sister Eleni and I had a field day: we spread a rug mat and set down our dolls to direct our own movies of self-determination, set in a huge villa surrounded by lots of green space, as we saw in American films.  

Such occasions must not have been as rare as I remember them; but I have the overwhelming feeling that Mama went through the years of her life - at least the ones I remember - with the shutters down, even nailed into place.

The flat in Athens came into my possession after my parents’ death almost ten years ago. At times I have felt it as a millstone around my neck; not only because Mama died there, but because she lived there. As did I, from my birth until I left Greece thirty-six years ago last week. It’s been a heavy burden, difficult to carry, even more difficult to set down.

Since the flat became mine, it’s been the locus for old, mostly unacknowledged grief. Over the last decade, I’ve moved through the stages of grief, in textbook order:

• denial: a few days after Baba’s funeral in Kassos in 2014, I locked up the flat, returned to Tehran and continued running around lecturing, as if nothing needed to be taken care of.

• anger: In the summer of 2015, I agreed to join the management committee of the block of flats to help recover unpaid amounts of building charges by other residents, in order to keep the central heating on and to carry out essential repairs. During the financial crisis many residents had simply stopped paying, so the central heating was switched off. My parents’ last winters were spent in the cold flat with inadequate heating. Righteous anger fueled my single-minded determination to vindicate my parents. I simply could not see what emotional burden I was placing on myself, in addition to full -time teaching and long daily commute. I could not see that it did not matter anymore; I was unable to let things go.

• bargaining: I carried on working myself to the bone, believing in the ‘cause’. I told myself that when the money owed was recovered and repairs were made, I would feel better about it. Then I was stopped in my tracks - literally immobilised - when both my hips gave way and were replaced less than three months apart in 2018. It was a difficult period: I remember tears welling up in random moments, without apparent connection to what was happening around me.

• depression: My low mood continued through the first couple of years back in London. I was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, then lockdown started at the same time as therapy, which helped me work out some issues. I resigned from the management committee. The last time I was in Athens two years ago, I managed to let go a lot of the things that Mama was attached to, but stopped short of selling the flat itself. Estate agents came round to value it, prospective buyers viewed it - but I was still not ready. Even after the flat was broken in for the first and only time in its 60+year history, I locked it up once again and returned to London.

• acceptance: As soon as I returned to London in November 2021, subtle and gradual shifts took place. I took part in the 28 Days of Joyful Death Writing at the Stoic Salon. Joyful? Death? Despite sounding like a contradiction in terms, it set the process of acceptance in motion. I read The Power of Now and began to practise its teachings. The shipment of photos, documents and a few loved mementoes from Athens arrived in London, and space was opened to accommodate them. Gradually I came to see the break-in and the loss of laptop, tablet and handwritten journal as a message of the universe: I needed to practise letting go more radically. I have referred to Mama’s words in a previous post: “you can throw everything away after I’m dead.” Delivered in Mama’s permanent short-tempered tone, these words sounded as a passive-aggressive take on the inevitable. But recently I have come to reframe them differently: they may have been the only way she knew of asking me to do the work she had been unable to do.

For the last two years I couldn’t face going back to Athens altogether: the very thought of staying in this flat was depressing. But I love Athens; I was born and raised there; I have happy memories with Baba, Eleni and friends. I have finally managed to let the flat go: the sale pre-agreement was signed last Tuesday. This flat has been my family’s permanent home since before my birth, and I still don’t know how I will feel when I have to close the front door and leave for the last time. But I will face it: a new chapter in my relationship with Athens is about to begin. The time has come to make friends again with the city I love, time to make new memories with my loved ones.

The rest of the strands…

Stoic practice and The Stoic Salon

Last May the wise, supportive community at the Stoic Salon completed the first 30-day course (“Examining the Inner Critic”) of daily journaling, working through Brittany Polat’s book Journal like a Stoic. It is a 90-day programme arranged in three 30-day courses. The second 30-day course (“The Road to Acceptance”) is about to start this weekend.

Did you need to hear this? (I definitely did). Is it a coincidence? Or a message from the universe?

Will you join us? Click on the link of the Stoic Salon, and scroll to the bottom of the page. New friends are always welcome.

Treat in store: Author Brittany Polat will be joining us for a live Salon (on Zoom) on Saturday 4th November at 4pm UK / noon ET.

Memoir and Life Writing

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. Some of us supported each other in preparing our entries for the Bridport Prize Memoir Award (deadline 30 September 2023). I pressed the ‘submit’ button last Tuesday (the same day when the pre-sale agreement was signed). Best of luck to all entrants!

The next community meeting of the Memoir and Life Writing group is on Thursday 5 October, 5-6 pm BST, when we will catch up and check-in with successes and gripes.

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