I wrote this on my website last month while my mother was visiting us in Greece...

Mothers and Daughters

We have a history. When your mother is 83 and you are 60, we're talking a lot of years over the dam. The funny thing about our relationship is that somewhere along the lifeline it sort of froze in time.

For my mother I will always be 16.

The stories she remembers are when I was a baby and my dad and me and mom were a perfect post war family, even though she didn't speak much English. She'd met my father during the War, and they married in Belgium while he was affiliated with the Embassy. (he was a regular "joe" during the war, but was recovering from his wounds when he met her)

The world was full of hope and, after a couple of miscarriages, a child was born! I was that perfect child.

[mom and dad and precious in the middle]

When I was five, she decided to go "home" to Belgium to introduce the family to her perfect child (and said perfect child was towed along!) while my dad stayed back in the States to wait for our return.

Back in 1955, travel was via the big Ships: we traveled on the SS Sumeria. When we arrived in Brussels, it was to discover with great sadness that her father (my grandfather) had been blinded in an explosion from a still armed WW2 bomb in the train yard where he was chief of scheduling. He'd almost died but as she was pregnant with me, at the time of the accident, her family was afraid to tell her so she wouldn't lose the baby.

[me, my mom and my grandfather walking in downtown Brussels ==> note the extreme pigeon-toed stride- I have yet to abandon completely!]

Then in what can only be described as oddly typical in my family, they forgot to tell her after I was born! This meant that when we arrived, she was confronted with the new and had no time to process it or grieve! (Meanwhile of course everyone else had had plenty of time as were a little disconcerted over her reaction!)

My memories at five were similar to being tossed about in an emotional blanket. But I remember that I learned to speak French!

In 1959 my father died. Great sadness- and for my young mother, a yearning for family.

Again with the ship: this time the SS Atlantic. My memories of making it through the grieving is mixed through the veils of two cultures. It was a strange experience (with many good memories- of course, some not so good.)

[<== still toe-ing in with the feet!]

Shortly after we arrived in Belgium, the SS Atlantic was purchased by Princess Cruise lines and we had no ship to travel home on! My first airplane flight!

A great memory... but of course it still didn't make up for losing my dad.

When we returned to the U.S.A. my mother had to work. She became a successful Interior Designer, but the cost was time.

I was fortunate that she took care to give me a great education, in an all girls convent school with great nuns to teach me and a school of great companions to live with during the school year (I was lucky to be able to go home every weekend!), and in the summer, I would go to my grandparents in Belgium during my school - 3 month- long vacation. In Belgium, I had my grandparents, my great aunts and great uncles - and my mother's sister, my aunt and her husband, my uncle as well as my only slightly older guy cousin, to spend the summer with.

I became independent in many ways, (I traveled to Europe alone!) but dependent too (European mores didn't give young ladies too much freedom even in the 60's!). Fortunately my cousin was male and we could get away with more things together than either one of us could do on our own!

Meanwhile, my mother often treated me like a sister through my teen years, but then- of course- she'd pull rank (as parents do...)

ah we both have many memories of the sixties!

[can you tell my mother is terrified of heights?? ah the things she'd do if I "dared" her...]

Often on my weekends off she'd have to work and we'd combine a mini-holiday when her "job" had finished.

These years to my mother were profoundly memorable, though for me it was so much more about what was going on outside our lives together. For her, each moment we spent together became a book of memories, shelved with all the others... our history in stone.

We are currently - as we do each time we're together- now reliving all those memories of time and place.

Not too much to do with Villa Methavrio or Greece... but Oh well!

The day started slowly and never really picked up any speed.

Just spent the day puttering about playing with the dog, and being ignored by the cats.

Sitting on the terrace in the shade, talking with T, catching up on things in the news and ideas about travel and people we know. A lovely way to pass a couple of hours.

Ate a little lunch, then took a little nap. Woke up and read a little of my book [currently re-reading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley...]

Went for a walk with the dog in the afternoon, then went for a swim.

Watched some television (videotaped comedy shows) then during the second one, I got up and fixed supper

I made a pan of fluffy white basmati rice and to go with it, a shrimp and veggie stir-fry.

I just cut up the leftover fresh veggies from the fridge: courgette, red onion, baby carrots, a few green beans. a yellow pepper, some fresh garlic and some fresh grated ginger, stir fried in a little fragrant sesame oil. Stir fried the shrimp and tossed the whole mess together with a little sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and a splash of soya sauce.

For dessert a scoop of vanilla ice cream with maple syrup on top. Lovely.

After that we went outside to see the sunset and talked a bit more. Then turned out the lights and T went to read his book in bed and I'm writing up this post. Not much news to write about!

A slow day, but a really excellent one!

~~~

I love chocolate.  I love every kind of chocolate from the expensive Godiva and Neuhaus to the simple chocolate covered cherries you can buy in the grocery store.

I love the smell of chocolate.  There is nothing like that warm dark smell when baking  chocolate is melting hot.  Or that wonderful first smell after opening a new box of Whitman's sampler box of chocolates.  I love the smell of a cup of real dutch dark and rich cocoa with whipped cream (or melting marshmallows) on top.

I really love the way chocolate melts on my tongue... a warm hershey's kiss or a ice cold dove bar.

Sometimes I think about the chocolate river in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 

Sigh.

Can you tell my doctor put me on a 1200 calorie a day diet for my knee (torn meniscus)??

When I was 26 I bore my third son.  We were delighted as he was our last... our baby.  He wa blonde and had blue-green eyes.  I was amazed.  I have dark hair and brown eyes, and I never expected that my genes would lose out to my husbands!

Baby Nick however proved to be my very own changling.  He was charming and delightful as a baby but would turn into a monster at the drop of a hat- or an audience. 

One of my clearest memories is going to the grocery store with my middle son and the baby Nick.  It was about 5 in the afternoon and I was just running in to pick up some milk or pasta for dinner or whatever.  My oldest was playing with the next door neighbor friend, so he didn't come with us. 

I remember I carried Nick on my hip, and he was a good chunk of child at that point, so he must have been around two, making my other son about 4.  I put Nick in a shopping cart and we proceeded through the store to quickly get our purchases.

We were waiting in the checkout line and all was going smoothly, until the line started backing up with people.  As I was third in line, I wasn't concerned until Nick suddenly let out a God-awful shriek and started throwing a huge tantrum.  He got red in the face and had huge tears and was absolutely impossible.  He had never EVER done this before and both his brother and I were stunned and frozen with bafflement. 

Of course, the other women waiting in line started to look at me, as if I was some sort of inept mother unable to control her child!  Then the check out lady looked at me disaprovingly as did the lady in front of me being checked out. 

At this point Nick started to really escalate and was throwing himself around in the cart seat and reaching and grabbing at the mints and little books near the check out machine.

As I started to empty the cart, I had to raise my voice a little to be heard by the check out lady.  I said, "I will never babysit for this woman again!  She was supposed to pick him up two hours ago!!"

My other son quietly stood by looking up at me while I loaded my bag into the cart.  Meanwhile everyone in line including the checkout lady turned their disapproving looks onto NIck, and with great sympathy they all wished me well, as I left the store.

When we got to the car, Nick was mysteriously silent.  I put him in his car seat and as we got into the car, my middle son said quietly, "Is Nick adopted?  Can we give him back??"

I said to him "No.  Mommy lied.  She was very very bad.  We have to keep Nick."

He noddled sagely and said, "... as a punishment?"

The air is so heavy and thick, right now, and my ears pop, from my sinuses or the air pressure, I can't tell which is more annoying.  I just know I've had a niggling headache all afternoon and it's getting stronger as the clouds gather on the horizon. 

My father loved thunderstorms.  He died when i was nine years old but I remember sitting next to him on the porch watching the lightening and hearing the booms in the distance - waiting for the storm to arrive, counting "one- one hundred; two, one hundred; three, one hundred;" after the flash, in order to find out how many miles away the storm was when the boom came.  I can almost hear his voice telling me myths and legends of different cultures all about the thunder and the lightening.. all those stories about ancient gods and goddesses, along with the biblical storms and characters from the old testament.

Those childhood storms were always so huge, and I remember curling into him, sitting on his lap and smelling the smell of his clean shirt and the essence of daddy.  I was never afraid of the storms, because he told me I didn't have to be.  He used to tell me how important it was for the rain to come and water our vegetable garden.  He'd tell me how it would clean the dust off the car.  He told me that the fish in the creek that ran behind where we lived, LOVED the rain, and for sure there'd be more fish because of that storm.

I know better now.  Lightening strikes, and fries power lines and splits trees.  Rain comes down so hard the ground can't absorb it sometimes and causes flash floods.  The winds can turn nasty and suddenly a twister appears and takes out a trailer park. 

We lived in a trailer park all those years ago (50, now!)  It was a fun place to be for me, with my parents, an adventure. I knew they wanted a house because they talked a lot about moving, but the houses weren't built yet.   A lot of my dads friends were other returning servicemen.  

I remember going to the Knights of Columbus hall or the VFW with my dad, and sat quiet as a mouse while he did "dad things" with the other fathers whom I recognized from church and school pot luck dinners.

One Sunday in June, it was so hot, and my dad told my mother after church that it was too hot to cook, and we'd stop at the little deli-grocery store on the way home, and get some BBQ Ribs.  My mother rolled her eyes and started to object as I'm sure she was thinking of the laundry mess she'd have to clear up after my dad and I got done eating the ribs.  But my dad won because he was driving and stopped at the store to let my mother and I go in and get the ribs. 

Lunch was fun and messy and we proved my mother correct.  After lunch, my mother scrubbed off the sauce and made me change my t-shirt, then I went outside to play whle she cleaned up, and my dad went to lay down for a nap.

I was going back to my house after playing with a friend, when the neighbor called me over and said that my mom and dad asked for me to stay with them for a while as my dad wasn't feeling good and needed to go to the hospital.  I was a little scared but as she was the mother of my then best friend Debbie, I figured it would be OK.  (besides they had a television set and I could watch tv inside and get out of the heat.) 

I never saw my dad again.  I never got a chance to say good-bye or give him a kiss.  In 1959 they didn't know about by-pass surgery or pacemakers.  So he died at 42. 

My mother returned late that night, and I remember we both hugged eachother and cried, each in our own haze of pain. 

I know it's not really the case, but in my memories of that horrible June, it seemed there were thunderstorms every day for weeks on end. 

Living happily ever after does not mean that all life on a beautiful Island is without controversy and snark. Things derail...  Life is not always a smooth path...  Simple things are never simple... and so I could continue with platitudes of patience and tolerance, but that still can't stop me from gritting my teeth and growling deeply.  

Today my Tom spent 45 minutes in line at the post office waiting to pick up the registered letter that came for us from the bank in Athens with our new debit card in it.  

Our old debit card was fine, not expired- good even, for another two years!  But our Greek bank, in its power, wisdom, and fickle insanity, decided (for our convenience) to surprise us and send us a "better" card while at the same time discontinuing the old one. 

In the spirit of puckish fun, they also decided NOT to tell the local bank, so when the customers all arrived (with pitchforks and flaming torches!) on Monday morning, the staff was caught flat-footed and had to listen and frantically scribble down notes to send to their Athenian bosses, while angry customers fumed over not being able to get out their cash over the weekend. 

<small aside here, our bank is a small one and we can only get cash out of our accounts from three machines - all downtown, near no parking places whatsoever- without a  bank charge.  Also, re: life on the island:  EVERYTHING here is a "cash only" society, which means no debit or credit cards unless you are a tourist or choose to shop at the hideously expensive stores for tourists.>


Yesterday the bank called and I spoke with the gentle bank manager for 35 minutes, and she finally gave me the registered letter number (from a long list of registered letter numbers she just received from Athens), that was needed to pick up the letter at the main post office. She told me she had talked to nearly half of the bank customers who had yet to get their cards in the mail.

The problem of course is that we do not get delivery of our mail, which is why we never got the letter to notify us that a registered letter with our new debit card in it, was waiting for us at the main post office.

We do not receive mail.  Oh sometimes, as a lark we'll check our locked slot in the large blue box in front of the empty storefront 1 1/2 miles from our front door. 

On occasion we'll have the surprise advertisement from the hardware store or a "special deal" offering better internet connections or even a lucky 3 day sale!  (all months late)  Once in a while we'll have the rare treat on a hot summer's day, to get a Christmas card from some old friend in the States or Australia. Rarely do we receive our electric bill.  Almost never do we receive our phone bill. 

If there is anything of urgency to be sent from the States or to the US, (like our income taxes or our voting ballots!) it's done by special courier service, like it has been for the past 10 years.  If it's a book or a gift, we have it sent "Care Of" my best friend's post office box in the main post office downtown.  SHE always gets her mail.  (possibly because she's lived here for 38 years...)

Athens doesn't understand our problems.  They say "the post office works!"  But it doesn't.  "Some" part of the post office may work sometimes.  Our local post office doesn't work even once in a while.  It works by accident. 

The last time I went into our local little branch post office (they who receive all our mail!) I went in an hour after the opening hours posted (no one was there the first time I went at the opening time) and there was a young woman with 4 small children running around bins of unsorted mail.  One child was playing with a box, obviously addressed to someone else.  I handed a large manila envelope to the lady, and paid  the maximum for special handling and mailed the letter to my mother. 

She never recieved it.  It's been 2 years now.

Anyway, enough said on the local branch.  Our problem now, sadly is that we must "wait" to see if the pin number letter ever shows up.  HA-HA-HA-HA-HA. Back to the local branch, where it's supposed to show up!

Ah, you say, surely that will be easier to fix!  Through the bank, we'll be able to speak to 'someone' and get that taken care of, yes?! 

Not so fast, I say with a slight sneer ... everything is a process here.  We may have all this resolved by the end of the summer!  You see, people go on vacation; There are holidays; Illnesses;  Weddings; Funerals;   They must check to see if it is returned to the sender bank in Athens...  All these things must be factored in... It will take a delicate "back and forth" relationship, and it will be of the utmost urgency NOT to growl and rant and jump on the desk of the bank manager tearing our hair out.


Eventually, as things do here on Corfu, it will be resolved.  For now we must change our lifestyles a bit and plan to go into town for the "day".  We must go in early morning, on the day we decided we need money, and find a parking place, then go and have a coffee in the nice little restaurant on the corner of the square- sitting outside while the cars drive past in an ever increasing tangle and snarl. 

Then, when the bank finally opens we must wait in line to  get the money we need for whatever expenses we'll have- whatever they may be.  (We are better 'money psychics' than we used to be)   We might decide to shop in town for a few things that are only available in town, but it will be hot and crowded by 11 am and everything closes at 2 pm for lunch and the Greek siesta.  

Then we'll go home.  On our way, we'll stop, and like 'clapping for Tinkerbell' after she drank the poison, we'll check our mailbox.

It's May and it's hot. From one day to the next, like a switch, it's hard to imagine ever wearing or needing to wear a sweater.

At night, with the ceiling fan blowing against the perspiration on my skin it's cooling enough, and I find myself finally drifting to sleep.  Only to wake up with the morning light, warm and thirsty, to feel the heat come into the bedroom through the open French doors, like a giant's heated breath.

I overfill the teapot in the morning, so I can put the leftover tea in the fridge for iced tea later.  If I'm going to cook, it's got to be done in the early morning; otherwise we'll put it on the grill. Salad season has arrived.

In the garden, Tom starts the drip system early, to water the vegetables.  All the seeds we planted three weeks ago have morphed and baby plants are poking their little heads through the dirt.  Hope they survive the sun! 

The cherry tomato plant in the pot outside the kitchen door is filled with clusters of fruit. Most are green, but many are beginning to turn orange.  With this sunshine, I am seven days away from a quart of ripe cherry tomatoes!

Going barefoot outside, means walking very fast on the sun baked stones near the pool, stopping to savor the cooler stones on the side shaded by the cypress.  The water temperature is 82.

Time to dig out the flip-flops and the rest of the summer kit from the downstairs closets!  Wish I could remember where I put the masks and swim fins.

In the afternoon, sitting in a chair on the shaded terrace, catching the afternoon breeze, it's possible to read a book. But not for long, as I find my eyes tend to droop and a little doze seems like a good idea.

The hay field next door was mowed last Friday.  Today they've come to bale it.  It smells like summer.

My eyes are closed and I smell jasmine.  Cascades of small white flowers entwined with themselves, wrapped around tall pillars, smell like this.  I open my eyes, and I see those white pillars and beyond the steps, the bright green grass that rolls down the hill of of the garden.  

Distantly, I hear John's voice telling me that he always meant to put up a covered terrace, "just never got around to it." I hear him say wryly, with with his British accent.  He and Grace built this house and put everything they had into completeing the bare bones of this lovely villa but with a few frills.  Then they left it alone, this low rambling house, and for the next 20 years expected it to do all the work.  It did, but only just.  

They imagined the deep tiled pool, the herb garden with the strawberry patch and the huge vegetable garden with asparagus and artichokes and fava beans and peas..  They saw the vines growing heavy on the long archway'd trellis, and tasted the wine they made in their imagination. They picked a green fig from the wild tree and dreamed of picking the cherries, plums, peaches and apples.  They tasted the sour wild orange in the tree near the house but imagined the lemons and limes and tiny sweet mandarins of their own citrus orchard.

When they decided to leave and move back to England, they sold me their dreams.  I saw this house then as it stands now.  I've never done that before with any other place.  Fifteen years ago, I convinced my busy husband that "THIS" was the place.  He looked at me skeptically, but we made the leap together.  After they left, after we owned the keys, illusion shimmered and fought with reality and ridiculous costs of windows, water heaters and well pumps.  Now and then I felt confused at what I saw, until I closed my eyes and pictured the way it was supposed to be.

We moved here nine years ago.  Every day was a surprise, and not always a charming one.  But we chipped away at it, bringing home flats of flowers, sheaves of shrubs and young trees from the nursery, planting vines and seeds, pruning olive trees.  So many projects were written on paper, then eventually completed became gardens and terraces and bathrooms and kitchens.   Our angst with the local workmen caused my husband to expand his porfolio of abilities.  He learned to build walls and render them with cement, roof with red clay tiles, lay ceramic floors, plaster and do electric and plumbing.  He invested himself in the doing.  His sweat made things I saw real.

This is the place I chose.  It looked nothing like it looks now when I moved here, I know, but it's exactly how I saw it all those years ago- how John saw it too, in his mind.  John and Grace are both gone now. They'll never see the house "completed", except of course they always did.

The now fading red walls of the house against the blue Mediterranean sky, so intense.  I feel intense here, and at the same time I feel rested.

I'm standing in the shade, the cool stone tiles are a relief from the hot sun.  I am here in Greece, even when I am not here.  I have made memories in this place.  I have loved my husband and my children, in this place, though not the same way I loved them before I came here.  I love everything differently since I've come home.

This place will never leave me.  Someday, I'm sure, we'll have to make a decision and give it up. 

Certainly, it's only a house.  It's only a garden.