Mind games

Sometimes I do wonder. How can one person be in the most beautiful place, have work - and subsequently money -  have a lovely man, swim everyday and still be miserable?

I do wonder. My mind plays games. In my head I worry, in my mind I fight, in my mind I feel terrible. I look at the sea and I do not enjoy now. It is just stupid. It is just the way I am.

All day yesterday I was feeling terrible. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I could not stop it. I WOULD not stop it. I was watching myself from a distance feeling terrible. I was worrying for things that are not mine, I was feeling like I had lost myself in a wave of anger and fear. The hours went by, I was losing a beautiful, playful day. The afternoon came and I was watching my child - the child I'm looking after - and his friends play in the sea. They were standing right where the sunset was making it's golden road.

And I took some deep breaths. Here. Now. The children are playing. They are happy. Here. Now. I'm happy watching them. Here. Now. The moon is getting bigger. My reality is beautiful. Stop fighting in your mind. Please. You are safe. You can be happy. You deserve this beauty.

The children got out of the sea. They had a nice shower. We had a nice evening. The sun set for one more time, the wind was blowing like every other day and the moon got out eventually. It did not matter anymore. Nothing mattered.

This wave of misery was over. I told him a bedtime story and we went to sleep. It's summer. He is on holiday. He is happy. Me and little Elina are happy too.

Have a nice day...

Watching my life from a distance

 It is very strange to work on an island. It is a serene and beautiful place, yet I have to get up at 8.00, have coffee and breakfast and run to work by 10.15. The moped has saved my life, because it takes me to the next village in 10 minutes. Then work by 2.30 and back home for: swimming, cooking, eating, resting, getiing ready for the night. In 3 hours I have to do all this and maybe skip the swimming part... Every afternoon I feel I have to catch a train that will leave without me... And then I have to be really well dressed and smiling, whatever the circumstances. Work starts again at 19.00 till 1.30 in the morning.

Believe it or not, it's a hectic schedule and you have little time to rest and be yourself.

On the other hand, Sifnos is a funny little place. Every night, the small street I work at, is full of people who are too overdressed, women who wear high heels and are having trouble walking the paved streets! Lots of tv celebrities I do not know because I don''t have a tv... I laugh a lot at this vanity that passes before my eyes... It is so far away from the tomboy I am and I do wonder why people have to behave like this...

Sifnos is a sociological wonder. In the midst of crisis, ladies are buying expencive clothes and gentelmen drive expensive cars. For the past years Sifnos has been a wedding island because of all these little churces by the sea... And a wedding in Greece is still a big, expensive thing to do!

I am thinking that I am here to experience the abundance of the sea and sun, to get out of the "crisis mentality" that some are trying to pass.

Sometimes I compare my summer in Skyros last year and I realise how happy I was, mucking the horse fields. The horses did not judje me from my clothes, they judged me from my soul. In fact they did not judge me at all. I was so happy hugging them and looking at them and I had so much to write about them... Same with the olive harvest in Italy... Now, I don't have anything meaningful to write...

I promise myself I will work hard here in Sifnos. I promise I will take the money and keep travelling in places that speak to my soul. I promise I will enjoy this strange and unfamiliar environment.

Have a nice day!

My first day off in Sifnos

photo by antonisartheart

It is quite strange. People come and go. We say "hello, what's your name" and then we say "goodbye". I am the one staying. It feels good and strange. In a land where everybody takes it easy, I have to have a schedule, go to work at a certain time, come back at a certain time and so on...

Of course I can't complain, I have a job I like and I am in a place I like. Today I do feel like a tourist, because I woke up late, had a long coffee having a distant thought about Athens and its general strike...

Sifnos... day two...

Michelangelo can't wait to get off the boat

It's 7.40 in the morning. I woke up in my tent with the sounds of birds, the wind and the sea. I made my coffee. I am drinking my coffee under a tree. It's a bit cloudy, but the temperature is high.

The first thing you see when the boat approaches Kamares, the port, is a big natural bay surroundeed by tall mountains. It's like the land is hugging the sea. You might think that ports are dirty and full of pollution, but this port's waters are crystal clear. Kamares has a clean, sandy beach...

I did swim yesterday and it seemed that the whole winter was instantly washed away.

It's suprisingly hot for June. The island is quiet this time of the year. It seems that most visitors are foreigners, ie not Greek. No offence, but they are better tourists than the greeks. Very polite, very quiet, very clean, very friendly with Freeda...

Freeda just took a sand bath

It took me a while to realise I'm in this beautiful place and not in Athens this time of the year.

So here I am. I work at this beautiful shop called "I touch", "aghizo" in greek. It's in Apollonia, the main village of Sifnos, 8 kilometers from where I'm staying. It's up on a mountain. You've got the typical white houses, the typical small streets and the typical smell of jasmine coming from the back yards...

Just beautiful...