My first driving trip

Everytime I do something new, it rains.

This time it was driving the car in the national highway, to the north of Attica.

My father was beside me. My safety net. It was raining hard. He was of great help.

I felt a bit stiff, but I arrived safely.

In the past, I had to rely on friends to take me and Freeda on long trips like this. I was longing for my own car. I wished I did not need anyone to take me there. The time has come.

I am greatful for all the friends who helped me in the past. I will take anyone with me next time. I promise.

For now, I will enjoy the sea water and play as much as I can.

I'm having a nice day. Do you?

One more journey begins today.

A new project with my friends, an unknown territory to be conquered.

I am not allowed to say more, but it's exciting.

 

one hot morning

 A summer say on the beach.

A bunny rabbit on a tiny pebble.

Or is it a face?

The bunny rabbit has some friends.

Tiny fossils on a blue landscape.

Summer stories.

Hot July.

Words are poor, images are rich.

What did you look for on the beach?

What did you find?

river

Sometimes you' ve got to let a river clean you.

Was feeling kinda sad yesterday. It was hot. I could stay home. Or I could use the car to get near nature. 

I chose the latter. Isn't it great to have a river so close? 15 minutes and you are somewhere else. Away from the city, next to the river.

Freeda in the back, music in the CD player, the hot road ahead. 

We got near the river. It was really noisy and cool. We walked under the trees. It was quiet and beautiful.

My feet froze in the river water. But it was worth it.

Driving alone. A small trip. A small victory. 

Slowly I'm gaining my freedom.

on talent

"I decided to stop moaning and do something about it."
Lately, I hear this phrase very often.

Young, beautiful, prosperous. Deprived of dreams and hopes. Yet, they decide to get out. Meet others. Use their talents.

They form small groups.

They are farmers, photographers, actors, painters, puppeteers, writers... Whatever the talent, it is put to use. Not for money. For salvation. Our talents are a life vest. Many talents put toghether are a life saving boat.

In my reality, there are lots of life saving boats. Warm smiles. Clear, sincere eyes. The ocean is really hard. The waves are big and strong.

But we will make it.

Once upon a time there was a blog...

Once upon a time there was a blog.

It was born out of a need of expression. A need to write. A need to be.

It came out of a cyber womb. It was empty, yet full of promises.

The blogs' mother gave it a name. The name had a promise. Never to stop writing about a journey. A life journey.

The word "never" is heavy. A blog, like a baby needs nurturing. It needs to be filled with words. Not just words. Stories. Our blog was really happy because its stories were funny, interesting, full of love for nature and animals. Full of dreams waiting to be fullfilled.

Every day, new words were filling it. And pictures. Lovely pictures next to the words. This blog was happy. Once in a while, the blog would be read by someone. Someone who would be kind enought to comment on its stories. And the blog was happy.

It was growing. More people would visit it. A tiny blog from nowhere, was becoming something. It found other blogs to communicate and it felt like it belonged to a blog family. A family of dreamers. A family where words mattered. Where stories mattered.

Sometimes the stories were not happy, other times stories were exciting.

Two years passed and the blog had character. It had style and was self confident.

But stories came slower and slower. It was not a daily story board anymore. It was more like a monthly story board.

Its mother had other things to do. She was busy. She was visiting everyday, but there were no words to nurture it. There came a time where she had not given a story to her blog for two months. It seemed once, that the blog was her only refuge. A place to reveal her most secret thoughts, to self critisize and evolve.

The name of the blog came under the microscope. What was its true meaning? Was its name literal? Or was it more like a general term? Our blog was filled with doubt. Will it ever be an actual travel blog? Will it be the diary of a self centered, void. would-be writer?

At the moment this blog is crying out for stories. It's crying out for attention. It is crying and shouting: "No more Facebook please!, I'm here too and I need your words, your stories and your pictures."

I better listen. My stories will be back soon.

The theatre journey

 I don't really know what drove me into joining the amateur theatre group of my city.
Or maybe I do know.
I missed the stage.
Till then, my experience was mainly musical, in choirs and rock/soul bands as a singer.

We started off with lessons. Acting, improvising, dancing, history, speech training...

The thratre gave me much more. it gave me friends. Lots of different characters. Whatever their luggage, they reserved their big smiles for these precious weekends they "sacrificed" to be in the classes. My first surprise was the lack of ego. Εgo is a big problem among artists. I had bitter experiences in the past by overblown egoes. This crowd was here to learn, to laugh, to make friends, to have fun.

It was a big surprise - and a secret longing - when we learned we would be in an actual play. To rehearse for a real performance. I ended up in two plays. A theatre play and a dancing performance...

We are going on stage in a couple of months. The pressure is already building. The rehearsals are a daily routine. We have to remember the steps, to express the feelings... There is a lot of tension and a lot of sweet moments. There are fights and tears. There are bravos' and congratulations. There is encouragement and tiredness and shouting. There are smiles.

There are precious moments in the process. Diving into the theatres' underground wardrobe/cloakroom to find the right garments for our performance. The smiles and teasing. Touching the fabrics. Funny hats, serious hats, striped ties and extravagant garments.

It is the proccess that matters most to me. We have a fight during the rehearsal and then we go and have a beer toghether, to fight off the exhaustion and cool off the tension.

Both our directors are charismatic people.
Our dance teacher/director has a unique way of pulling off our energies. 3-4-10 hours non stop she encourages us and yells at us. She is trying to bring out the best from us. She has the whole play in her head. She choreographed a half hour performance. Such a gifted choreographer/writer... At the end of the day it's her smile that counts.

Our second director is more of a chaos organizer. He takes chaos and he makes it into a performance. Very young but very passionate. Younger than me. There are times I want to smack him in the face. He has taught me to be patient with people. At the end of the day, the performance is starting to look really cool, whatever my aesthetic dissent. My ego was checked. I had to step back and conform for the sake of everone. Our play is a comedy and it is turning out to be hilarious.

Last but not least, my fellow players, my peers. There are no words to express my gratitude to these amazing people. Everyone was casted so perfectly for their corresponding roles. Learning their parts... all these pages and pages of script... I always found it difficult to learn the words for a song, let alone a page of script! I was lucky not to have much script in this play... And I have deep admiration for all the others who have all these words to learn!

I am enjoying the proccess so much, I do not want it to finish. The final performances are going to mark the end of these tense rehearsals. I hope they never come. This is one of the best journeys of my life. It's not the destination that matters. It's the love and hugs of the journey.

Thank you everyone, I bow before your greatness.

Happiness is a matter of focus

this is a flower, not an insect

Happiness is a matter of focus.

Talking lately with some people, they asked me how do I manage to be so optimistic, so happy.

Got me thinking. How do I do it? I guess I focus on the positive. On my friends' big, honest smiles. On the beauty of team work. I focus on the small details that make my day better.

I know there are difficulties. I listen when someone is in need. I know there are bad news. I choose not to reproduct and spread them. I train myself not to feel overwhelmed by the bad stuff. This too shall pass.

Being optimistic, brings happy people my way. The bright side of life can only bring you bright experiences.

We are bigger, stronger than we think we are. We can make a difference.

As spring approaches, I am driving, rehearsing and teaching. three things I have never done before in my life. I am learning, getting out of my comfort zone. The reward is smiles from the kids I teach, smiles from my fellow amateur actors, smiles from my inner self when I manage to park the car or complete a difficult manoeuvre.

To travel is to learn. To travel is to change perspectives always.

observing my surroundings

"Theatre is a waste of time." This is what a painter told me today.

I would understand it if the words came out of a mouth of anyone else who is not appreciative of the arts in general. But it came out of the mouth of an artist. I was so shocked that I did not ask him what he meant.  

Did he understand the heaviness of this statement? Is he thinking about it like I do right now? Most probably no, he is not.

In the past few days all I do is observe people. Observe what they say, how they critisize, what they have to say about others. Sometimes it comes to me as a surprise, as a shock.

Generalizations, taboos, stereotypes, are all here in my every day life. Being gay is bad, being a man actor is being gay, people who like avant garde are people who smell bad and never shave... to name but a few.

I try to stand up for gays and the avant garde and being different. I am not always succesful because the shock is to strong and my tongue and mind are not as quick.

The only thing I can really do is watch - think - process the data.

This small town and it's people have yet a lot to learn.

these little creatures called applauds

Almost a week ago I read this question: "where do applauds go?"

It got me thinking.

Applauds are approval, reward to something that exhites us. See the picture: In a theatre, thousands of applauds fly away. Some of them fly into the heart of the performer. Some stay in the theatre and they become ghosts. Sit in an empty, quiet theatre and  you will hear the ghosts. Some might even fly out of the theatre into the street. Into the rain. One applaude might touch a bird, or even climb the birds' back and fly with it. Another applaude might fall on the pavement. It will get stuck underneath a sole. Another one might stay on the branches of a tree. From there it can look to the passers-by.

Applauds are funny little creatures. They fly around and then creep into our hearts. Can we hear them? Can we listen to these little applauds in our heads? Do we ever applaud ourselves? If we do, do we keep them inside, or do we let them fly away like they never existed?

Give applauds credit. Sit still and very quiet. You might hear one, two, three, five, ten, a hundred applauds surrounding you. They are for you. No one else.