Fragments, places, words

Every year
same old habit
putting the baggage of a year aside
the ritual
remembering
good
bad
moments
of the year that is about to go away

every year
same old habit
spending the last 24 hours
of the last day
of the year
playing the game
which word describes each month?
which colour?
what was the best moment of the year?

every year
same old habit
on the pages of green diaries
the review of the year
classifying it
a ‘good year’
a ‘bad year’
‘productive’
‘a year to forget’

every year
same old habit
now on the page of this blog
fragments
pictures of places
each place
a story/stories
to remember
or to forget

but again only fragments

fragments
words that were said
others that were silenced
dreams that came true
those that lasted only for a night
moments of joy
of frustration
loneliness
at a loss
for words, for things, for eyes
brief unexpected encounters
surprises
stories to put myself to sleep
fragments
of myself
a year before
a year after
a year in review
not as easy anymore

pigments of colour on white canvas
and blank spots
and roads that I walked
and roads that I missed
and those that wait for me
in the New Year
and places that I dreamt of
those that I’ve been
and those that I will not return
and people
and moments

all fragments
my fragments
my 2006.

What makes one a grown-up?

A blurred image.
I have spent years wondering
'how and when am I going to grow up?'
A blurred image.
Of my first Christmas tree,
away from what I used to call home.
Now here is what I call home.
And this is the first time I will spend Christmas
at this home.
Is this the end or a new beginning?
Have I grown up after all?
A song
A tear of joy
A smile in spite of pain
A blurred image
of gold, silver and red Christmas lights.
This is adulthood for me tonight.
Merry Christmas to all of you.

The fate of the romantics

-all romantics meet the same fate someday
cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh.
You think you're immune, go look at your eyes, they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
all those pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
just pretty lies?
-you haven't really changed
it's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
you got tombs in your eyes, but the songs you punched are dreaming
listen, they sing of love so sweet
when you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
love can be so sweet.

(painting by Magritte

words by Joni Mitchell)

What keeps me company

Alone..after such long time.
Stuck in front of a computer..working constantly.
Memories of the summer return.
Days without meeting anyone.
Strange, stong feeling.
Silence.
And the sounds of the songs that keep me company.
Like this one:

I lost myself on a cool damp night
I gave myself in that misty light
Was hypnotised by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree
I made wine from the lilac tree
Put my heart in its recipe
It makes me see what I want to see
And be what I want to be
When I think more than I want to think
Do things I never should do
I drink much more that I ought to drink
Because it brings me back you
Lilac wine is sweet and heady,
Like my love
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady,
Like my love
Listen to me, I cannot see clearly
Isnt that she, coming to me
Nearly here
Lilac wine is sweet and heady,
Where's my love?
Lilac wine,
I feel unsteady,
Where's my love?
Listen to me,
why is everything so hazy?
Isn't that she, or am I just going crazy, dear
Lilac wine, I feel unready for my love
Feel unready, for my love.

This is what keeps me company tonight. And the memory of dear friends- like you with whom I first heard this song in a cool, damp night last year and then you got me Jeff Buckley's Grace as a birthday present.
Now that you're so far away and we cannot drink wine together, at least I have the song to keep me company and remind me of you..

Memoirs of a Week II: The Playmobil City

Living with a six-year old boy for six days
with no adults
no internet
no blog
can it be that I ended up hallucinating or
is it really that I saw playmobils walking
drinking coffee
eating du canard in restaurants?
Find out for yourself:
visit Nantes in Loire Antlantique
and perhaps you will see
playmobils waiting for the green traffic light..
Otherwise, this is my private hallucination
thanks to my lovely nephew.

Advice of the day: if you feel that your life is not that good and you get disappointed or miserable at times, spend some time with a child..this will definitely make you change your mind and see things in a brighter way. Even playmobils can walk in the streets then..and you will sleep as a child..sweet dreams μωρό μου.

Memoirs of a Week I: Brief Encounters

Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport. Saturday afternoon, second day of December. Sitting on a red couch, drinking gin and tonic, waiting for the flight after the one I missed, the flight after, I am watching people coming and going.
A sound like the music that used to play when I was a baby, sleeping in my cradle. Departures, arrivals, the sound of baggage, bags, trolleys rolling..
Watching the crowd, looking at the bar in front of me: a woman in her early forties, beautiful eyes and make-up that reminds me of an aunt that used to visit us every December before Christmas, is talking with a man. They are strangers, I think. After all, she was sitting already atthe bar when he came, asked for a lighter and ever since then they started talking.
Twenty minutes are past, they are chatting as if they’ve known each other for ages. I go on observing them: she is smiling while he is trying to hold her hand-could they’ve known each other or is it a brief unexpected encounter in an airport, where strangers can become friends in a very short time because they need company? Sound of departures and arrivals, I am looking for the sign of brief unexpected encounters.
A man is staring at me for some time now- or is he staring at me? or is he wondering what I am writing? You see, the problem with writing is that it is active and attracts attention, especially in places like this bar in a big airport in the centre of Europe, where everyone is either reading or chatting with a stranger, or at least staring at other people doing different things. The sound again.. I am staring at the man too- he starts writing.
I am stopping for a moment, ordering coffee, lighting a cigarette, looking around, waiters are serving people, smiling, with some of them they are rather friendly. The woman and the man go on talking, they are laughing loudly now. Last sip of gin, first sip of espresso, a sweet nostalgia for an unexpected, brief encounter, somewhere in the past or the future. I pick up the pen again and get ready to go on writing:
‘Strangers at airports can’/but.. hold on a minute.
The man and the woman are getting ready to go, he is helping her put on her coat- perhaps they knew each other after all? They are walking to the exit together and, then, he is helping her with the suitcase, she is kissing him. No.. this was not an unexpected ‘airport’ encounter, I was wrong. That was a moment of life that I only happened to witness in an airport. So much about unexpected circumstances and brief encounters…
Final sip of the espresso, the sound of departures reminds me that I should get ready, no more writing. I am walking to the exit, I am looking at the man (he stopped writing when he saw me leaving), he is vaguely smiling at me, I am smiling back and start walking fast- I am almost running away.
‘I have to catch the flight after/after the one I missed’, she said.

Wednesday: Close your eyes

Lucian Freud. Girl with closed eyes (1986-7)

-Look at me

-'Everybody is looking at you'

-I am closing my eyes

-Look at them-don't close your eyes

-How many times do you close your eyes during a day?

-Why?

- Close your eyes. I want to break the circle

-What can you see?

-Naked..free..afraid

Sight is a geometry- like all other senses.

We look at each other-we make a circle, so hard to break

if only we could break the circle..

'αν αγαπούσαμε θα'σπαζε ο κύκλος

θα κλείναμε τα βλέφαρα για μια στιγμή

αλλά δε μπορούμε να αγαπήσουμε'

'if only we loved, the circle would break

we would close our eyes only for a moment

but we cannot love'

How many times do you close your eyes a day?

A Monday a la maniere de G.S.

British grown daffodils. A blind woman staring at the sun is reading:

"το ποτάμι δεν κυλά έχει ξεχάσει τη θάλασσα
κι όμως υπάρχει η θάλσσα και ποιος θα την εξαντλήσει;
οι τυφλοί κοιμούνται"

the sea
forgotten the smell
the breeze
the feeling of cold water on the skin

a weak melancholic sun
and the smell of wet soil
instead
blind people
dreaming

nothing more
enough for today
another (Mon)day gone
the river flows
towards the sea.

What do you (want to) see?

Look at the image on the left- what do you see?
Neuroscientists argue that if you want to perceive a visual figure, you need to focus your attention on it. There are certain cases of 'binocular rivalry' when the attention addressed to a certain image and, most importantly, the motive that drives someone perceive something in a certain way, can make two people see the same image in totally different or opposing ways.

I look at the image on the left: I can see a white vase, but then I look a bit closer and see two black faces. And here the confusion begins: I try to distance myself and see both, perhaps because I hate the idea that it is either a white vase or two black faces. Perhaps I can stand above this 'binocular rivalry' and see things neither as black nor as white.

But let's face the problem: why don't I take things simply at face value? Why don't I accept that it is either black or white? Why do I want to create a new (but non-existent) image? What kind of attention is this?

I guess this is the problem with many of us in our lives: we try to stand outside 'binocular rivalries' and create new ways of perceiving not only images but also things, events in our everyday lives. We want to escape from the 'black/white' binary, but eventually we are trapped in our own grey zones that are, sadly but truly, new forms of perception guided by our own motives. We analyse, we look closer, we come up with explanations, we rationalise, we give a second, third, or million readings of an image, an event, a person- but we miss the point: that perhaps, our initial perception of and reaction towards whatever is the focus of our attention was actually the least tainted, the more honest or perhaps even the right one.

Look at the image on the left once more- what do you see?
And then look at your life- what do you want to see?
But beware: you have to make a choice: black or white?

On a white background

I still cannot make up my mind whether I like white, winter days or not. And I don't mean white days, because of snow- I mean white days like today: when the sky is so white, that you think that you can touch the thick clouds. Sometimes, I love the melancholy of these colours, some others I feel that I am losing my breath in this white, dull landscape. And I miss the sun.
However, there is one good thing about such white skies: in a white background, the colours of the trees become stronger and more vivid. See, for example, the picture of the tree outside my window; it's getting more and more red everyday. It's almost like catching fire under this white sky and makes me feel alive and warm despite the dull and melancholic winter surroundings.

Unfortunately,though, I know that these are the last days of colour (or shall I say the last glimpses of hope?) before the tree's leaves fall and the white (winter) is no longer a background-but everywhere.

What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Last night, I saw it again after many years.
In Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), a stunning Audrey Hepburn plays Holly Golightly, one of the most classy, stylish and obstinate characters in the history of cinema. George Peppard plays the writer Paul -call me Fred-, who first becomes her friend, then falls in love with her but things are not very easy. Holly thinks that she doesn't belong to anyone but he believes that belonging to someone is the only way to happiness.
But words are not enough to explain why I love this film. It is very much a girls' movie, funny, beautiful and romantic. Especially, the day that Holly and Fred spend together, doing things that they have never done before, is something!(and of course, what can I write about Moonriver, the film's classic song?)

Message of the Day: If some of you out there haven't seen this movie yet, I suggest you do. It will definitely make you go to bed with a smile and feel that nothing bad can happen to you; 'just like at Tiffany's'.

Flying Balloons

pause..rewind..play.
smell of lemon trees--springtime.
sleeping under Christmas tree.
forward..
black dress--a rose.
throwing paper plates.
forward..
September night.
first cigarette.
burnt.
sitting on the steps waiting.
no-not that one.

fast forward.
flavour of caramel ice cream.
tastes like summer.
'-leave the window open'.
'-but it's January!'
once more.
erase.

change the music.
break the rhythm.
this is it.
play.
green and white balloons.
flying in the sky.
running.
laughing and crying.
wet.
and then you said:
'in crossroads, the wind is always strong.
be careful, you might lose your way...'
stop.

Some moments are unforgettable- simply and inevitably.
The more I grow up, though, the more I realise how grateful I am to those who stay all the way, and don't become vague memories that are played in abstract time and space.
This is for my most beautiful and closest friends,
my 'flying balloons' that never leave me alone, no matter how strong the wind is..

33 years later

Τα πολυβόλα σωπάσαν

οι πόλεις αδειάσαν και κλείσαν

ένας βοριάς παγωμένος σαρώνει την έρημη γη

στρατιώτες έρχονται, πάνε, ρωτάνε γιατί πολεμήσαν

και συ σιγάζεις, το δάχτυλο βάζεις να δεις τη πληγή

Μην με ρωτάς

δεν θυμάμαι

μην με ρωτάς

μην με κοιτάς

σε φοβάμαι

μην με κοιτάς, μην με ρωτάς

Στη πολιτεία βραδιάζει

το χιόνι τις στέγες σκεπάζει

ένα καμιόνι φορτώνει και κόβει στα δυο τη σιγή

περιπολία στους δρόμους και κάποια φωνή που διατάζει

και συ σιγάζεις, το δάχτυλο βάζεις να δεις τη πληγή

In memory of 17 November 1973, Polytechnic school, Athens.

For the students and their passion, for making the difference and leaving something to remember.

Sounds of the city

At the end of a long 'in-yer-face' weekend, I found myself walking towards one of my favourite places in London, the South Bank. When I walk where I have walked so many times before, in different seasons, daytime or night, alone or with others, I rarely expect a surprise or a revelation. I almost know what kind of sensation I will get when I see the Embankment Bridge and the river..and this element of predictability is perhaps what drove me there at the first place..to feel comforted through habit.
But here is the unexpected..Outside the Royal Festival Hall, a wall full with photographs that you can touch..photographs of people and places in Trading Places.

And sounds emerge from the photographs, they reach my ears, and then get blurred ..how does the city sound like now? I close my eyes, the sounds of the city grow inside me,and then I..

listen with deep emotions
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward
listen-your final pleasure- to the voices
to the excquisite music of that strange procession

Like the sounds of a city that I've never been to before, like the memory that I can't really recall,like the sensation of a surprise that lingered for a moment in the cold November night.

A Rare (Blasted) Sensation

hotel room, double bed,silver and wood, glasses for champagne,TV
large windows with white curtains-outside the world
no sound inside
day or night?doesn't matter
man and girl-older, sick-
helpless-is she?
'I love you'-'I don't'-a moment
he will give her flowers-she will bite him--they will make love

next morning comes--sound of water falling
'city is ours now'-blast
bare stage-- bed left-no wood, no silver, no curtains
world inside,a dark morning-it smells
want to cry, throw up-don't runaway
man and man-facing- helpless-is he?
angry and abandoned-remembers-a moment
she will come back,eat sausages and say 'no' all the time
a language I dont speak-- yet stabbing me inside

'this is not a story everyone wants to hear'
this is a production everybody must see
'stories must be personal'
now this is personal

no pictures-scattered words
rare sensation
the world outside
walking in the City late
waiting for the train
people running
angry
helpless
rain falls
clean-is she?
a moment

reconciliation
no- no other choice
nowhere to go
need
'I don't'
abandoned
selfless
stay
thank you

Waiting for Blasted

I am waiting impatiently, I am almost counting down hours until tomorrow evening when after five years of waiting I will have the chance to see Sarah Kane's Blasted in performance. The German production of the play (Zerbombt) is directed by Thomas Ostermeier,artistic director of Berlin's Schaubuhne and is on at the Barbican until Saturday.
Blasted, the first play by Kane written after more than 20 drafts, was initially performed at Royal Court theatre in 1995 (the photo is from that performance) and saw the outrageous response of British critics, due to its violence and, I would add, the hypocritcal morality that critics know so well to protect and advocate. Unfortunately, even now, very few people are referring to Blasted or even the rest of Kane's plays without mentioning how notorious a writer she became after her debut. Eleven years later, it's time for a serious re-appraisal of her work-beyond the scandal and her suicide.

When the sound is gone and everything has fallen apart, a feeling of reconciliation grows while the rain starts falling and goes on until lights fade out.
But can you hear a voice whispering 'thank you' while the sound of the rain becomes more and more loud?

I wish it rains tomorrow and I walk in the rain..again, like almost six years ago.

True men Part 1

Carry me down the stairs, Cary...

Moonlight

-In a night full with colours and fireworks,

fall in love with the light of the moon.

Surprised at its beauty.

Feel its bright coldness.

Fly away.

A rose is waiting up there...years now.

-But will you show me the way back, when the sun rises and you're gone?

Deceptions

Round

like a circle in a spiral

like a wheel within a wheel

never ending or beginning

on an ever-spinning reel

like a snowball down a mountain

or a carnival ballon

like a carousel that's turning

running rings around the moon

like a clock whose hands are sweeping

past the minutes of its face

and the world is like an apple

whirling silently in space

like the circles that you find

in the windmills of your mind

Why time is never enough?

Why some days go on forever?

Why things always come too early or too late?

Time deceives.

A summer night or a winter morning is here,now.

Then, the moment is past and gone.

But why here and now is never enough?

Always looking behind or forwards.

And time flows like sand from your hands.

Time is a trickster.

Or maybe not?

Instead of goodbye (small dedication)

Sadness is burning my eyes but the warmth of your blue eyes will stay with me.
Today I lost you and I was not even there to say goodbye.
But it's not goodbye for me.
The universe is vast. Somewhere there, someday we will meet again.
I look at the skies and know you will be following my journey, as you did for the last sixteen years.
Thank you for being such a loyal companion and friend.
And for reminding me that life (and love), no matter whether they are for humans or animals, are gifts.

Goodbye my dear.

Escaping the G-word

Casimir: If I send a message, someone will hear it.
Oleg: No one is listening.
Casimir: How can they listen if we're not communicating?
Oleg: What if it's the Americans?
Casimir: I love America. I want to drink Pepsi Cola. I want to see sex shows. I want to go to New York and open a restaurant...I want to talk to somebody.

Oleg: This is the last entry in the log. The mission is now over. The results of the experiment are as follows. The limit is this. I am at it. I can go no further through time alone. I don't know what else to say. If anyone finds this log..I am over Europe. It is night. Moving east. I have set explosive charges throughout the craft. In a few moments the ship will consume itself. Somewhere on earth is a woman I once loved. Who has most probably forgotten me. If she looks at the sky. Or takes notice of the stars. She may notice the disappearance of Harmony module. Or maybe not.

David Greig. The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union (1999)


I have been struggling with the G-word for more than four years.Today, while walking, I thought that I should write about it and start the debate: is the G-word good or bad? Do we want it or not? Can we develop either positive or negative views about it? Or do we have to?

But then, looking at clouds chasing each other in the sky, colours changing from deep blue, to silvery grey and then white, I remembered one night in theatre that gave me at least for two hours a new experience of the G-word- a true theatrical experience.
So, today I am escaping politics and debates on globalisation, I do not give explanations or views, I remain silent. More on the play, and the G-word perhaps, tomorrow.

Freudian Slips 1

Here is the running joke of these days:
the other day, talking to my friend I made one of my many Freudian slips, by saying 'homeopathetic drugs'!

But I wonder: what is the difference between homeopathic and homeo-pathetic?
Take for example, cigarettes..are you smoking a lot and sometimes have this terrible feeling that your voice is changing or even that you are about to lose your voice? Well, you can always go on smoking as much or even more, and get used to or get rid of the feeling or sound of your voice-homeopathic or homeopathetic?

Other cases of -pathic versus -pathetic can also be introduced: telepathic or tele-pathetic?
psychopathic or psycho-pathetic? I will expand and elaborate these terms in the future. (any additions to this first list of words is more than welcome.)
This Freudian slip has really broaden my horizons and enriched my vocabulary, but, I wonder: what uncle Zigmund would say about my condition: pathic or pathetic??

Ladybugs and the End of Summertime

The thing that I love most about my flat is the four windows of my living room. Thanks to these four windows the room is always full with light and I can always find ways to distract myself from work: looking at the neighbours on the left always doing gardening, or hearing the two girls that live in the house on the right shouting while leaving for school every morning-making stories about these people that I see or others that I can just hear passing by.

Today, all of sudden, two of the four windows were invaded by ladybugs- more than 10 ladybugs were walking on the windows staring at me for more than an hour. Of course, this is not the first time that ladybugs visit me (or other insects as well-especially, bees really fancy this place whereas I dont like them!) But today it was as if they had a purpose coming here. Perhaps, as they say, ladybugs bring good luck and I can always think that I will be extremely lucky in the future.

But then again, thinking twice, I think they just came to say goodbye. After all, summertime is over since last night and the light in my room will not be as strong anymore. I guess that from now on, my excuses to get distracted from work will have to come only from people and not ladybugs or other strange visitors on my windows.

I want to live in paradise

Antarctica: The coldest place on earth, where the winter lasts for nine months.

No inhabitants, only these penguins (or, in French, 'manchots') who not only survive but give birth before the winter begins,the male (!) protect the eggs throughout the winter, while the female return to the ocean to bring food (or, alternatively, have a blast, despite some dangerous fish being around!) And then, they go back, the little ones are already born, waiting for them, and the male leave to find food...and so,this weird story goes. This story is that of 'le manchot empereur' and last night I found out about it, watching the brilliant documentary La marche de l'empereur (2005) by Luc Jacquet. A story of devotion, beauty, unbelievable abilities to survive in the cold and recognise their loved ones through voice. Above all,this is a story about constantly walking, marching in groups- the solitary won't be able to survive. Since les manchots cannot fly, they have to walk constantly- still, they can dive under the water, and the moment when they come out, it's so much like flying or trying to fly and failing.

And I wonder: what do we,humans, can learn from these animals living in the coldest but so beautiful place in the planet? The only thing I know today is that I am jealous of them, because apparently they are able to keep their inside always warm, even if outside they have the temperature of a freezing animal, whereas I found myself freezing at some point while watching the film, and stayed with this cold feeling until I went to bed. And I wonder: is really Antarctica the coldest place on earth?

For Starters..

The title of this blog was initially conceived in Greek from a phrase that came to me one morning many years ago and has been stuck in my mind ever since. Drifting Planets, as the 'analogue' of the phrase in English, came to me only today that I decided to start this blog.

Planets endlessly wandering in the solar system.
In the initial Greek title of the blog, there is an element of deception that goes together with the wandering planets. Planets constantly moving, always escaping, you never quite manage to see them as a whole- beauty and deception.

Having exhausted myself with too much thinking and a very strong Permanent Head Damage in the last three years, I am embarking on this journey- a journey with many stops, I hope, but never ending. Wandering or wondering, looking at the planets on earth, human beings endlessly drifting, always beautiful but always deceiving you.
This is only the beginning- from now on, we go with the flow..