Over the last twelve years I have had a plan for a book. These twelve years I have written anything you can imagine except my book, which was supposed to be the main plan. But last year the last person who plays a big part in my book died, you see my book is all about my family, a biographic novel if I could call it something. My family walked hand-in-hand with Modern Greek history for a long time and some memories are very painful for me even today. I wrote parts here and there and I have kept notes from stories I lived or heard; still I never felt ready to start – perhaps because some of my characters or at least some of the people who inspired some of the characters were still around. Not any more! I’m the last of the characters still alive.
It is strange to refer to yourself as one of the characters of your book but it doesn’t matter what I have written all these years there is always me or people I know and often situations I witnessed or I lived inside. Especially when it comes to how my characters feel under different circumstances there is definitely a lot of me. But this is different, it is me, all of me, somehow naked and a lot of times that scared me, that’s why it has taken so long. I have tested it with friends and even in my blog parts of that book and the style I’m writing it and to my surprise everybody was very positive and supportive. So here we are, I’m in the final turn to start I just need to sit down and do it. Again I have found all kind of excuses to postpone it from one week to another.
I checked the news, Obama was getting closer to the day he will be officially the new President of the United States and for some reason I was happy but reverse the same time. I think I was happy and hopeful so many times in the past and I got disappointed from politicians so often that I have become a cynic who’s expecting absolutely nothing. Then again there was hope in his message and I wanted to see some hope. It wasn’t just him it was the sense that every time you watch or read the news you feel that the cataclysm is just around the corner and you defenceless waiting for the end.
I don’t know what had happened to me the last two weeks, from one side the new neighbour and the man with the blood ring and from the other me going through a very quiet period; the only thing I wanted at the moment was to be quiet and alone, I was somehow overwhelmed from thousands of thoughts I could not put in order. I suppose the news about my health didn’t help much. Exactly when I was waiting that full recovery was coming and I was looking forward to get back to some kind of normality regarding my health my doctor pushed me back again and with a real worrying look told me that we have to do another series of tests since the last results had something that worried him without making clear what was that.
Over the last two years I got a lot of bad news and fewer good and I took a decision that my only defence was to turn the whole situation into a schizophrenic condition where I separate my ill ego from my normal ego; so I go to all my appointments, therapies and test with my eyes and brain turned off obeying everything that tell me without complaining and then when I step out of the hospital I try the best I can with my usual life including my writing my painting and my cappuccinos. I think the biggest difference this last period is that I do more things that I keep only for my self and I go though more time thinking. In the beginning of this adventure I was open to talk about it and sometimes I was so open to even shock people around me but gradually this died and nowadays I don’t want to talk about it, I’m mainly joking when they ask me and I do that even with people really close to me, even with Marc. I think they have enough problems and they don’t need mine.
I started writing an article about US election’s result and the same time I was thinking how I’m going to deal with this new turn and what I was going to do with my book. The last person I said who had died from the people who have inspired a character from my book was my aunt and because one way or another we always lived far from each other still very close sentimentally after I grew up I still have the feeling that I will pick the phone and just speak with her. I think this is one of the most difficult thing living abroad far from family and friends, things happening and you are not there, you never there and when you find out is always too late, the worst part is that it never seems real. It’s the same with me and my aunt, I have not accept yet that she died, is like I’m waiting a phone call from her to tell me that she’s coming and I have to arrange to pick her from the airport.
I finished with the article quickly not sure if it was good or not and I run out of the house for another small walk, this time it was not a must it was a I need a walk and the cold air and that’s probably this walk lasted more and I had no idea where I walked to only after an hour I realized that I was on my way back to the house. Walking in front the metro station I saw two people emerging from the station and walking in front of me the same direction, a gray coat and a red coat; Leena and the man with the blood ring.
Read all the Helsinginkatu 10 chapters in order, HERE!
Thanos' Pulp Fiction 