Aberystwyth

A month ago, or so, I set a deadline for finishing five collages for a book of children's first words. I thought at the time that this was going to be an easy deadline and that a month was more than enough to finish five images. But there was a problem: I had introduced two characters in the first pages of the book, a girl and a boy (see Empty Books), and I was planning to make them appear again in some of the collages throughout the book. I also wanted to keep the characters recognisable by keeping the clothes and features the same. But I could not find the papers I used so long ago for the boy and girl, so I spent most of the month looking for those papers. I have found them, but I do wish now that I had spent the month thinking more about the images than looking for the stupid papers. Nevertheless, the collages are finished and the next five images are: train, sun, umbrella, present and cake.

It is very funny, that for me, the most exotic means of transportation is the train. I had been in numerous boats as a kid and a few cars and even travelled by an aeroplane once, but I had never been on a train until I was a teenager and we went on a trip with my school to Kalavrita. There is a very unique landscape there, with a great canyon and through it runs a very slow, old and lovely train, called Odontotos train. That means literally a "toothed" train because the train runs on cogs for most of the way. It is a very atmospheric, rocky and intimate journey, as most of the time the train runs very, very close to the canyon and to a river too and also goes through tunnels carved in the mountains. It follows the contours of the mountain perfectly and climbs up and climbs down with it. It feels a bit like a theme park ride, not many people fit in the train, made by someone just for that mountain and it feels to the passengers that it was made just for them.

After this train journey I really thought no other train journey could be this memorable. But I was wrong. When I arrived for my University interviews in England in 1997, I stayed with a British acquaintance of my Uncle's and Aunty's who lived in London. I hadn't seen her since I was ten years old and I think she lived near Elephant and Castle. The plan was to be based there for a week and then take a train everyday to the destination of my interview and return after the interview on the same evening. I had some interviews in London and then my first journey was to Winchester and my second to Aberystwyth. I had a huge, heavy portfolio and an oversized borrowed, ridiculous trench coat. I remember very little of my first journey. I remember that I had hoped my Uncle's friend would accompany me on those trips. I think I was a bit taken by the size of London and the busyness of the train stations. On the day of the Aberystwyth journey I remember that I had to go somewhere and then change trains. I can't remember where that was, but I looked it up now and it must have been Birmingham. The first part of the journey I don't remember at all.  Before I left for London, I was reading in Greek The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. But I forgot it at home and in my desperation to continue reading it I bought it again in English. But the book was unreadable for me in English. I managed to read a bit on the first part of the journey, but once I changed trains and was on the one from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, the English The Idiot lost his last chance to be read by me. 

It was a long journey of about three hours or even longer. It felt also much slower than the first part of the journey from London. I thought for a moment that I was dreaming. It was spring and everything was green. There were green hills rolling outside the train window, so close that it felt I was on the green hill myself. There were spring lambs hopping around their mothers just a few metres away from the train. There were rabbits jumping around and coming in and out of their holes. There were also little streams of water with frogs jumping on the pebbles and I could see all that from my train seat. I made a point in the beginning of ignoring this, just in case I was being a funny tourist, and I tried to read the English The Idiot. I remember reading a few lines and then realising I was reading them again and again and again, never moving on. I could not bring myself not to look outside the window for even a second. Little cottage houses were popping around by now, flowers of all colours, even butterflies were flying around. I remember also seeing a fox with two cubs. It was just not a real train journey. When the hills were in the shade, they became some amazing shades of green, full of purple and warm brown and they were just breathtaking. I was starting to fear I would not be able to concentrate for my interview at all.

The Art department of the University of Aberystwyth was beautiful. It was an old department and everything was of dark wood. They specialised in printmaking and in book making and binding. That part of the department had a great smell and a great feel to it, the work was done in a serene and quiet way, much different than the London schools of art I had visited. The staff was so friendly and so inviting, I knew very early on they would offer me a place. After the interview I wanted to see the town before it got dark. I remember walking along streets that were parallel to each other, more or less identical with identical houses. I was about to give up and turn back for the station, when suddenly the streets ended and stopped more or less just above the sea. There was a high cliff and underneath a breathtaking view of a grey, angry sea with huge purple waves. It was so amazing I just stayed there for a bit too long. I remember I took the last train as I missed the one I was meant to take. In -what I presume now was- Birmingham I lost the connection and it was now late in the night and very cold. I think I got a bit scared then. A cleaner unlocked a waiting room for me and told me I could spend the night there till the first morning train. I used The Idiot as a pillow and tried to sleep a bit, but didn't. 

My next train journey was to Newcastle upon Tyne, which remains my favourite city in England. However, there has never been such a lovely train journey like the one to Aberystwyth and of course I would lie if I said that I don't sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had chosen that as my University to study Art. A new deadline for five more collages for the same book is now set to be finished within the next month. 

Athens-Thursdays

Whenever I visit Athens I still manage to be taken by surprise by its light, although I lived there most of my life. It is a bright, rich and strong light, emanating from everywhere and bouncing around off everything. The colours are richer, the shadows warmer and the metallic parts of the city, shining and blinding. This is the bit that differs in cities in Greece in comparison to the rural areas. An abundance of seemingly arbitrary and hand crafted bits on the roofs and external walls grow and live on all houses and blocks of flats, sticking out and above, playing with the light amongst themselves. Old fashioned and modern television antennae and dishes, metal extractor pipes, tin chimneys or brick ones with various metallic attachments, spikes and poles and countless solar panels attached to their cylinders. It is the most familiar city scape in the world to me, a crazy, yet totally functional arrangement of blocks of flats and houses with their accessories of light bouncing and reflecting bits, spreading out everywhere till the city reaches the sea. They are so deeply engraved in me, I feel a slight painful sigh coming up when I look down upon Athens again.

When I was young, for a while, my father came to pick me up once a week from school, on Thursdays. This was a great day for me for several reasons. My father had a car for one, so I got to ride in it on that day. It was a beige coloured Volkswagen Beetle. I loved it and I really liked that all my friends saw me getting into such a lovely car and driving away in it. Secondly, at that time in Greece it was common for farmers to put up mobile stores along motorways to sell their fruit, mostly watermelons and melons, bananas and oranges. My father without fail, always stopped and bought a bunch of bananas for me. I think he meant for me to take them home, but as I often felt a bit nervous I used to eat most of them at the back seat of the car before we even finished our drive. And thirdly, we got to ride all the way to the very top of the mountain, through the forest, from where we could see the whole of Athens spreading out below our feet. The light and the heat made everything metallic shine and flicker and the light bounced around the walls and roofs, so that such a huge and heavy city felt like it was always moving, quivering. It looked like a large thin sheet, gently shaken by someone, forming an everlasting soft wave, to throw all the tiny breadcrumb-like houses into the sea.

It is still the same after all these years from above. But a walk through, the loving to me, neighbourhoods of Pangrati reveal a different image. So many of the small shops I grew up with and which have been there for decades and run by generations of the same families, are now closed down. They are dark, hollow, gasping holes, one next to the other, sucking all the energy of the streets away, a menacing sight, like a silent but yet screaming funeral parade. People avoid to go near them any more, as do I, struck by a painful blow of cold fear, similar to when I first caught sight of a shipwreck in the bottom of the sea. I look the other way, on the opposite side of the street, hoping not to see any more shut down shops I recognise.

Back in our flat, I look down upon Athens and the familiar shining and quivering reflections meet me like always, in the dazzling light. I am cut out from the reality of Greece now. I saw people looking in rubbish bins, begging on the streets where I played as a kid. But I have no real understanding of the depth of the situation. For me it is still the same Athens from up here, and this saddens me. Living abroad in such times is the biggest betrayal to a city that keeps on welcoming me back with the same everlasting light. I felt like that during the great fires of Athens years ago, which brought me back very quickly. But this is a different kind of crisis and I have a powerless, limp feeling about me, unable to feel that I even have the right to be angry. The little lights reflecting on countless bits of metal remind me of a summer, many many years ago, on the remote island of Tilos. At the time only one boat stopped there per week and sometimes the strong winds even prevented that from stopping. But on the day the boat was due to arrive, all the kids and many adults sat on the rocks, on the beach and on their balconies around the port holding small pieces of mirror. As the boat appeared on the horizon everyone sent their reflections from the mirrors on to the ship. And as the boat approached hundreds of shining reflections were sent back from the boat to the islanders. For at least half an hour before the boat anchored and half an hour after it left, this ritual took place, greeting the boat and its passengers and sending them on their way. It was a loud, beautiful and dazzling game of light, bringing hope, people and food to a tiny, forgotten and remote part of Greece.

In my mind I am making a connection between the two flickering and shining lights, that of Athens and that of the tiny island and boat, hoping against hope that they will also bring a positive change. But I am immediately struck with guilt, feeling sick to be indulging in such inappropriate and romantic thoughts; cut out from the reality of Greece more than ever. Athens will always have this light and that is irrespective of its situation; this realisation is a great shock to me. Underneath all that, in its streets, in its guts, Athens and Greece are in dark times and parts of them are rotting, emptying. And yet I am still looking from above, from the mountain, from the balcony, from abroad, thinking it is all still the same and also wanting to jump right in it all, live in it the way it really is. People are now leaving Greece looking for a better future, a better present. And I am still hovering above it all, like it is a Thursday, dazzled by the flickering lights, unable to decide what to do.

Below are some photographs from the view of our balcony. Then some shapes based on the outlines of the cityscape, folded so that they are free standing. On them are images from the city tops again, where the light and dark and hues have been altered. I wanted to see how much I can manipulate this familiar cityscape before it starts becoming alien and unrecognisable to me. I think this is just a step before this happens. I can still just recognise my view of Athens.

For a while I will be posting on sparemomentsofasleeplessmind once a week, on Thursdays.