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Girl power

Imposed cheerfulness

Like every morning, I turn on the radio first.
♫ All I want for Christmas is you ♫ from Mariah Carey is the first song I hear. Shit, already? The melancholy hits like a bomb. Gosh, three more weeks of imposed cheerfulness to go.

The past

Christmas used to be fun. When I was still part of a family. First as a child, later as a mother. Tree rigging, shopping for nice gifts, wrapping everything nicely in shiny paper. The scent of a real Christmas tree that welcomes you for three weeks when you come home.

It had to be a large one, from the floor to the ceiling. The room had to be redesigned and the cupboard under the stairs could not be used during those weeks. The cats left the Christmas tree in peace, as long as we didn’t hang any balls on the lower branches. My biggest challenge was cooking for sixteen mouths, but it was tasty and fun.

No ýou’ for me

♫ All I want for Christmas is Youuuuuu ♫
I have no “you” and I am no longer part of a family or couple.
And I feel that, especially around Christmas. Absence of loved ones.

Come on, I have things to do. No time to pay attention to Christmas melancholy. I still have three weeks for that. I am expecting my girlfriends for the somba * project.

The wood oven

The pipes, the corners, the hooks and the chains. It’s all been bought to install my wood oven. My Dutch “know everything better” girlfriend Maya has told me what to buy and what I have purchased. Elefteria, my Greek friend right from the start, agile and with great fine motor skills, has a concrete drill and comes to drill the tripes * for the hooks for me. Crosetta, Italian, has not seen my new place up here in the mountains yet so she’s coming too. The plan is that we install the wood oven in a more central place in the house, then make a meal in the oven and play cards.

Wood, a lot of wood

I have to hurry, I have a lot to do. I want to wash my hair and I have to get the pipes out of the car that is parked at the entrance to the village. Our village is like a labyrinth and the streets are so narrow that you can’t get in it with a car. My move has taken place with a small tractor. This morning, my landlord will also pass by to give me the key to the wood storage opposite my house. Fortunately, I can pay the timber stock in instalments because 350 euros in one go is too big an attack on my modest income. I hope the wood lasts me two winters.
As a Christmas gift, he brings me 5 litres of his homemade wine.

Girl Power

Circus monkeys

For a few hours, my girlfriends are standing on the table, on the wall in the kitchen, on chairs or on the small steps to get the construction in the air. More importantly, keep it in the air. Like a bunch of circus monkeys, they play antics to get the pipes in place. Everything crashes down twice. My second computer screen just came down in the process. The pipe does not fit in the corner piece, the drill bit is not the right size, there seems to be a pipe shortage, the pipe outside of the house should actually be replaced. I have forgotten the tape for sealing the connections.

She does know better

The steps are not high enough and Maya is the ‘lucky’ one since she is the tallest of the bunch. What the others don’t manage she has to step in. What I wanted, the construction across the room isn’t possible according to Maya, and it shows. As the day progresses we increasingly come to the conclusion that the construction must be provided with two corners and cannot run obliquely through the room.

Determination

Fortunately one of my neighbours has aluminium tape at home, my girlfriends are determined to fix it, and I let everything happen. I can’t climb and clamber myself and I don’t have much strength in my hands either. They have known me for years and know that I am clumsy and unusable. I make coffee, make sandwiches and encourage them.

Girl Power

Proud

When the fire, at last, is alight, no smoke is escaping anywhere and the food is in the oven, all four of us finally sit in peace at the kitchen table. We admit that we all had a desperate moment, but we did not want to give in. I say they can be very proud of their work. My screen is still working. The floor has been swept and mopped, the couch has been moved to a different place and I am enjoying the view of the room with the pipe construction.

Christmas

The plans for Christmas are discussed during the meal. Maya and I have plans to spend Christoúgenna* together by the fireplace that is also present as a heat source. Crosetta is not going “home” this year, and according to Maya, our common friends think it’s a good idea to ride up the mountain to celebrate Christmas at my place by the fireplace. We agree that everyone prepares some food and brings it along. More than one litre of the red krasi * has found its way into our stomachs. The rest I keep with the wood in the storage. For Christmas.

Girl power

The melancholic feeling of this morning has given way to a happy prospect. I feel blessed and I am very happy with and proud of my friends. Girl power!

Music: Bette Midler – Friends

η σόμπα – the wood stove
η τρύπα – the hole
το κρασί – the wine
Χριστούγεννα – Christmas

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Hannibal Lector

Hospital visit

The door to the psychiatric ward looks like the door to the vault of the national bank.
I am thinking of Hannibal Lector.

I ring the bell and a voice answers “Oriste*?”
“I am here to visit Hektor.”

Hektor called me the day before to tell me that the police had picked him up to get him admitted, at his mother’s request. This is his third day inside.

On the other side of the door, a huge lever is pulled to let me in.

I step into a typical hospital corridor. It doesn’t smell of antiseptic, but stuffy and sweaty. I follow the nurse. The reception is at the end of the corridor. A little further down the corridor is a coffee machine where some patients hang around looking bored.

Bars

H nosokoma* leads me to a lattice door in the right hand corridor, which she opens for me and immediately closes again afterwards. Hektor is leaning forward on a bench. The short, narrow corridor doesn’t offer much freedom of movement. To the left are three small rooms. The nursing office is on the right, in a closed room with a hatch. Hektor asks through the counter for a cigarette that he has to light right there. He may not possess anything himself. If he wants to call, he must ask for his cell phone.

When he sits down again I give him a tiropita* that I’d brought for him. A man comes to sit with us, starts to rattle on and asks if he can have a piece. Hektor gives him a piece and asks him kindly but determinedly to leave us alone. The man moves a little away on the bench, sulking, and says no more.

“What happened, why are you locked up here?”

Mother

“I manna mou* ” had me admitted, in her eyes, I am restless and agitated and she’s unable to cope.”

I know his mother. I have often been to their home. Like many single men, he has been living with his parents again since the economic crisis, to reduce the cost of living. She is the boss in the house, that is clear to me.

“Are you a danger to yourself or your environment then? What have you done?”.

Irrational behaviour

Hektor has a history of “irrational” behaviour. I know him as friendly, intelligent and social. Sometimes he is agitated. Then he lets numbers and signs guide him. Once we were on the road in my car and he suddenly asked me to turn around, because three black crows had landed on the electricity line on the right side of the road. In his eyes that was a bad sign, and a reason to take a different path. If they had landed on the left, it would have been a different story. If he attaches so much value to that, I will just turn around. More roads lead to Rome, don’t they? He also values numbers. Certain number combinations are signs of ill omen and are a reason to change his intentions. It drives his mother crazy, but not him.

Other patients

A woman shuffles into the corridor from one of the rooms. Her light blue nightdress is covered in dark spots, she is wearing a diaper and has clearly soiled herself. When I notice her Hektor looks at me with sad eyes.

“She has been walking around like this for a few hours now, and nobody cares about her.”
It doesn’t seem to bother her.

“What does your treatment consist of?” I ask him without paying further attention to the woman.

“I have to get injections, I can’t leave this department until I submit to the course of treatment, and I don’t want that. I know what happens then, or actually, not… I’m losing whole pieces of my memory ”.

Not an incident

I understand that very well. In our village also there are a number of people who get, what I call, sprayed. Sweet, intelligent people who occasionally get lost, start rambling, or worse become aggressive. Figuring out what the best medication or treatment is for them specifically seems not an be an option. Whether accompanied by the police or not, they receive an injection from a doctor or nurse. After “the injection,” they walk around like zombies, staring at you with empty eyes or sleep half a day.

Too crazy for words

For me, it is too crazy for words that Hektor is in this heavily guarded department. He is neither suicidal nor aggressive, and we discuss what to do next.

Even before I drive home, I call my long-time friend Elefteria, the secretary of the village lawyer. When I get home two hours later, he has already made a phone call to the psychiatrist and an authorization has been prepared in which Hektor appoints me to have power of attorney as his legal representative. This takes his mother out of the picture and I can talk to the psychiatrist on his behalf. That same evening, Hektor moves from the secure department to the normal but still closed ward.

Introducing myself

Two days later I have the first conversation with the psychiatrist.

We are in a small, stuffy room, him, o yiatros*, a lady who was not introduced, Hektor and me. Hektor and I had agreed that I will speak. I reach out my hand and introduce myself.

“I have some questions” I start.

“Is there in your opinion a reason to believe that Hector is a danger to himself or his environment? Because as far as I can see, he’s not. Based on my experience in psychiatry, there is no good reason to hold him against his will then “

The still young doctor moves back and forth in his chair and looks at the lady who is not looking at him but at her notebook.

“What is your relationship with Hektor?” he replies. “How long have you known him? What is your experience of psychiatry then? Certainly that of a nurse?”

I get annoyed by the deprecatory tone in his voice, but at the same time, I’m secretly enjoying myself. After all, I am an ex-patient.

A special friendship

“We have been close friends for a few years, we talk a lot, he sometimes stays with me at my house and I know what makes him tick. In the Netherlands, I was active for years in the patient advocacy movement, which stands up for the rights of the patient. I would like to know what his treatment consists of because as far as I understand there is no treatment. So what is the goal of his admission?”

“We believe he needs medication to control his irrational thoughts, he can’t leave earlier.”

Hektor accepted the injection seven weeks after this conversation, without getting any other treatment.

It is easy to be combative if you can walk out of that security door again, but difficult if you are the patient, without an advocate.

Music: Stereo MC’s – Connected

ορίστε – please, tell me
η νοσοκόμα – the nurse
η τυρόπιτα – cheesepie
η μάννα μου/ η μητέρα μου- my mother
ο γίατρος – the doctor

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I love the internet!

Cats

Every morning she makes her rounds through the village. She takes care of the cats in the village. Not everyone appreciates that. Especially the Greeks who come in the summer, they don’t like it and many cats have died as a result. However, the village needs cats against animals that you would rather not have in and around the house, such as mice and rats. An everlasting discussion. “They must be sterilized,” one group says, the other group disagrees. “Nature controls it itself, the strong survive, the weak don’t.” When you live close to mother nature one accepts her laws.

I now get to know her a little better. We can communicate reasonably well. She speaks calmly, unlike many others, occasionally breathes while speaking, articulates clearly and describes what I do not understand.

Google translate is my buddy and the conversation is pleasant and not tiring. She is just like me, a cuckoo in the nest. She came to live in Greece thirty years ago and never returned to her home country. She has spent most of these years in this village. In addition to taking care of the cats, she also takes care of an old housebound man, who lives higher up in the village.

Partners in crime

With a nice cup of coffee and the luxury of a cigarette, (yes, yes, we are partners in crime), she tells about her younger years, her unnoticed pregnancy, her more or less forced marriage and inevitable divorce. A few years later she came to Greece with her son, who grew up here.

Like many people here, she has a hard life and is uninsured, resulting in a rebelliously painful body. She has to live on very little, and then a large part of her household money goes on food and medication for the cats. She has one child, now an adult and the father of a daughter. She has not seen them for four years, she tells me somewhat sadly. They have returned to their country of birth.

Facebook

I am an internet user from the first hour and the only one in this village with an internet connection with a laptop so for me that is too crazy for words.

“Does he have Facebook?” I ask thinking of solutions.
“Yes, yes, but I don’t have a modern telephone”.
“Doesn’t matter, I have this thing here” as I point to my laptop, which is long past the “state of the art”. But it meets exactly the purpose, to make contact, communication. So we dive together in front of the screen and we look for him on Facebook.

Suddenly she folds her hands around her cheeks and big tears roll down her face.
“O yios mou, o yios  mou*” she sobs when we find him among his namesakes.
“Now we are going to arrange an appointment (rendezvous). I send him a friend request and arrange an appointment. “

That was this morning.

Bad weather

Soon after I made the request, it was accepted. I had just written a private message with an explanation. The appointment was made within two minutes. During a rain break, I went to her house to say that she could SEE and speak to her son and granddaughter tonight!

It was exciting because the whole day it rained and thundered, and the electricity and therefore the internet connection dropped out every now and then. At six o’clock I am sitting with candles and with a flashlight on, I knit a few rows. Knitting a shawl, a project that I started as a distraction from the need for smoking.

An hour before the appointment, she is at my door. While I make a full pot of hawthorn tea, she chits chats. She asks me four times what time it is because without glasses she cannot read the screen her 20-year-old phone. At the stroke of 8 p.m., I make the first video call. At 8.04 p.m. I have made ten attempts.

“He may not be home yet.
Maybe he first makes coffee.
He may want to go to the toilet first.
Calm down, he will come.”

“Maybe they have bad weather too?” She suggests herself with a deep frown.

Mothers

Not a minute later he called.
Not much came of speaking. I sat down in the kitchen while she was sniffling in the living room on one side of the screen, with her son and granddaughter on the other side, sniffling.

Afterwards, she told me that her granddaughter is growing up so beautiful and nice, and her son has grown his beard and moustache. She didn’t like the sight of it.

“Did you tell him that?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said with a cheerful frown.

Mothers remain mothers of course.

Now we are going to look for her brother, who she has not seen for 20 years.
There was a lot of hugging today.

Music: Paul Simon – Mother and child reunion

ο γιος μου – my son