Now it is late spring, the hotels have begun to take customers and the restaurants are opening as if they were expecting refugees from a famine. Looking back on my first winter in Corfu, I realise it was not at all how I expected it to be, and very little of what I had planned actually happened. That is not to say that I was disappointed or that nothing happened, the opposite is true, but it was a huge unpredictable rollercoaster from the beginning, emotionally, physically and spiritually. There were many times when I wondered what the hell I was doing here, when the ‘dark’ prophecies of all year residents and Corfiots, about the damp and the boredom, felt too close too home. But just as often, if not more, the adventure and challenge of making a new home overwhelmed any discomforts or inertia.

It all started positively. My relationship, the reason I had kept coming back, and eventually decided to stay a winter, was becoming ever more loving and appeared to be growing deeper and stronger. As I’ve said everyone warned me that winter is difficult, boring, wet, 'the humidity rises and rises and penetrates the walls', 'you never feel dry, your clothes and bones will constantly feel damp', they said, 'It will be very difficult to find a job, if you don’t speak Greek, and if you do it will be all day everyday for little money'. Having spent a few weeks here over Christmas the previous year, I was not put off by the bad press and decided to see where and how it would all end up.

I had prepared myself; there were plenty of things to occupy me. I was going to start Greek lessons, I was going to do my first Reiki degree and I would pursue my own interests in photography, painting, dance and yoga, and surely work would come. I knew it was up to me if I was going to enjoy these few months, I was going to have to put the effort in to make sure I did not fall into the trap of boredom and loneliness.

I knew that one the biggest challenges was going to be breaking away from the safe enclosure of my relationship, finding my own friends and building my own relationships. My first opportunity for this was when the organisers of the Corfiot, 'Earthdance 2007, (a world wide party dedicated to the promotion of world peace and preservation) asked if I wanted to join in the little ceremony and dance performance they were arranging. We met several times for rehearsals and through my nerves and anxiousness, having not performed any dance for almost two years, I felt honored to be included. I overcame my nerves and thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony on the day, but the process of creating it, meeting with new people and making friends was what boosted my self confidence. I was grateful for the opportunity to stop having to find things to occupy myself, that I was being included in the group for my own credits and that I had an outlet for the creativity that until then had only been expressed internally.

Job seeking was unfortunately not going so well. I wanted to try my hand at article writing and contacted an English magazine published in Corfu. When I met the editor I was told they don’t pay for articles, but if I wanted there was a commission based job finding companies who wanted to advertise in the magazine. With funds running low and having a trip to Athens and Christmas looming not so far away, I decided to try it. I had done sales work before and knew how soul destroying it can be, but, I thought, this time I would take things easy, I would not take things personally, and if after a month things did not work out I could leave it.

After the trip to Athens, which reminded me why I loved and why I had left London, I started the new job. It was not long before the promises I had made to myself about not letting peoples attitude towards sales people get to me, went out the window. I would shout and swear at the phone immediately before dialing and, like a split personality, put on my most confident and appealing English business voice and ask to speak to the manager. After each round of phone calls I was drained, not just by peoples inevitable attitude, but realising that if I had made a meeting, I would either have to ask my boyfriend to take time off his own work to drive me the hour there and back for a 10 minute meeting that was, most likely, unprofitable, or if he could not I would have to take the unreliable busses for two hours or more, there and back for the same meeting. I half heartedly persevered with this, but little came of it.

My boyfriend’s father’s name day came around. I knew his parents had been cooking for two days from 5 in the morning so I ate little during the day. We arrived and before I took one step inside I felt like I was on the set of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', relatives who called me cousin, though I had never met them, and neighbors who had stories of what a 'Kali kopela' (good girl) I was, congregated and waited a little awkwardly for the wine to take hold of them.

I am always a little embarrassed at these occasions even when I can speak the language. Soon enough the food was ready and the wine did its trick, whatever awkwardness there had been, floated away and completely dispersed. We stuffed our selves so that I felt full for three days after. It was a sweet reminder of why I had stayed and why I knew that any money troubles or worries about what I was going to do with myself to defeat the boredom would be overcome by my own creativity and the friendship of people around me.

A few weeks later the varnish had worn thin again. There were alternating drenching thunder storms, which left me and the house feeling damp from the inside out for days. I was feeling solitary and spending a lot of time taking the dogs for walks and doing yoga. The Greek classes I had started seemed to be going at a snail’s pace, I seemed to be learning a completely different language from the one everyone around me was speaking. Luckily in the class were two young women and we started to build a friendship that I hoped would grow and last. Both women were intelligent and good hearted and I was pleased to be making connections outside of the protective boundaries of my relationship that often simultaneously made me feel trapped and comfortable.

Before my restlessness could really take hold we were off to Athens again. I was to be the official photographer, and my boyfriend a participant, on a training course for youth workers. I was really looking forward to it, there would be five people from six different European countries spending one week learning about each other and participating in fun activities.

I was right to be enthusiastic, it was great fun! I met some people who I really connected with, being the sociable creature I am, I reveled in the new people around me, learning, listening, flirting and laughing. By the end of the week I had arranged that I would be the team leader for at least one youth exchange in Brittany in France in September, and possibly another in Italy in April. The people around me excited me and gave me the confidence that there are still truly good people with ideas and energy enough to at least make small differences.

After this meeting we went to Kefalonia for a meeting of electro acoustic musicians where I managed to blag a free place as my boyfriends partner and spent a few very relaxed days listening to bizarre music that I did not really understand, discovering a little of Kefalonia, a very beautiful island, and whiling away the hours at the designated cafe, where the barman took a liking to me and never made me pay.

Back in Corfu the Greek classes began to make more sense, although only on paper, practice was still incomprehensible. I was also asked to join the head of my dance school and his daughter in a project that they were planning, a contemporary piece they wanted to put on in Spring 2008, which I was really excited about, and the following weekly rehearsals where always a joy.

I also started planning an event for world dance day on the 29th of April. I envisioned traditional and contemporary dance groups mixing with African and capoeria groups from Athens, perhaps even bringing, groups from Albania or Italy. I had meetings with friends and likely participants, who were all enthusiastic and began preparing as soon as they heard about it. There were differences of opinion and approaches, different dance schools said they did not want to work with each other, the maters of funding and sponsorship were not small areas to be addressed. But I was optimistic, until I realised it was two days after the orthodox Easter! Asking Greeks to do anything around Easter is like asking the Pope to skip Christmas. Even if people could have made the day to perform, they would not have been able to make the essential rehearsals the week before, and who was going to come and watch?

Obviously I was very disappointed, my first real initiative had fallen through and I was embarrassed of all the people I had excitedly told about my plans. I began to think again and decided to go smaller, but more intense. I had always wanted to put on 'The Vagina Monologues', why not do it here, where I could rent a theatre cheaply and use myself, other English actresses I knew here and the university theatre department.
 
We went to England for Christmas and London was the turmoil it always is, but I was very eager to show its high lights to my partner and thoroughly enjoyed re-visiting the Tate Modern, Camden Market etc. I was relieved though, that we were to spend Christmas in Devon with my auntie. I was pursuing a photography project for a friend’s audio book, and the current story was set on a bleak island where the inhabitants were as unfriendly as the environment. We took a trip to an estuary with friends and we visited Exmoor on Boxing Day, which were perfect locations for the subject. I was smugly pleased also, because my boyfriend had to admit to the beauty of the English country side, which before he had always assumed as unexciting as most of the English tourists he had meet during the summer seasons.

Meeting up with old friends proved to be much less fulfilling then what I had hoped and longed for. Most seemed incapable of even trying to understand that I had not changed beyond all recognition. It seemed I was the only one trying to bridge a void that they did not want to even acknowledge. I was disappointed, I had been expecting a magical reconnection. The feeling of indifference to my life and experiences was heartbreaking, and most agonising of all, they appeared wholly disinterested in the partner I had chosen and loved. This was not true of everyone, but mainly of my oldest and closest friends, and left a distasteful sensation that has lingered ever since.

We went to Amsterdam for New Years, which was great!! We cycled, smoked, laughed and played. The friends we were staying with had only just moved in and we baptized the new house with them. Their oldest daughter, who was only about three, took a shine to my boyfriend which caused us constant amusement, the environment was relaxed, open and friendly and we ended up staying an extra week.

Although we had been careful about money on the travels, I returned with next to nothing and the fears about money came rolling back. I could not sleep one night for crying about how foolish I had been to decide to go to Italy in April, so trapping my self with no money and unsuitable to be employed because I was going away too much. My partner reminded me that I should be happy to be going away to such a lovely place, and that something would come up. Although I was calmed I could not escape feeling like a useless burden and the fears still woke with me the next morning.

One a morning walk down to the beach around the same time I came across a very strange sight. A young swan had been thrown off course by the storm the night before and now sat confused, exhausted and lonely by the waters edge. I wish I had had my camera, it was a perfect image of my state of mind.

By the end of January the scent of spring had begun to tease us. Several days of cloudy wetness were followed by a couple of crisp dazzling sunshine. I was still desperately searching for work. In fact I had had several offers, but unfortunately all started in a month or more and most seemed to be dead ends that would eventually become a severe inconvenience when other, hopefully more fruitful, opportunities would present themselves. But I could not afford to say a definite 'no' to anything as yet and contented myself making vague preparations for each offer.

In spite of this quite desperate situation, life itself was wonderful. My only regret being that I wished my partner earned enough money to sustain it and I would have enough time to be a devoted housewife (not that really have any aptitude for it) and also for creative, philanthropic activities. This quite clearly not being the case I contented myself with my painting, dancing, walking, cloth making and photography, and only occasional house work!
 
My free Greek classes had finished and I was trying to continue alone. I could manage a few exercises, but got uncontrollably frustrated when it seemed clear that whoever wrote the book had never taken the trouble to learn another language themselves and therefore appeared to leave out very valuable pieces of information. This meant I was either doing exercises with words I could write but could not understand or defiantly pursuing exercises that I knew I was doing completely wrong, both of which left me utterly exasperated and I could see no point in continuing.

By mid February spring was undoubtedly clinging to the hills. The weather was still violently changing from sunny and breezy to heavy thunderstorms, but the ground was awakening. Trees glowed green and flowers of violet, yellow, orange and white bloomed. The earth smelled of life and the birds sang an accompanying tune. I had secured a job for the summer, so although I was penniless I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Life was going at a steady pace, each day getting closer to summer, sometimes the pace was too slow, and if I spent the whole day at home the evening and night seemed intolerably long.

I started working with the drama group from the Ionian University. During each scene of the play a couple eventually have sex, and for this they wanted to choreograph a theatre/dance/mime piece that conveyed the type of sex that the couple would be having. It was right down my street, having studied acting and done a lot of dance and movement. I started going to the rehearsals and connecting with the actors and the director.

I presented my first full choreography for them, and they watched on open mouthed, I did not hear anything for three weeks and I was sure they thought my work utterly obscene, but again it was simply the nonchalant manner any Greek team has, and they contacted me later, grateful for any help I could give.

It was good fun and reignited my passion for performance and theatre. I began to work harder on preparations for the, ‘Vagina Monologues,’ through which I also got in contact with, ‘The Ionian Theatre Company.’

At the end of February I went to Italy for a meeting of the group leaders of the coming youth exchange. I met up with people I had met on the training course in November and re-established strong connections, that I hope will last. I met new lively people who made me glad to be part of this program and who inspired me with their creativity and energy.

When I returned, I was thoroughly exhausted, but very excited about the up coming youth exchange. Although trying to organise four Greek teenagers, only one of whom spoke good English, who lived in Thessaloniki and with whom I could only communicate via email (because they seemed allergic to phone calls), proved challenging and once again I had to take account of the frustratingly slow Greek work pace. Maybe it was good for me to 'hang back' a little, I have always had a tendency to rush, and in rushing I finish organising things only to find I have more to organise, and eventually discover that very little of what I organised is of any practical use.

The weekend workshop of Reiki 1 finally came around and it was truly magical. It took place in a fantastic old farm house, like one you would imagine in an Enid Blyton novel. I had doubts about how ready I was to receive it, but my 'teacher', a close friend, assured me I was completely ready and my path had only to be found and realised.

On the same weekend was carnival! Feeling so open, and somewhat 'spaced out' from the Reiki weekend, I did not want to drink and party to the full extent, but that did not stop me fully enjoying the carnival spirit and getting dressed up in my partner’s mother’s old dressing gown, his old karate trousers donning a mask full of eyes and enlarging my breasts to, what I thought, unmanageable proportions, but during the night several older women proved to me very modest!

The next day was clean Monday, and the whole village went down to the beach to fly kites and eat fried calamari. Not having a kite, my boyfriend designed and built his own, which managed to fly surprisingly well, although not as well as a friend who bought 1200meters of string with him, so they could see his kite over the mountain on the opposite side of the island.

Everyone had brought mountains of home cooked food, mainly fried calamari, taramasalata and halva with bottles of home made wine, which they all competed to feed you with and then demanded to know whose was better. All was in good heart and everyone got stuffed, drunk and must have had indigestion after dancing the standard bouncing dances around and around and around. Even the priest was drunk and was pulling people up to dance, throwing then into the centre of the spinning circle, but refusing to enter himself.

I managed a few decent attempts to follow the step, and enjoyed being part of the group. I even allowed my partners mother to show me off and smother me with affection a few times, which always makes her happy. We left our kite tied to the renting pedaloes hut, and it looked as good as the best of them resting happily on the wind.

Unfortunately my partner’s grandmother had been very ill for a few years and a few days after clean Monday she died. I didn’t know her well and I doubt she recognized me but the sadness lingered over the whole family. The funeral came and I saw a dead body for the first time, it was not as disturbing as I would have thought. But I was surprised that she was on display for everybody to see and unsure what to do with myself. I followed the crowd, circling the coffin. I kissed the priest, the icon and gave my respects to her; I don’t think I looked too out of place. Later the aunt kept the tradition of bringing over not only the food for the family and guests but the linen, crockery and cutlery also.

During the build up to Easter life followed a steady pace. I worked hard on the choreographies for the university team, I became the assistant director for the Ionian Theatres production of, ‘Bachae,’ from Oedipus and continued to work on the bilingual script of, ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ and to find actors for it. Feeling only a few steps away from summer, my inner unrest began to settle and I could concentrate on the many creative projects around me.

The youth exchange in Italy was an amazing experience, as challenging as rewarding, and as all good journeys from home, it has already become like a dream. By the time I came back summer was undeniably ready to jump out. Inappropriately dressed tourists were becoming a regular sight and one or two hours on the beach everyday were standard. Winter was starting to evaporate and a new chapter was beginning.    

 

all images and text (C) Sophia de Rosa Ortiz 2008.