We moved from this home in the center of the photo in Ottawa to this home on the edge of Trahila by the sea
Greetings on the eve of this precious new year to all,
We arrived in Athens on October 5th 2024 expecting to be in our new home by the 7th but couldn’t move in for a few weeks because of a legal glitch. This gave us some time to travel around and look for antique furniture for our new home. I’ve been obsessed with FB Marketplace in Greece since we came last January but like I tell Gunter; I can quit any time!
I found this beautiful living room set that was hardly ever actually used because their grandmother wouldn’t allow it. While Gunter appreciated its quality and how perfect it would be for tea parties, he didn’t think it was quite right for us.
I’m not proud of this but I almost wanted my dollhouse furniture more than I wanted Gunter. Just for a minute. My little girl soul was worried she’d be deprived of the tea parties she longs for. The fear ruled as it does sometimes, especially with the upheaval of moving so far from people I love. Thankfully I remembered being married is even better than tea parties.
I love coming up on 60 and all the choices laid out before me like British high tea.
I remain delighted and bemused to be married to this noble man. I don’t remember him from past lives, the way I do many of you. I have a sense that he and I were Samurai together with Conrad though; once upon a long time ago.
Gunter had no idea he has such a great eye for design until we met- and I made the mistake of telling him. It’s uncanny how good he is. What we co-create is more wonderful than either of us could achieve on our own. Isn’t this the holy grail, where our sum is greater than?
I don’t get carte blanche anymore though and I liked it. Marketplace always provides eventually; that’s why it’s so addictive. We both love the living and dining furniture we settled on. It’s about 50 years old and so solid and comfortable. We love it’s elegant lines and quality. The shipping made herding cats seem easy & doubled the cost and it still came in under the price for a sectional sofa from that Swedish company that makes us forget what quality is. It arrived 3 days after we moved in which was wonderful!
Before and After moved in images.
We also did some site seeing while waiting for our home. We visited the Parthenon. The architecture is so pleasing and I felt like I’d walked here before. The feeling was even stronger in Delphi. I don’t know if I connected with our collective subconscious or my own soul – just that I experienced a deep sense of homecoming. The harmony of these ancient sites that cradled western civilization is palpable.
Our first nights sleeping in our new home by the sea in Trahila were restless. We felt jet lagged again even though we’d been in Greece for 2 weeks. We love hearing the sea as we fall asleep, it’s very powerful though and took some time to get used to.
Gunter and I sleep together now because I’ve stopped snoring and no longer have sleep apnea. (Another sweet and unexpected gift.) I feel it’s because I feel so safe and have been following the PKD Protocol because of my food sensitivities. Thankfully when I do I feel like I am 20 again but this time without the emotional agony and blood sugar rollercoaster.
People sometimes think I’m joking when I say that I love getting older., but I love it! The aging I see in the mirror can feel disconcerting at times but its such a small price to pay for this kind of freedom.
If people have been to Trahila and they learn we live here, their eyes lose focus as if they are remembering when they lived here too and they invariably say, “Trahila is Beautiful.”
I love to go walking at dusk and experience how the light kisses the old stone homes along the shore. The CatPeople, as Gunter dubbed them, like to come walking with me out and mostly don’t get underfoot. Most of the cats here are feral so they only come walking at night because they are less likely they’ll be fed by the villagers then. Very soon we find ourselves in a wilderness that truly feels like the land of the Gods as this region in the Peloponnese is known.
We’ve also started feeding the Catpeople since asking the villagers if it’s ok. The first day we gave 2 Cats some fresh (slightly fishy) sardines and the next day 7 came for lunch. So we know now that Katpeople TALK! We enjoy their visits and are trying to feed them on a schedule because unpredictable rewards are so addicting (as we know from Marketplace.)
Men have magnificent names here: Dimitrios, Panagiotis, Kostantionos, Harabulas (this might be my favorite,) Gyonetos – so many syllables! We’ve been naming the Catpeople based on their characteristics rather than syllables though.
Copper was the first to crack us and get fed. She has a coppery sheen on her black and white fur. We thought she may be pregnant, but I learned today she was spayed. They have a good program for feral cats here
Percy was so dubbed to honour his persistence, he is first to arrive each morning and last to leave at night.
Serena is calm and I named her after a young woman I knew who sadly committed suicide. Then Gunter told me she is a he, so we changed his name to Seymour after Philip Seymour Hoffman; because I write for him too.
I write for all of us who have felt lost. Memoirs were a refuge for me and a beacon in my dark nights of the soul as I hope mine might be to another. This is the spirit in which I offer up the stories and arts that I love to create. When I met my Sifu, Master Chan Ky Yut, I vowed to myself, in a way that continues to reverberate like wind chimes in my soul.
As long as space remains As long as sentient beings reman So too may I remain, to dispel the miseries of the world
Trahila is lit for Christmas with colourful, clashing and FLASHING lights that mirror the passion of the villagers. I feel honoured to be among the 22 or so of us living here year round. Anyone near our age (or younger) typically speaks English fairly well and spent their summer holidays running wild together. Most homes here have been in the family for generations. In the evenings folks gather in the square as is the custom in Greek villages.
They crochet, make model boats, play back gammon, watch sports, news and old Greek movies. They tease each other like kids who grew up together can. Sweets magically appear – a revered favourite that looks like a small furry football is called a Contractor but no one knows why. Yannis tells us this and other important things; like how to say giraffe in Greek. It’s “Kamilopárdali” which is Camel and leopard combined.
He moved here during covid to work remotely and so did a few others, and they never left. We have a wonderful taverna that is beloved in the Mani open from around May until November in our village and no other commerce – a great antidote to my retail therapy and bulimic shopping tendencies.
We were invited to our neighbour Nikose’s combined name day celebration and his mother Ireni’s 89th birthday. Nikos hunted the wild boar and cooked it in a spicy and lemony herb way and it was so yummy. There were a few bottles of red wine and a special dessert from a bakery in Kalamata that I kept a picture of for when we host.
The celebrations took place in a beautifully renovated house on the shore, designed to withstand water balloon fights! It was lit with cold fluorescent lights that made it feel like a police interrogation room which makes me nuts. Those bulbs should be banned! I always use the warm white ones and will bring some to parties in future instead of wine.
We hear that the population of the village swells in August and it becomes loud and raucous and the children rule because it’s so safe here. I can’t wait, I love me some chaos!
The mature women here inspire me. Our neighbour Ireni is so bright eyed and spry. Panagiota who lives around the corner from us is 87 and works with the olive trees: pruning, piling, burning with vigour! They talk to me slowly in Greek in a way that I can understand the gist of simply because they expect it. They say most communication is non verbal which encourages me in learning this intriguing new language.
I haven’t started yet because little things like figuring out where to get drinking water and buy unscented detergent is taking up a lot of bandwidth. I will though, language is a portal to a new consciousness. How would I know myself without samsara and angst, samadhi and Déjà vu. I’ve promised my dear friend Marnie Pomperoy, who is continuing to write poetry and biographies in her 9th decade, to read the Iliad and the Odyssey. When we talk she says, “I won’t embarrass you by asking which version you’ve chosen.” So please do send your beloved versions so I can get on this! ( She is a wonderful poet and I encourage you to explore! )
We can’t drink the tap water here but they fill a big tank for us near the square and we hear they are making a desalination plant for drinking water in the area very soon. There is a mountain water tap in the next village where we can fill up and we have a local map with 78 natural springs in the area and the magical properties of each! I look forward to exploring with Gunter. It was created by a Greek scholar who asks only that it not be shared commercially. The hiking here is gorgeous and there seem to be microclimates and treasures around every bend. In moments walking from my home I am lost in a wildness where I wouldn’t know there are others nearby.
Sightseeing near our house of Greece.
We were invited to a funeral in our village and a lovely meal at a nearby taverna afterwards. They don’t seem to have eulogies here. Surprisingly it’s the 3rd funeral we’ve attended in Greece given in as many months. It was a rainy day but the skies cleared for the burial which was a short walk from the chapel in our village to the graveyard with a beautiful view. I would love to be buried here, or in the sea if it’s allowed. Hopefully not too soon for I have so many stories and arts I would like to share.
Death floats into my thoughts a bit more lately as a part of, not an end of. Maybe because this feels like a new life and almost too good to be true. I remember Sifu describing reincarnation in class many years ago. He asked us to think of our childhood and if it was so different as to feel like a past life.
Grace was ushered in on the tail of an 8 month convalescence with shingles that began Christmas of 2019, just before covid hit.
I’d been fretting over Sifu’s. I was so sad and enraged about his situation that I forgot how to feed myself. I ate Olivia chocolate bars every day, telling myself it was ok because they were sweetened with date sugar. I weighed 245 lbs. I’ll share that story another day, except to say I accepted my body and carried it relatively well thankfully. I made anything a priority except my well being.
Shingles weirdly liberated an abiding compassion for myself. Like Janny said while she was dying, it’s time for the big girl pants and I need to let the little one know I’ve got this. We won’t get through it if she’s in charge. Finally I could love and comfort the little girl inside of me, still longing for tea parties.
I pledged to do whatever I can to enter this new stage of life strong and embraced shingles as the homecoming beacon I’ve come to know illness can be.
Sifu had told me early on that the only way to become enlightened is to feel everything but I didn’t know what he meant. I thought I was all about the feels being so emotional and melancholy. Feeling fat meant I didn’t have to delve much deeper into what was actually going on.
Chinese medicine said shingles is about repressed rage. and I began to wonder if I was using my fat to muffle it. I didn’t even know I was angry, in a way I still don’t. I’m getting there though.
Sifu differentiated between emotions which he dismissed and feelings which were sacrosanct.
It was a koan to me until shingles helped me listen. I’m in the midst of another story that delves into this transformation. What I would like to share here is that shingles inspired a deep and abiding self compassion.
My pledge to be kind to myself and let go of the outcome guided me to the path of least resistance the ancients avowed.
Instead of locking onto a target like a cruise missile and ramming through anything in my way, as was my way; Now I am more like a weather vane.
A little more like Sister Louise, a nun I admire from Serenity Renewal for Families, who used to announce cheerfully, “Ah, God has a better plan!” and pivot – every time she felt a glitch.
I still work as hard as ever because like my Tante Rënui used to say, “Arbeit macht das Leben süß,” Work makes life sweet, and thankfully I love work!
These days I regularly hop on those moving walkways like they have in airports instead of climbing up the down escalator which, fun as it was, I hope I am done with!
So I know now that I have to feel my fear or it will rule. I still don’t really get what “feel” means except to know it’s not the emotional upheaval I lived in for so much of my life. Gunter realized he’s got just a moment to catch a feeling before identifying with it and getting lost in it. This resonates.
I’m only tuning into these moments I didn’t know existed as I come up on 60. I wish I could have shown Serena and Seymour. I wish I could have shown them it can get better and even if it doesn’t it’s worth it.
So I stepped onto the moving walkway like they have in airports and sold my house instead, like Gunter wanted to all along and it was easy peasy. He’s always right on this kind of level, but don’t tell him I said so. I admire how he can tap in.
As soon as I pivoted the discontent evaporated and I returned to my usual perch bordering on bliss.
Peace was here all along just waiting for me to drop what I am clinging to and turn my palms up to receive it.
With much love for each on the dawn of this precious new year,
Moneca
Trahila, Messinia, Greece
