Category: Uncategorized

I love caring for my mother’s hands.

Those hands that lifted me when I was a child, the same hands that held mine when I was a young girl of 6 or 7, the same hands that held my fathers when he was recovering from surgery, the same hands that held me after my illnesses and rough times.

My mother’s hands are not dainty or “pretty” but they are strong and handsome. My mother’s hands have carried heavy loads and caressed my hair whenever I needed it. My mother’s hands are not delicate, they are warm and firm and loving.

She grabs my hand when I am unsafe and holds my hand when I need comfort. Every chance I get, I hold my mother’s hands. Her hands reassure me and lead me in the right direction.

I love caring for my mother’s hands, and secretly hope that mine will be just as accomplished and strong as hers.

I see my mother’s hands in my own, as I see her mother’s in hers. The cycle continues and connects us all.

Looking out the window at the world passing by…I’m sitting on a train traveling from Paris to London on a trip that I had been planning for three months for a birthday gift. This need for travel has been a part of my life since I was very young.

The first time I boarded a plane I was three months old, my mother took me from Greece to the United States for the first time in 1978 to meet my American grandmother.

Ever since that first plane ride traveling has been my greatest joy. Planning, mapping out the trip, gathering ideas of where to go and what to see is like a story that is waiting to be written. Each page filled with mystery and adventure. These two cities hold some of my fondest childhood memories; visiting them feels like coming home. The people I come to visit are some of my oldest friends; people who I have shared many stories, many years and many memories with.

Travel is not only a way to see the world but also a way to see ourselves in it. We are reminded that we are not just citizens of our country of origin but citizens of the world. Connecting with people in London and Paris this eve of my 40th birthday reminds me of how travel to places known and unknown has shaped my life in ways that no school and no book could ever do.

Travel is my drug and the skies my natural high.

What’s your next destination ?

Post 4 of 27.

What’s in a Passport?

What is a passport but a doorway for freedom, and a way to go wherever you can and want to go. It’s an opportunity and a way to see the world. It’s a chance to broaden your horizons.

I’ve been blessed to be born in one country but given two passports, two nationalities, two identities, two ways of life, often conflicting and opposing each other. I am a Greek with an American mind. An American with a Greek soul. I was always asked which one I preferred the most ever since I was a little girl.

I have a sense of belonging, identity and a way to see the world that very few have. It’s also difficult to defend both in my heart and mind. Passports have given me the opportunity, the gift and the privilege to see the world, to travel and to be influenced by many different cultures. I have lived in many places and continue to want to explore more of the world. I belong to no country and I hold all identities as my own. I’ve adapted to different cultures and had the immense luck to call many places my home.

Home is where the heart is they say; and I’ve had many homes in my heart, but as Odysseus completed his journey to Ithaca, no matter how long he was away and how many lands he saw; his home was where his longing was fulfilled. He spent years apart from his homeland only eager with renewed passion to return.

My home is everywhere and no where. And one day I will return to the home in my heart.

What does a passport mean to you?

On this third day of my 27 day posting project I’m looking into my memory bank. What are we but a collection of memories ? What are we but a gathering of our stories and other people’s stories of us ? What are we but the story we build for ourselves ?

I think often of the stories that people tell about their lives, the lives they have lived and the memories they hold close; to comfort them when they need it the most. I am often looking at old pictures of myself, my other lives; my childhood in Greece, my teenage years in the U.S, my adult years in London and back in Greece, and now my present life. It’s all a scrap book, for the next chapter to be written. Yet I find myself clinging to memories, my memories of my grandmother cooking in my old house in Athens, my American grandmother watching television with her saltines and peanut butter, my Greek grandfather and his brother playing backgammon on the balcony of his home on a warm summer night. The first time I saw snow on a trip to Austria with my parents when I was five, and my insistence of carrying it home back with me to Greece; my first taste of culinary greatness at a restaurant at Place Dophine in Paris, my first kiss….

I often think of how it would be if things turned out differently with the man I loved but who didn’t love me back.

Memories haunt us, comfort us, remind us where we’ve been and where we are going.

What are your memories ?