Solitude: round two

To be truthful: solitude is not always easy. It’s not as easy as I make it sound. Even as you crave it, even as it soothes a part of your soul, that part that’s ever inundated with demands and requests and the gentle, welcome pressure of family and friends, it still requires courage, and hardness. This is my truth: I am soft, and I need to grow a shell around me to withstand this. I need to harden up, each time and every time. Even as I choose it, again, I recoil from it, and question what it is that makes me crave it, and the hardness that it brings.

I don’t want to be hard. I am a soft-boiled egg with a brittle shell. I am convincing no one. And yet here I am, again, on the first of September, on the threshold of everything; again, an end and a beginning, just like every day but more markedly so today when I choose solitude, once again. With a twist in my gut and a catch in my breath – fear; loneliness – and my shell not yet formed, still not set into hardness.

Tomorrow, I’ll be OK. Hard enough for things to bounce off me, and courageous. Tomorrow, I will go around and make this empty house my home again, and I will breathe a sigh of relief that catches only a little on the way out.  I know how to do this, and I will do it for as long as I choose it; for as long as the reasons for choosing it make sense. Tomorrow I’ll be fine, and these words won’t sting as they do now, so they need to be written, recorded, today, when they do. These words are my truth, and they sting because they matter.

I love you all, and I miss you: everyone who’s been and gone in the last few months. Everyone I’ve greeted with kisses and hopes at the port, and everyone I’ve taken back there, with slower, heavier steps and lingering hugs, and waved away onto departing boats, smiling, courageous, with tears you never saw: it was never casual, when I walked away. The courage might be real, but my hardness is just a shell, and I am soft inside. Don’t be fooled, even as I choose solitude once again. You are the reason I can do this; you, and those ever-departing boats that will, one day, bring me back.

100 days on amazon!

Available now in paperback and on Kindle!

How far do you need to go to find yourself?

What do you have to give up?

Daphne didn't go very far. After too many years of living as a writer who didn't write, she gave up her life in London to spend 100 days of solitude on the remote Greek island of Sifnos, off season, and find out, once and for all, who she really was. Her challenge: to write every day.

One hundred days and one hundred entries later, her question had been answered in more ways than she could have imagined, and the things she'd given up never mattered in the first place. This book is her story, as personal as it is universal, of the most obvious and most fundamental quest of all: to be happy; to do what you love.

Part memoir, part fiction, part philosophy and part travel writing, 100 days of solitude is a collection of one hundred stories, all of them connected and each one self-contained. One hundred essays on choosing uncertainty over security, change over convenience, seeing things for what they truly are, and being surprised by yourself; on love, loss, death and donkeys; on reaching for your dreams, finding enlightenment on a rural road, peeing in public, and locking yourself out of the house; on dangerous herbs, friendly farmers, flying Bentleys and existential cats; and on what it feels like to live in a small, isolated island community through the autumn and winter, to live as a writer who actually writes, and to live as your true, authentic self, no matter who that turns out to be. And to write your own story, the way you want it told; to find your voice, and the courage to let it be heard.

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Please note that due to Kindle legal requirements, I've had to remove all entries past Day 11 from the blog. To carry on reading past Day 11, please consider buying the paperback edition, or the Kindle version (which also includes Bonus Days 101-104). Thank you!

[Bonus day] Day 101

It is the day before Christmas. And quite a few creatures are stirring, actually, though mostly outside of the house. Slow, black beetles and skittery spiders and bees buzzing around the rosemary bush and a bright green lizard disappearing between the stones in the wall. Boy Cat rolling around contentedly in his favourite deck chair, and the Black Cat That Coughs leaping through the grass, chasing a pale yellow butterfly that she will never catch. Flies zooming in through the open windows, and out again, back to the light. There is a lot of light.

Christmas Eve in Sifnos and the town is all astir, despite the warnings and the scenes of mass exodus at the port. This is not a town of ghosts. Everyone who’s still here is here, it seems, picking up last minute supplies for dinner, and their pensions, and presents from the two or three shops that are open, with stars and snowflakes drawn in glitter across their windows. A lady in the supermarket is looking for fresh mushrooms, which cannot be had; the butcher’s is busy, the meat cleaver falling loudly, crunching bones. Cars crawl down the road, blocking it frequently as they stop to exchange words with other cars, or motorbikes, or people on foot. Everyone is going somewhere, but slowly, their mellowness in contrast to the jagged, manic edges of every other Christmas Eve I’ve known. I wouldn’t know, but for the decorations.

There is no Christmas Village in the square, but the village knows it’s Christmas, and tinsel twinkles everywhere as it catches the sun, sending strange reflections across the whitewashed walls. A nativity scene, lifesize, has appeared in the yard of an unoccupied building, and classical music drifts out the café up the road. Golden baubles hang in windows and over doors, dangle from pergolas and awnings, and dance in the breeze. The village knows it’s Christmas, despite the brightness that causes everyone to raise their hands up and shade their eyes, and the warmth that has them all loosening their scarves and wiping their brows. On every step and every doorway there is someone lounging in the sun, with sleeves rolled up to expose their arms to the heat. I take off layer after layer and end up sitting on a high wall in my vest, with a bundle of clothes rolled up beside me, looking over the edge of the land towards Paros, where our bigger island neighbours are getting ready for Christmas, like we are, but with bigger roads and bigger shops. I feel like waving, but I don’t. I’m getting enough curious looks as it is, sitting here in a pink vest and leopard-print leggings, and staring at the sea.

On the way back a transition, through the outskirts of town where houses and shops give way to fields and orchards, past the gas station, quiet, with long flags hanging limp from long poles, and those funny little bundles that are curled up cats, on ledges and rooftops, following me with their eyes, and several dogs, chained and free, yelping excitedly when I get too close, and then onto the ring road, private, sloping upwards just for me. I walk in the middle, along the white dividing line, trusting in the absence of cars and half-blinded by the sun, until I reach the top and the mouth of the grassy path carved by the stream that will bring me home. There I stop, and listen, and look: Christmas Eve in Sifnos. Mountaintops and sky. Bells, intermittent, as the animals shuffle from one patch of grass to the next. Little birds twittering in the bushes, an eagle flying silently overhead. A flock of doves, mostly white, cooing as they alight, in perfect synchronicity, on a telephone wire. A cock crowing insistently on a distant farm over the hill. In the valley below, the echo of a dull, rhythmic tapping, manmade. Fields of the greenest green dotted with yellow and purple flowers. A secret garden of citrus trees that I’ve never noticed before, walled in amidst the olive groves. A single tree on a hilltop outlined against the milky blue horizon. A stone dove house on the edge of a cliff, semi-derelict, triangle openings and flapping wings. And everywhere around mountaintops and sky. So much sky, for such a small piece of land.

Christmas Eve, and now the church bells are ringing, summoning the faithful inside to sing the psalms of Christmas in yellow flickering candlelight, as the day grows dark outside. Boy Cat is still in his deck chair; he stirs as I pass him, and gives me a look that is almost trust. I turn the lights on, all of them; the house seems darker, somehow, at this time, just before sunset, than it does in the blackness of night. I will do some yoga now, and cook dinner, and wait for the church bells to ring again. I will not heed their call, but I will listen. They make a lovely sound.

Christmas Eve, undecorated. Of all the good decisions I’ve made or stumbled into, this is one of the best. Christmas Eve in Sifnos, with nothing much to distinguish it from any other day, and this is the one I’ll remember. Of all the Christmas Eves I’ve spent in decorated houses, houses much brighter than this, with presents and carols and tables laden with food, wearing the spiky garland of stress that we wrap around each other for the holidays, like fairy lights tangled up in the branches of the tree – this is the one. The only time I heard the church bells ringing; the only time that sound has reached my faithless ears, free from the noise of every other Christmas Eve I’ve known. I wouldn’t know, but for the silence. This is the one that means something to me.

It is the night before Christmas. And whatever it means to you, wherever you are, whether you’re where you want to be or somewhere else, make it a happy one. The church bells are ringing. You might not hear them through the noise, but they make a lovely sound. You wouldn't know. But listen. 

Day 11

Crazy courgette flower in my garden.

My front gate has a little voice. ‘Hrndt-D!’ it says. ‘Hrvndd’. It’s like a soft whine, like it’s having a gentle moan about some chronic complaint; nothing too acute, and nothing it’s prepared to do much about, but annoying, nonetheless. It scared the shit out of me this morning when I first heard it, and it continued scaring the shit out of me until I located its source, scouting the front yard with my heart pumping against my teeth. It only speaks in a certain wind, you see. An autumn wind, that I’ve never been here to experience before.

Or maybe it’s the quiet. It’s very quiet here. So quiet that you can hear a beetle shuffling about in the caper bush at the other end of the garden. A donkey chewing on a mouthful of grass in the neighbour’s field. A cat sneezing. The front gate speaking in its whiny little voice. Or nothing; sometimes, absolutely nothing at all. It’s incredibly peaceful and totally nerve racking in equal measures. This is island life in late September.

It’s the newness of familiar things that surprises me, how they keep behaving in unexpected ways. How they’re not just fixtures, the static background of my holidays, but living things, changing all the time. I’ve spent most of my summers on this island; twenty of them in this house itself. I thought I knew what it was all about. I thought I knew about the quiet; it’s quiet enough, in July and August, when you’re coming from London, or Athens, or any other city in the world. But it’s a different quality of quiet now. Now is a different place altogether; I thought I knew Sifnos, but this is not the Sifnos I know.

Socialising with the locals.

Eleni and I went to the beach today; we both had headaches and stiff backs, and decided a quick swim might sort us out. It was warm, but the sunshine was patchy; there is an air of autumn that pervades even the most summery scenes. We went to the beach in Kamares, the port of Sifnos, where up to a couple of weeks ago the beach bars and restaurants were teeming with the tanned and the sunburnt, and you had to reserve a sun lounger in advance, and five ferries daily spilt tourists out onto the narrow quay, tourists laden with backpacks and suitcases and expectations for the start of their holiday, asking for directions to their hotels and stopping to point at things and blocking the road, and you had to fight for a seat on the bus.

Now a single ferry calls the island every day, and the frequency of buses has been cut down to half, but you can always get a seat. And the Old Captain Bar, which, earlier this month, had been taken over by twenty of my friends and family smothering each other in sun lotion and reading magazines, has but a single customer, a deeply tanned man in his sixties, pink sarong tied around his waist and flapping in the breeze, sipping a pint of beer and gazing contentedly at the mountains that frame the bay.

There are still tourists, but they are few and scattered and, no matter how far along their holiday they might be, there is a sense of wrapping up in everything they do. This is not a time of beginnings, not here, with the summer dying on the cooling sand.

‘Let’s get away from the old people,’ Eleni says, as we search for a patch of sand to spread our towels on the near-abandoned beach. We look around.

‘It’s all old people,’ I observe, not unfairly. ‘Everyone else has gone back to work. It’s just pensioners, and the rich, and (adding myself to the equation) the unemployed’.

Eleni gives a little nod but carries on along the beach, regardless, until we find a young couple that represents the under-30s population of Kamares on this day, and plonk ourselves a few feet away from them. The sand is cooling but it’s still hot enough and it feels good against my skin. I lie back and stare up at the sky; the clouds drifting past the sun mean that I don’t have to shade my eyes. It’s not what I’m used to, but it’s nice.

Yes. We offer this too. 

The end of summer has always terrified me. It almost makes me angry every time I hear people wishing each other a good winter as they part at the port. What’s the rush? I want to scream. It isn’t winter yet. And perhaps I thought, by staying here, in the land of summer, I might hold onto it for a little while longer. But you can’t stop the seasons from changing. And this isn’t the land of summer; it’s just an island, and autumn has come. Summer is a time, not a place, and this place is moving on. And I can choose to stand still, obstinate and shivering in my bikini among the pensioners and the rich, or I can put some clothes on, exchange my flip flops for shoes, and follow Sifnos to wherever it might take me.

I wonder if the quiet will grow deeper as the days grow shorter, and I make my way, slowly, towards an island winter. I wonder how much darker the sky can get, and if new stars will appear. I wonder if the wind will blow from new directions, if its howls will have a different timbre, and if more inanimate objects will introduce themselves to me in voices I’ve never heard before. I wonder how many more familiar things will turn out strange, and if I’ll get used to this happening, or if it’ll keep taking me by surprise.

It isn’t winter yet, but it is autumn. And I'm no longer on holiday, but I’m still here, the same but also different, behaving, like my surroundings, in new and unexpected ways. Not fixed, but changing; turning out a little strange. And I wonder how I missed it: that this is a beginning. I wonder how many more things I’ve missed, and what they’ll teach me, when I finally see them for what they are.

***

Please note that due to Kindle legal requirements, I've had to remove all entries past Day 11 from the blog. To carry on reading past Day 11, please consider buying the paperback edition, or the Kindle version (which also includes Bonus Days 101-104). Thank you!

Day 10

Behold! the beautiful practicality of a door handle!

I have a problem: I’m really inspired to write. I can think of nothing else. I sleep late, very little, and very lightly; sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, with a half-formed thought trying to turn itself into a sentence (though, admittedly, this is often helped along by mosquitoes and/or coughing fits). I get up early in the morning, eager to start typing and deleting words on my screen. My computer is never off, and I’m never far from it. Today, I skipped lunch and anyone who’s met me has probably just gasped with shock: I never miss a meal. This is entirely unprecedented.

You’re baffled. You’re scanning that first paragraph again, looking for the problem. Inspired to write, you read. Surely that’s a good thing? Isn’t that what you’re there to do? You’re thinking she’s lost it; the poor girl has lost her mind. A little earlier than anticipated, perhaps, but it was inevitable.

I haven’t: my mind is exactly where I’ve always kept it. But I’m just as baffled as you. Because there’s something happening right now that I never saw coming, and it snuck up on me and it’s knocked me down. And that’s all I want to write about. Not my novel; not the half-written short story that sits in my Writing folder and taunts me with its unfinishedness. This.

I set out to do a thing for myself, a small thing, barely a blip on the radar of what people get up to every day. It was a big thing for me, maybe even monumental, but I didn’t expect it to matter to anyone else. I threw a pebble in the lake that was my life, and stood back to wait for the little plop! and the sinking feeling, but the thing spread out, in concentric circles, with me bang at the centre. What? It’s commonplace, to be at the centre of our own lives, and our actions often ripple out to those closest to us, but this thing is touching people I’ve never met before. It’s taken on a life of its own and there I am, still at its centre, blinking stupidly.

But I’m not stupid. I know this isn’t about me. I’m just a character in a story, the protagonist of this one, perhaps, but it’s the story itself that people are responding to. I seem to have inadvertently touched upon something universal, our need to believe in dreams, and to believe that our dreams will come true. It’s the Hero’s Quest, the backbone of every story ever told. The details may vary, but the quest is always, fundamentally, the same.

And though I’m obviously into the story – I’m living it – it’s people’s responses that I find truly inspiring. Because in the 10 days since I started this project, and in the 3 days since I launched the kickstarter campaign, I’ve been shown more support and kindness and generosity than I thought was in store in the world. People have literally gone out of their way to help me, stepped out of their own stories to join me in mine. Every day, they walk me a bit further down the path, saying nice things to me all the way. And more than that, more important, is that in starting along this path in the first place, in setting out to do this thing for myself, I seem to have made the path visible to other people. And in following my story, as I tell it, they are starting to make out a part of themselves, their own part in it. They may not be smashing windows to get past their locked doors yet, but they’re considering the possibility. This is what’s happening, and it’s incredible.

I set out to do a thing by myself. I thought it was a lonely thing, but I have never felt less lonely in my life. There is no shortage of adjectives I could use: Astonished. Astounded. Amazed. Stunned. And then: Grateful. Gratified. Moved. Humbled. But I struggle to put the words together to express how I feel: lost for words is another one. And yet I try. This is all I want to write about.

So that’s what I’ll do, until I get the words right, or until the words run out. This story is everyone’s story. And in writing my part in it, I’ve already achieved what I set out to do.

And on a metaphorical as well as a literal note: smashing a window to get past a locked door will only cost you 10 euro. Throw in another 5, and you have a brand new handle, so you can open and close that door, oh so casually, whenever you feel like it. It’s a small price to pay, for getting what you want.

Day 9

You know that phrase things that go bump in the night? In post-holiday Sifnos, things that go bump in the night are mostly donkeys. One donkey in particular: my new neighbour. He moved into the field adjacent to my house a few days ago, presumably to help clear the dry grasses in preparation for sowing. Or maybe, it occurs to me now, this is where he actually lives during the year, and he’s just back from his summer holidays, on another part of the island. Either scenario is just as plausible. In any case, the donkey spends his days happily chewing on grass, taking his exercise (see video, below) and staring contemplatively into the distance. But it’s what he gets up to at night that’s interesting. You’d think he’d just go to sleep, but no: his preferred nocturnal activity seems to be bumping into things. Large, heavy things, judging by the thuds that reverberate through my walls as I lie, sleepless and sneezing, in my bed. Perhaps he suffers from insomnia, as I have for the last few nights. But mine is caused by my horrible, lingering cold, which has me twisting and turning and blowing my nose every thirty seconds; I can’t think of what might be keeping a donkey up at night.

Donkey psychology aside, and following up on the unexpected challenges of living alone on a small island and a comment Eileen made on facebook the other day, I can now confirm that, yes, being ill is definitely one of them. I’ve always maintained that part of the reason people get married is to have someone fetch things for them when they’re ill, and I could really do with a husband right now. Having to go out and get your own cough syrup and the ingredients for a cure-all chicken soup is hard enough in London, where there’s bound to be a shop just round the corner, and a chemist not too far away. Not so in Sifnos. Here, getting to the chemist involves a rather substantial downhill trek, and an uphill return journey that the best of us struggle with at the best of times. And given my current affliction, and that I’m still a bit shaky on my left leg as a result of a fall in early August (you can read about it here, if you’re curious), I think it’s safe to say I’m not the best of anything right now. But trek I must.

I won’t be having chicken soup, however. I can’t afford chicken soup. My budget for today is allocated to cough medicine, painkillers and fly spray and might just stretch, if I’m lucky, to a packet of Cup-a-Soup, if such a thing can be found in town. I’m also acutely aware that I’ll still have to pay the carpenter for the new door handle and the broken window. I’ve toyed with the idea of offering him a massage in exchange for his work (the man needs it, with those heavy tools he lugs about all day) but I fear he night take it the wrong way; even the mention of “tools” sounds a little bit dodgy in this context.

On the topic of massage: Polyna is coming over to receive one on Thursday, and to give me another session of BowTech. Eleni spoke to her this morning, and she has pronounced my continued illness (a.k.a. alternative health) a good thing: it’s the toxins leaving my body as a result of my treatment last week. Which I don’t doubt; the symptoms started the day after my first session, and that’s no coincidence. Bars or no bars, I’ve been holding on to a lot of shit that I didn’t quite know what to do with, and all treatments of this sort have the potential of shifting things, often leading to some acute after-effects. I’ve seen it happen with massage, and it is a good thing. As well as necessary. I just wish my body would hurry up and get it over with already, because the endless coughing and spluttering and sneezing is driving me insane. And costing me a lot in toilet tissue; I went through an entire roll last night, and it ain’t cheap. Also, my nose is sore.

I have been challenged enough for a day or two, please. I am ready for this wonderful, detoxifying illness to be over; I am ready for health of the conventional kind. I am ready for a good night’s sleep, free of snot and donkey noises, and for getting up in the morning with a clear head. I am ready for the front door to be my friend again; I still glare at it suspiciously every time I pass it, and it gives me palpitations whenever I hear it shut, even though I’m holding the key in my hand. I am ready to pick herbs without fear. I am a little traumatised.  But it’s lucky, at least, that I decided yesterday that these posts count as writing because, with all the above factors at play, they’re all the writing I’ve managed in the last three days.

I’m going to close this entry early. Eleni is hosting her final dinner party tonight; she’s leaving next week – and then the hardcore solitude will begin. So I must attempt to make myself relatively presentable (i.e. not quite on death’s door, but merely on the bus on the way there), and go over to give her a hand. Though my assistance may have to be in the form of moral support: I seriously cannot be trusted not to sneeze in the food.

Day 8

Latest acquaintance.

I was chatting to Susanne on skype, sitting at my desk. Antagonist was sprawled out on the sofa, examining her nails in a manner meant to indicate that she was bored, and a little pissed off. She doesn’t like it when I talk to other people.

            ‘You do know you’re writing every day, don’t you?’ Susanne said.

            ‘No I’m not!’ I replied, categorically. A little defensively, even.

            ‘Of course you are! You’re writing your blog!’

            ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that. That’s not writing.’

            Susanne gave me a look that was half confusion and half admonishment. ‘It is!’ she insisted. ‘And it’s wonderful!’

            ‘Thank you,’ I said, in a small voice, as Antagonist emitted a snort of derision. I told her to behave herself, in my sternest tone. Because Susanne is wonderful; having friends as supportive as this is wonderful. And Antagonist may get away with bullying me sometimes, but she’s not allowed to mess with my friends.

The thing is, for all of her faults, I don’t think it’s fair to blame Antagonist for everything, and this paradoxical defensiveness is certainly not her doing. (I will resist the temptation of inventing yet another character; I’ve already been accused of schizophrenic tendencies once this week). It’s all me, and perhaps I’m a bit of a snob, and I don’t consider my blog real writing. I don’t think of it as literature. I have this grand idea of the literary works that I will produce, and my blog posts just don’t fit in.

I started this blog mostly as a measure of self-discipline, as a way to make myself publicly accountable, but I hadn’t really expected that there would actually be a public to be accountable to. I’m surprised, every day, by how many people read my posts. I’m surprised by the comments, the honest, personal responses to the things I write. The expressions of support. It is incredibly gratifying, and moving, and valuable. Every day, there are moments when I question what I’m doing, and every day there is something – a comment, an email, a phonecall – that renews my faith in it and gives me the courage to carry on. People have told me they look forward to reading my posts every day. People have said that they can see their own struggles in the things I write about, and that it helps them, and even gives them hope. They have urged me to keep going, to keep writing. And I never expected any of this, but it’s happening, nonetheless, and it is wonderful.

But is it writing? Is it literature? The Oxford dictionary defines literature as “Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit”. Which doesn’t really help. Written works: sure. But superior or lasting artistic merit is very hard to call. And considered by whom? A blog, on the other hand, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a Web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences”: nothing particularly offensive about that. Except that, by the very nature of the internet and the blog concept itself, everyone can be a blogger. Not everyone can be a writer. Maybe I am a snob, but I will not apologise for this opinion. Not everyone can be an electrician, or a politician, or an economist; each one requires a particular set of skills and not everyone has them. And writing is no exception. It takes a lot more than putting words down on a page to make you a writer.

And therein lies the paradox: Because I actually do have those skills. And even though I’m ready to dismiss my blog posts as not writing, I never just put words down on a page. I’ve been told, frequently, that I’m not a blogger: my posts for This Reluctant Yogi have been criticised for being too long, too complex, too literary for the attention span of the average blog reader. And it’s criticism that I accept readily: I’ve chosen the blog format for its immediacy and ease of use, but I’m not really blogging, as such. I put my entire self into everything I write, for both Yogi and 100 days, exactly as I do when I’m writing a short story; I agonise over my choice of words, I edit and edit again. Each post takes me hours to write, and then I often dream about it at night, revising sentences in my sleep. I’ll never attract the thousands of visitors that I, presumably, could, if my posts were shorter, snappier, a bit more reader-friendly. And I’m OK with that. Because I am a writer and though I’m not entirely free of vanity, it’s not hits that I’m after, but readers. People who will read my work all the way through and won’t mind that it’s long, and who’ll find something in it that touches them, directly.

Which, unexpectedly, is exactly what’s happening. And perhaps wonderful Susanne is right, after all, and I can slowly, reluctantly, bring myself round to concede that what I’m doing is writing, and it’s just as real and meaningful as those works of superior artistic merit that I will surely produce in the next 92 days, and beyond. I am writing every day, and people are reading, and if this crazy adventure of mine comes to nothing more than that, it will be enough. 

In keeping with the tradition for long posts: day 8 isn’t over yet. Because today was also the day my kickstarter project for 100 days went live, and I cannot close this post without mentioning it. Susanne was with me, via skype, when I did it this morning; my hand literally shook when I clicked on the button to launch. I was incredibly nervous. But, once again, I was amazed by the support I got. There are five backers already, and my project was featured as a staff pick on kickstarter’s “new and noteworthy” section. And so another countdown has begun: 28 more days to reach my funding target. If they are anything like today, there’s no telling what might happen.

Thank you Spyro, Melina, Aliki, Johnny and Thalbir for your support and your generosity. Thank you to everyone who to took the time to read and share and helped spread the word today. And thank you Eleni, for the fish and the trousers and the victory dance. Let’s hope we dance again tomorrow.

Day 7

My strategy for perpetual good health has let me down. It appears that, despite my insistence that I am well, I have a cold. Try as I might, there’s no denying the aching head, the coughing, the sneezing, and the snot coming out of my nose.

I was determined, nonetheless, to go to the beach, as it was my last chance to see Emmy, one of the friends Eleni introduced me to this week; I’ve only met her twice, and we’ve exchanged a few words, but she’s lovely, and she’s leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to say goodbye. So when Eleni came to pick me up this afternoon, I put on my bravest face and my hat, and followed her meekly to her car. Halfway there, I had a coughing fit.

            ‘Oh,’ Eleni said, ‘you really are ill.’

            ‘No,’ I said, because I’ve trained myself not to use negative words, lest the universe is listening, ‘not ill. I’m just a different kind of healthy.’

            I can’t tell you whether the look she gave me was one of amusement or pity, but she was certainly not convinced. ‘We’ll just have to install you in the shade,’ she said. I sneezed into my hands, blew my nose, and shuffled on behind her.

I made it as far as the car park, and stopped.

            ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m ill. I’m going home.’ Eleni conceded that this was probably a good idea. I asked her to say goodbye to Emmy from me, and off I went, shuffling all the way back home. Where I took some leftover soup out of the fridge, poured it into a pot, and stuck it in the gas cooker to reheat.

Before I go any further with this tale, I need to share some technical details about my front door:

1)   It is brand new (only just replaced in August) and cost 700 euro.

2)   It has no handle on the outside. If it’s shut, it can only be opened with the key.

3)   If the key is on the inside of the door, it cannot be unlocked from the outside.

4)   It has a tendency to slam shut, even when there is no wind.

So there I was, back in the comfort of my home, with my soup heating up on the cooker, and moments away from a nice, soothing lunch, and my bed. And then I was seized by an urge to add some fresh rosemary to the soup, so I opened the door, as you do, and stepped out and over to the rosemary bush, to pick a sprig or two.

And I heard the click. It didn’t even have the decency to be a slam. Just: click. Such a gentle, polite little sound, with such devastating connotations. My mind instantaneously tallied up all the facts – door shut / key on inside / all windows closed / gas fire on – and produced the following output:

FUCK FUCK FIRE FUCK BREAK DOWN DOOR SEVEN HUNDRED EURO FIRE FUCK

I performed some sort of comedy, headless chicken routine, whereby I did a few circuits of the yard, entirely without purpose or logic, and then ran up to the front door and threw myself against it, shoulder first, like I’ve seen in films. Once, twice, three times. The door rattled, but remained intact. I stared at it, dumbly, rubbed my shoulder, kicked my flip-flops off, and sprinted to Aspasia’s, the nearest house I knew to be occupied. I rushed into her kitchen, surprising the entire family as they were having their Sunday lunch, screaming incoherently about doors, fire and men.

            ‘What?’ Aspasia said, standing up.

            ‘I’m locked out!’ I managed. ‘The fire is on!’

            ‘But I don’t have your key!’ Aspasia cried, desperately. ‘You didn’t give me your key!’

            ‘No key! I need a man to break the door!’

            Aspasia glanced at her son, George, a bulky man in his early forties and my unlikely hero of the day, and gave a nod.

‘Go,’ she commanded. And so poor George was forced to abandon his lunch and dispatched to save the crazy city dweller from her own silly self.

Locked doors come in many forms; this is one of the more traditional.

He didn’t break down the door. Obviously. Being a man possessed of his senses (mine had evidently fled the scene), he assessed the situation calmly and arrived at a somewhat less hysterical conclusion.

‘We’ll just have to break a window,’ he announced, cheerfully. ‘And then you can climb in.’

And, armed like a Sifnos superhero with a long stick and the rug I use as a doormat (saving me, again, from my own silly self: my instinct, to use a rock, would have only led to a mangled hand), he smashed a windowpane, cleared the glass, turned the handle, and let me back in.

What a relief it was, to see the inside of the door again! George stood outside, beaming, and waved all my thanks and apologies away.

‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘These things happen. And if it happens again, you know what to do!’ And with that, he took his leave of me and went back to his mother’s lunch.

But I can’t afford to smash a window every time a recipe calls for rosemary. I’m ringing the carpenter first thing tomorrow, to come and replace the glass and fit a handle on the outside of the door.

As day 7 comes to a close, and I sit here surrounded by balled-up tissues (a sign of my alternative health), I’m trying to draw some sort of positive message from this story, but I’m not sure there is one. Perhaps I could say that sometimes heroes can be found in the most unlikely places. Or that there is always a better way than throwing yourself against a locked door. Or I could just give this up as a bad day and a lesson learned, which is less about doors and more about solitude being challenging in ways that I hadn’t expected or prepared for.

The devil's own rosemary bush.

One thing’s for certain, however: spontaneous cravings for rosemary are not to be trusted. If you ever feel such a thing taking hold of you, do not heed its call. It’s the devil’s work.

Day 6

My biggest fear is running out of books.

OK, I lie: my biggest fear is not being able to write. Not being able to write well. Going back to working 70 hours a week, 49 weeks a year so that I can have three weeks in the sunshine, and calling that my life. Then: the loneliness and the cold. I’m also really scared of cockroaches, but I’ve seen none so far, and I have bug spray.

But the thought of running out of books terrifies me. There is very little loneliness left over – not enough to send you running for the next ferry back to Athens – when you have books to read. And I came here armed with enough books to see me through the summer (and, thanks to George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which took me a whole month to get through, I still have two left) but I hadn’t planned on staying past the first week of September, and the books are running out. Just like my summer clothes are beginning to feel flimsy and inadequate. And as soon as the decision to stay was made, the fear arrived.

There are two bookstores in Sifnos; only one of them sells English books, and it will close on the 10^th of October. Amazon, presumably, will deliver, but my address would look something like:

Daphne Kapsali

c/o Fotini Xenaki

Eleimonas

(just past the church, on the left, next to Mrs. Pittou)

(grey gate, with a knocker in the shape of a bird)

Katavati

Sifnos

Cyclades

Greece

And I don’t really like my chances. Once the books run out, that’s it. Nothingness. Doom.

I have appealed to higher powers for a Kindle, direct from California, and am awaiting its delivery with hope in my heart. I have resisted getting one so far, despite its obvious benefits, because I love books. Having them, holding them, stacking them up next to my bed. Flicking through them, folding the pages down to mark my spot. Their feel; their smell. But beggars truly can’t be choosers. I have 94 days to get through. I have no books; I have wifi. Bring it. I’m begging.

But in the meantime, the fear has been temporarily assuaged, thanks to a wonderful exchange scheme run by the bookstore in town. Bring in three second hand books, get one for free. So I ransacked the shelves and lugged twenty of them down into town; Eleni brought three. And then, by some miracle of literary providence, the bookstore lady received our offerings, counted them, and told us we could choose eleven (11) books in return.

            ‘Really?’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘That sounds like too much.’ Knowing full well that, according to the 3:1 ratio, we were only entitled to seven.

            The lady, however, shook her head. ‘Eleven,’ she repeated, looking bored.

            Eleni and I scampered round the corner to the second hand shelves.

            ‘But,’ I said.

            ‘Shut up,’ she hissed.

And I complied.

So I’ve just returned home with ten brand new, second hand books, which I lugged all around town for two hours as we browsed the shops for bargains (they’ll all about to close for winter) and then all the way back up the hill. And which are totally worth the pain in my shoulder.

Also, we got chocolates for free. There were only two left of the kind we wanted (candied slices of orange dipped in chocolate), and the man let us have them free of charge. And I met another kitten; we had a lovely chat. I said ‘Hello, who are you, then?’ and it said ‘Mew!’, several times.

I’m happy, and the future is bright: I have books, and the ability to talk to cats. There’ll be no loneliness left over at all.

Day 5

I found out today that my body is an impenetrable fortress. Not in a good way: I am, apparently, completely blocked up. This according to Polyna, a permanent resident of Sifnos and practitioner of the Bowen Technique, commonly known as BowTech.

I met Polyna at Eleni’s a few nights ago; they’re old friends, and Eleni thought we should meet since I’ll be spending the next few months on the island. So I went over and we sat in the kitchen, and chatted over a glass of wine and a smoke. And BowTech came up, which I’d never heard of before, surprisingly, since I spent two years working in a yoga centre in London, and I thought I’d come across pretty much every variation of alternative therapy there is. Polyna, who treats all her clients completely free of charge, offered me a treatment, so I could see what it was all about.

And thus Eleni and I drove up to her house this afternoon – which was a revelation in itself. Perched, all alone, at the top of a hill, Polyna’s house has uninterrupted views of practically the whole of Sifnos, the sea, and the islands beyond. We were welcomed by a cat (one of several), Polyna, and her dog Coco, and ushered to the balcony which – no doubt helped by the infinity pool at its edge – felt like it literally opened up onto the ocean (see photo at the top). It was a perfectly still, windless days, sunny but with strange, heavy clouds drifting across the sky and casting their reflections on the sea; the sort of day that, Eleni claims, you only get to experience in September. It’s one of the gifts post-holidays Sifnos bestows upon those of us who stick around past the end of the summer. In any case, the overall effect – the solitary house, the stillness, the light, the clouds, the sparkling pool and the ocean – was entirely mesmerising. And made even better by the presence of two kittens lounging in the sun.

We had espresso and then Polyna led me to a room in the back for my treatment. Before she began, Polyna explained that she would apply certain moves, in sets, to different parts of my body, and then leave the room for a few moments, to give my body the time to process them and the freedom to react as it pleases. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ she instructed. ‘Don’t censor it.’

So I lay there, first on my front and then, briefly, on my back, as Polyna went in and out of the room, accompanied by Coco (who, apparently, often assists on these sessions by showing Polyna where on the client’s body she needs to work). And with every move I expected something a little alarming to happen, hoped for it, even, but it never came. Certain moves felt as if they were spreading out to the wider area of the point they were applied, but my body had very little to say, and certainly nothing that might require censoring. With the last move applied to my head, Polyna told me to take my time getting up, and left the room for the final time. Coco stayed; I could hear her breathing somewhere in the vicinity of my feet.

When I stood up to leave the room, Coco lifted her head and gave me a look of concern, and then escorted me to the balcony, where I rejoined Polyna and Eleni.

‘How do you feel?’ Paulina asked.

‘Very relaxed,’ I admitted. No small feat, considering I’d spent the day in utter agitation, as a result of an earlier run-in with kickstarter (see below). ‘A bit lightheaded.’

Polyna nodded. ‘You are very tense.’

‘Yes.’

‘In all my time as a therapist,’ she said contemplatively, ‘I’ve never come across a body that did nothing at all.’

‘And that’s me?’

‘That’s you. You just wouldn’t let me in.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I said, though actually, at the same time, I was. ‘It’s been a difficult summer.’ And it was: the last few months have been extremely challenging, in many different ways, and I’ve often told people I’d put up a fence around me, to protect myself.

‘A fence?’ Polyna laughed. ‘That’s no fence; it’s prison bars!’

So there you have it: I am uniquely damaged, imprisoned by my own body, and need help. But, luckily, help is at hand, in the form of Polyna, who offered (insisted, in fact) to give me weekly sessions for at least the next two months.

            ‘We’ll bring those bars down,’ she promised. ‘We need to. Especially if you want to be writing.’

And on the topic of writing, and the accountability I mentioned in yesterday’s post: I spent the entire morning (my allocated, non-negotiable working hours) creating a kickstarter project for 100 days of solitude. This included making a 3.5 minute video of myself, which took me the best part of three hours, and was absolutely excruciating. I am notoriously awkward in front of a camera; there is barely a photo of me where I don’t look like I’m having a stroke, and video is even worse. But I did it and, after a bit of drama whereby kickstarter was, apparently, unable to verify my identity (which sent me into a bit of an existential spin for a while), the project is now complete and ready to go live. My sister advised not launching it on a Friday night, as it has been observed that social media interaction goes down over the weekend. So I’m taking her advice, and waiting until Monday. (My friend Procrastination is delighted; she loves it when things are put off.)

So great news: I’ll be asking you all for money soon! And as far as accountability is concerned, I think this is probably as accountable as it gets.