At some point, if one is lucky enough, one may take the chance to start reading the life lived backwards,

after the greatest part of it is lived. 

The golden afternoon sheds a more forgiving light, everything makes more sense.
As in memoirs or autobiographies the wisdom of hindsight may help to weave a continuum out of random occurrences, tricky choices, happy surprises, some accidents and disappointments that strike like thunderstorms; even blows over which one has little or no control, or so it feels at the moment – there are also crossroads upon which one may rest contemplating for ever. 

I believe that it is everyone’ s birthright to be in the position of exercising free will based on a respectful sense of self and others throughout the span of life, to its end.

If we were happily involved rather than compelled by control and lack of autonomy over human rights, both as citizens in the public domain and in our private lives, we would have willingly taken more personal responsibility over our actions.

It is a good feeling when you look back at your life to see a map navigated mainly by your own choices, rather than by others’ without excluding your closest and dearest – who may operate with your best interest at heart, or subtly manipulate affected by their own constraints.

I write these words remembering myself as a young girl and how I was seeking out for guidance and information at a period of limited freedom and of sense of security or availability of books until 1974, the fall of dictatorship in Greece.

To that young girl I wish someone would have said,

“trust your guts, trust your talents, trust your visions. Keep learning and keep grounded to reality, conscious of the restrictions of time and place. Work and build strong foundations, imagine the life you wish for yourself, what fulfills and brings you joy and makes you feel empowered, confident, choose the energies of people that uplift you, places that where bring a sense of belonging, invite you at HOME. The earliest you start going towards that direction, and invest it with your commitment, the easiest and best you will do in life”.

This is what I would have told my daughter, and tell the girls and the boys who do not call me mother. Some of them remind me of my younger self, and I feel hopeful for them. I send this message out there in a bottle for whoever may read my words.

The long-standing nurture of Literature

Literature has never failed me. And to literature I always return when seeking solace and strength.

Literature is my compass, my moral spine, the measure of my evolution, the nurture to my inner child and to the mature woman I am becoming.

Literature is honing the skills of my humanity, the empathy, the kindness, the understanding, the tolerance required to keep one away from the narcissistic traits and the voyeurism, both accentuated through social media.

I do not fail to read non-fiction too, about the art of seeing and discover new things when travelling.

As for films my preference goes to b/w of the 40s, 50s of the English speaking world, especially the American film industry created by Europeans who escaped Nazism. I also like TV episodes of the 50s and 60s, the twilight and the beyond, mystery and light horror.

Get inspired

I go to Theatre and Opera to get emotional charged, and to the ballet and danse performances for the aligning of body / soul.

To escape the hustle and bustle of a city in particular if it provides limited green spaces, I go to Galleries for painting and photography.

Keep Questioning

I think that one of my obsessions is to learn how to ask the right questions. A right one instigates a series of new, previously unthought questions.

The questions and dilemmas we encounter bring us back to the core of our being, to our very essence, to our ethical and moral molecules, to whatever consists our sense of integrity and justice.

Will we keep faithful to our ‘infantile’ dreams and visions? Will our eagerness to belong drive us to surrendering, to ready-made answers and compromises even before we risk some conflicts with our deepest and more censored desires?

Will we settle before taking any ride to the wilde side, before we take any risk and try ourselves any battle?

Will we sell off our talents for the sake of conformity, to appease confrontation with people whose opinion matters to us too much?

Usually these are ‘the nearest and dearest’ whose approval, love and validation should be granted unconditionally and generously, their kind of love be synonymous to compassion, trust and understanding, to let us free chose our way.

To tell our story in our own words is one way of taking control of our narrative, sit at the driver’s seat unapologetically ante-mortem, leave it as a testament post-mortem.

My story is not too short:
For many years I have been very active in the dental business. My work involved Managerial and Marketing activities in the promotion and selling of imported products. I organised commercial events, presentations with slide projectors, direct mailing, printed brochures, booth setting at exhibitions, all the pre-digital stuff.

My career in this dental niche of international trade started when I was still in high-school, in the mid ’70s because my father was in that business. I started assisting him by writing letters on the typewriter, translating from English into Greek brochures and manuals, and working as a part-time interpreter in exhibitions – Athens FDI in 1975 was my debut!

Sometimes I feel like I have lived the history of Greece and of other places in the world because I happened to be there at odd times visiting for dental occasions, often solo to meet with business partners.

At the dawn of the 21st century I was sharing the responsibility and the management of the business. It had entailed sacrifices and more challenges I could have ever imagined when I joined this predominantly male world as a young woman and ardent feminist.

I was raised by professional parents, both graduated from the Dental School/University in Athens after the II WW, liberal at least in terms of voting. In the domestic arena I had an open confrontation against double standards and discrimination towards me, older daughter working since my teens – and their younger son.

I suppose this realisation turned me into a studious feminist, seeking answers, and arguments to arm my quiver, sometimes joining in my forceful imagination the Amazons.

During the entrepreneurial years that turned to be registered as “my blue period” corresponding to Picasso’s paintings, I never lost touch with literature. Conversations with friends on relationships, on fiction among bookish companions, on movies with ciné fils – before facebook made its appearance our lives were all about mobility, meeting up in the city to chat, for drinks, going out!

I was privileged to meet great mentors representative of the first generation of intellectuals and artists in Greece after the end of WW2.

Most significant were my friend, first reader and mentor Dimitris – Mimis Berahas (1928 – 2008); my teacher and editor, the poet Spyros Tsaknias (1929 – 6 Μay 1999).

Mimis divided his time between his beloved Paris, where he flee at the start of the dictatorship, and Athens. After he had passed I came across his translation of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea into Greek, publ. Ikaros – a very old edition, with yellowish fragile pages and the still distinguished colour cover by the painter Spyros Vasileiou.

I discovered it among packs of old books that now sell by weight. There is still some demand from buyers of old books who frequent small shops, or extensions of the kiosks (periptera) at the city centre.

Mimis Berahas translation of The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, with co-translator Nikos Oikonomopoulos, was staged at the theatre of Karolos Koun, Stoa Pesmatzoglou, in 1962-1963, The music at the performance was by Manos Hatzidakis.

Going back to my readings, I always favoured English or American literature from the original and women writers of the 19 & 20th c., autobiographies, biographies, letters, memoirs, short stories, novels, travelogues.

After 7 pm and week-ends

During that period in Athens where I lived, I attended a long list of seminars, workshops in the evenings and at week-ends; they offered a variety of high standard learning and socialising with a task, from acting classes to scriptwriting and photography, plus creative writing.

I kept working on the subjects I loved, anxious not to lose touch with the arts, because that’s where I have always felt at home.

In challenging times literature still provides the breathing space, a kind of air pocket in a sinking ship.

It was during my week-ends and holidays, or while travelling for a dental exhibitions abroad, in a train to Cologne, or by boat to Crete that I have translated the novels and the short stories that feature in my CV – Linkedin.

It was in these intervals that I drafted my novellas and short stories that I edited after moving out of my entrepreneurial role. They were published in Greek in 2005, Η ΠΟΛΗ ΜΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΕΡΓΕΝΗΔΕΣ, “The City with The Bachelors”.

I had no clue what I was going to do other than follow my longing for travelling and my desire to write and test the impact of my writing.

For more details please see under ‘Pages’, ‘Projects and Translations’ 

Dental FM, the creative spear

All the time I acted creatively at every opportunity.

Marketing activities included the writing, editing and publishing of the commercial periodical Dental Fm for the duration of 10 years 1994 to 2003; it reached every dentist, lab and the two Dental Schools (Universities). Dental Fm has taught me a lot about the printing business, how to make the content more appealing on the printed page for the reader, improve my communication skills.

What has kept me motivated through the tedious work of bringing out the 4 issues of Dental Fm every year, all alone, on top of everyday managerial and personnel tasks, was switching to view it as an educational medium than a commercial/selling tool.

So my contribution turned into a service to dental health. Anyway, for most of the periodical’s space I was proud, as it was devoted to inform professionals on new products, techniques and high-tech innovations.

It is difficult now to imagine Dental FM‘s function in an outdated context – before websites, podcasts, blogs, Youtube and the social.
Back then, the paper newspaper was the habit, a convention as much as the post, paper, envelopes and stamps, typewriters, telegrams, telex, fax. The hands-on demonstrations, slides on projectors and printed photos or drawings were the only way to show visually how a material is mixed and applied; personal attendance in seminars and conferences was not an option.

The future perspective

At the peak of my career all I could see in the future was my ‘evolvement’ into a pensioner.

However, the never- ending responsibilities at work and the ever-changing laws regulating pensions in Greece, were pushing the day of my release further back into old age. That is ‘if’ I had survived in good health up to the starting date of my pension.

I might have died in the meantime from lack of motivation and boredom. Or got sick from stress, anxiety and continuous internal conflicts. Such a prospect seemed unfair, given that, in Greece, and similar cultural settings, women are conditioned early on into co-dependency and loyalty traps: we learn to serve others’ needs, to prioritise their well-being at the expense of our own. When we realise it may be much too late to restore broken health, or lives.

Reinventing myself

It was time to ‘reinvent myself‘. The expression has become trendy long since I quit my job a few years after 9/11.
Looking back I see that the September 11th 2001 attack that marked this century had a horrific impact everywhere and the ripples of this calamity affected a lot of us, who lived in other parts of the world, at an unconscious level. 

I quit the only job and environment I have ever knew and made a name for me. A number of conflicts and antagonists were severed off my daily life.

My longing to move in open spaces, to owe my time, to follow my curiosity drove me to bear farewell to the most predictable, most financially and socially secure phase of my life.

I have never regretted it. I only wish I would not have waited so long to follow my heart.

I would say to my younger self

Go on, be bold, do not fear, trust the unknown, stay focused, clear-minded, have fun!

Had I remained in a corporate career, if I had not turned my life upside down I would have never travelled so much or stayed in other countries for longer periods

I would have never discovered so different ways of being, mingled with so many and different people.

I would have never met so many challenges or had to fend for myself and learn better.

I would not have learned new skills or got exposed to other cultures. It seems I have chosen to go for ‘educability‘ before I have come across the term (August 2024) in The New Yorker. “Educability is our ability to learn over the long term”; “by gathering diverse kinds of knowledge, often in a slow, additive, serendipitous way, and knitting them together”;

The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness by Leslie Valiant

Closure

I am grateful for the guidance and protection to the divine, to my ancestors and to the dearest of the family and friends who had passed.

Kindness, honesty and the good humour of people who put a smile on my face on a gloomy day are more than appreciated.

 and the boat sails on…

LThe posts in this blog are well-researched authentic posts, featured in En & Gr thoroughly edited and illustrated by my photos.
*** 3 times awarded blogThe posts in this blog are well-researched authentic posts, featured in En & Gr thoroughly edited and illustrated by my photos.
*** 3 times awarded blogisa 

updated August 2024  – all content in this blog is protected by copyright 

The posts in this blog are well-researched authentic posts, featured in En & Gr thoroughly edited and illustrated by my photos.
*** 3 times awarded blog

Take wings! photo of 2d September 2022, Vouliagmeni