Tag Archives: holiday

Feasting on Flowers to Celebrate the Month of May

1 May

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Kalo mina! It’s the first day of May–or as we Greeks call it, Protomaia or the Feast of the Flowers. Here in New York it’s been a long, long winter. Every time it started to warm up, it would start snowing. After we had one big snowstorm, a robin, that ephemeral symbol of spring, chirped on top of a construction rod as if to say it was tired of the cold weather too. Now, at last the days are longer, and pink flowers are blooming in Spanish Harlem.

During the winter, people always tell me that they’re sure I must wish I was in Greece during the cold season. Yes, we have palm trees in Greece–my dad is obsessed with plants!–but the country doesn’t have a tropical climate year-round. It actually snowed in Greece this year, as you can see from Yannis Behrakis’ stunning photos of a snow-topped Acropolis.

Perhaps this year, more than ever, Greeks are celebrating May Day. Traditionally heralded by picnics and flower collecting, Protomaia announces the start of spring. And with spring comes rebirth. A new beginning. A fresh start.

We could all use that.

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Modern Love

14 Feb
by William Hilton

by William Hilton

When I was still just a teenager, I fell for John Keats. He was a Romantic, prone to fits of passion and depression, the highs and lows most teenagers can relate to. He had studied and gotten his apothecary license, but who wants to be a doctor when they could be a poet? Both fix the heart, do they not? He sat under a plum tree and wrote an ode to a nightingale. Swoon. He wasn’t stuffy. He infused humor into his poetry and broke traditional rules, using false rhymes. He went on “road trips,” walking tours of the Lake District, Ireland, and Scotland. There’s a beautiful scene in the film Bright Star, about Keats’ romance with Fanny, in which a million butterflies flutter though a bedroom. And isn’t that just like love? Whimsical. Animated. Delicate. Fleeting. Memorable.

Gregory Corso, the poet associated with the Beat Generation, was a fan of John Keats’ poetry. It’s easy to see their resemblance to each other—the way they both referenced their hero poets in their poetry, the cheeky humor, their admiration for the Classics, the way they strayed from conformity, their struggling to make ends meet.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s Keats’ thoughts on modern love.

 

Fragment: Modern Love

And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up

For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;

A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

That silly youth doth think to make itself

Divine by loving, and so goes on

Yawning and doting a whole summer long,

Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,

And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world,

If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

 

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Blogiversary: Greeks Beat Kerouac in 2012

10 Jan

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January 1 marked the anniversary of my blog! Thank you all for your support and encouragement of my writing and blogging. It means so much to me that you take the time to read and comment on my blog entries.

I just reviewed a report of my year in blogging, and it’s been a good year!

Here’s a recap of my most viewed posts of 2012:

Notice anything interesting? They all have to do with Greece, and four out of five of them have to do with Greek beauty and fashion. Despite the fact that most of my blogging efforts this past year were about Jack Kerouac, not a single Kerouac-related entry made it into the top 5.

Two out of the above-mentioned blog posts didn’t receive any comments, despite being popular views. My most commented on post of the year was:

That just goes to show you that comments and views aren’t necessarily correlated.

What were your favorite posts from 2012?

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Blessing of the Waters

6 Jan

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This past year, we’ve seen the power of water when Hurricane Sandy hit, devastating homes, businesses, and even lives. And yet water remains critical to our existence:

  • About 57% of our body weight is water.
  • Approximately 88% of 1.8 million deaths a year is attributed to unsafe water supplies and sanitation and hygiene issues. Most of these deaths are in children.
  • Water covers about 70% of our planet.
  • Africans spend 40 billion hours just walking to get water every year. It is usually women and children who have the responsibility of fetching water, and this arduous task keeps them away from school.

Water is a dichotomy of life and death.

I once saw a priest in Brooklyn throw a cross into the muddy waters of the Hudson.  It was a frigid January day, yet a bunch of boys jumped into the river to save the cross.

What would possess a priest to throw a cross into the river?

Theophany; or, as most westerners call it, Epiphany.

The word “Theophany” comes from the Greek “τα Θεοφάνια,” which means “appearance of God,” and January 6 is the feast day that commemorates the incarnation of Jesus.  It celebrates His birth and baptism.

When St. John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, the heavens opened up and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove.  God spoke from the heavens, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17, NIV).  It marked one of the very few times that all three characters of the Trinity—Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God—revealed themselves at the same time to man.

Jesus’ baptism marks His first step toward Crucifixion, according to Orthodox theology.

And so, on January 6, Orthodox priests throughout the world throw crosses, symbolic of Jesus’ crucifixion, into bodies of water, symbolic of His baptism.  This is called the Blessing of the Waters.  Volunteers jump into the water to retrieve the cross.  The priest, according to tradition, prays a blessing on the person who gets to the cross first and brings it back to him.

Here’s the Troparion (tone 4) from the Eve and Afterfeast hymn, which has some powerful imagery:

The River Jordan receded of old by the mantle of Elisha when Elijah ascended into heaven; and the water was separated to this side and that, the wet element turning into a dry path for Him, being truly a symbol of Baptism, by which we cross the path of transient age. Christ appeared in the Jordan to sanctify its waters.

Parts of this post were first published on my blog in 2011 and 2012.

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My Clothes Still Smell Like My Grandma

4 Jan

When I was growing up in Closter, New Jersey, there was beautiful blue fir right outside my balcony window. I can only recall one white Christmas. The snow blanketed the pine needles, turning the outdoors into a winter wonderland. It was even more fantastical than anything Hollywood could produce.

Over the years, my mother suggested we go on vacation for Christmas. I was dead set against this. I don’t recall ever believing in Santa Claus, so it’s not as if I was afraid Santa wouldn’t find us to drop off the gifts. Rather, I knew that if we went on vacation that would mean less gifts because the money would go toward hotel rooms.

Also, even as a young child I felt it important for my family to be all together in our home. My father was usually working so we didn’t spend a lot of time together as a whole family. Holidays represented a time for us to come together, and it seemed like for something as holy as Christmas we should   be in our house instead of each running off in different directions on the beach and distracted by landmarks. We’d done enough traveling for me to know that trying to please children with seven years of age difference and parents with dissimilar interests never worked.

Once the last of the children had flown the nest, we stopped spending Christmas as a family altogether.

Nine years later, we reunited for Christmas in Florida. Instead of a blue fir, there was a palm tree outside my window.

I remember the first time I ever saw a palm tree in real life. I was in fifth grade and had gone with my family to Florida to see my grandma and go to Disney World. We got off the plane, and pulling out of the airport I saw the many palmed leaves of a palm tree against the backdrop of a blue sky. It looked like a cheerleader’s pom-pom or a wig on a Muppet. I was enamored.

We spent Christmas this year in my grandma’s condo. I remember playing out in the backyard with my little sister, taking photographs of us with the exotic palm trees. The same palm trees still shake their confetti heads into the coastal breeze. But so much has changed…. My sister, for one, is no longer little. She is a woman with a life of her own. She has a career in which she speaks about resolutions and treaties to delegates from around the world. She will one day, maybe before I’m even ready for it, have her own family.

For every new beginning, there is also an ending.

Many years ago, my grandma died. She died on the day of my sister’s high-school graduation.

That was more than a decade ago, and her immaculate white condo still reeks of the cigarettes she smoked that caused her lung cancer. The cigarette smoke is in the white chairs and in the white sofa and seeped into the white carpet. And when I flew back to New York City, I realized my grandma’s smell had clung to my black puffy jacket. A part of her came with me.

I miss my grandma a lot. It was hard for me being back in her place without her even though I’d been there only two other times since she passed away. Various members of my family have spent significant time there, but it’s still her place to me. Her presence lingers so strong that even all these years later her smell is still a part of her  home.

In another day or so, the smell of cigarette smoke will leave my jacket, but for now I want to hold onto it. I want to hold onto her.

If you would like to stop smoking, here is a free resource.

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New Year’s Eve with Jack Kerouac

1 Jan

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“The parties were enormous; there were at least a hundred people at Herb Benjamin’s basement apartment in the west nineties. People overflowed into the cellar compartments near the furnace. Something was gong on in every corner, on every bed and couch, not an orgy, but just a New Year’s party with frantic screaming and wild radio music.”

You can read the whole story beginning with Neal Cassady driving Jack Kerouac’s mom back to New York for New Year’s Eve, on page 225 of On the Road: The Original Scroll, published by Penguin Books in 2008.

The recent film adaptation of On the Road does a splendid job capturing the energy at the New Year’s Eve party. Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” the book I’m coauthoring with Paul Maher Jr., tells the true-life events that inspired this story.

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How I Spent My Name Day

31 Dec

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For my name day, my family took me to Delray Beach, Florida. It’s a cute little oceanside town with lots of restaurants, antique shops, surf shops, and galleries. My favorite part of the trip was looking in the display cases at the antique store with my mom. When I was a little girl, she used to always take me with her to the antique stores we both loved so much. When we all moved, we had to give up a lot of our family heirlooms. Tea cups from my grandma’s side of the family. Handmade doilies from my yiayia’s side of the family. Exquisite purchases my parents had made when decorating their own home. I loved reminiscing with my mom in Delray Beach.

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Photo via Cupcake Couture.

We also went to a super adorable cupcake shop my sister loves called Cupcake Couture.  All the cupcakes are named after fashion designers. I got the Jean Paul Peanutier, pictured above. So yummy! The frosting was a light whipped peanut butter. Oh my gosh, I’m salivating just thinking about it.

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Photo via Wags to Riches.

We also stopped into a fancy pet shop called Wags to Riches. It was the type of place that sold rhinestone collars and designer-looking clothes in miniature form for dogs. They had some adorable puppies. I’m currently looking for an apartment right now that will allow pets because I’d like to get a dog of my own. I’m thinking of getting a Maltese. If you’ve ever had one, let me know in the comments section if they’re easy to train. Otherwise, I might get a poodle, which is what I had growing up.

After Delray Beach we went out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It wasn’t my choice, and it was bittersweet for me. The last time I’d been to that particular Cheesecake Factory was with my grandma, who has since passed away.

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Merry Christmas! …Or Something Like That

25 Dec

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“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” ~Luke 2:14

From the bottom of my heart, I want to wish you all a merry, merry Christmas!

May your holiday be bright, full of merriment, and whimsical!

In the past few month, I’ve heard from friends and fellow writers who find the holidays a difficult season. Some people have lost loved ones, and no matter how much time has passed, they still miss spending the holidays with them and grieve over their loss. Some have experienced recent tragedy so great due to Hurricane Sandy, the Newtown school shooting, gang rape and violent protests in New Delhi, and air strikes in Syria that the holidays may be far from their minds. Some suffer quietly with extreme poverty that doesn’t make the news because it’s no longer news. Some come from broken or dysfunctional families, and being altogether for Christmas just brings out the drama. Some wish to see their families but cannot afford the time or money to travel, and some are thankful for good friends to spend holidays with but wish they had a spouse or children to share it with. My heart goes out to all of you who feel dejected, stressed, depressed, scared, and lonely. May you find peace, may you spread good will toward others who may also be experiencing a difficult holiday season, and may you find hope.

This is the first year my immediate family and I will be all together in more than five years. I don’t even remember the last time the five of us were together for Christmas. It must’ve been the year before my parents moved to Greece, my sister to France, and my brother to Boston, while I remained in New Jersey. Since then, there have been other moves within the family, and we’ve sometimes missed each other at a destination by just a week. Some of us have spent holidays together, and most of us have experienced Christmases where we were on our own, spending the holiday with extended family, significant others, friends, or even colleagues. Sometimes I feel sad that life is so full of changes and that I’m not the one deciding and controlling all the changes. I’d like to scoop my family up  and put them in a snow globe, freezing us in a moment of joy and togetherness. But life’s not like that. Part of the beauty of a snow globe is turning it upside down, shaking it up, and watching a great torrent of snow swirl throughout the globe.

Maybe that’s why the Christmas story means a lot to me. As a child and an animal lover, I loved the picturesque scene of gentle-eyed barnyard animals looking ever-so-tenderly at the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloth. As I’ve gotten older, though, the story really does seem more like something ripped from the headlines or something out of Law and Order: SVU. A young unwed Middle Eastern woman finding herself pregnant. Her fiance not a wise man but some dude who builds things with his hands. A politician systematically having babies killed. A weird natural phenomenon (the star of Bethlehem). It’s a really dark, strange story in many ways, and when you view it from that perspective, it kind of messes with the idea that Christmas is the “season to be jolly.” When you think of God not as some puppet master who isn’t doing a good job of spreading peace on earth but of this God sending “His only begotten Son” to be born into this mess of a world, it really makes you think. Maybe life isn’t all Christmas cookies and eggnog. Maybe it’s not even just a sweet story of angels and a baby born in a manger. Maybe hope isn’t simple. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe just because it isn’t simple, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

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Christmas with Jack Kerouac

24 Dec

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I spotted this festive train outside the National Streetcar Museum when I was in Jack Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Mass., earlier this month.

Looking for a Kerouac-related Christmas story? Here’s a snippet from the scroll version of On the Road in which Kerouac describes his Christmas:

“At Christmas 1948 my mother and I went down to visit my sister in the South laden with presents. I had been writing to Neal and he said he was coming East again; and I told him if so he would fine me in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, between Xmas and New Year. One day when all our Southern relatives were sitting around the parlor in Rocky Mount, gaunt men and women with the old southern soil in their eyes talking in low whining voicss about the weather, the crops and the general weary recapitulations of who had a baby, who got a new house and so on, a mud spattered ’49 Hudson drew up in front off the house on the dirt road….”

You can read the whole story beginning on page 212 of On the Road: The Original Scroll, published by Penguin Books in 2008.

 

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Gift Guide for the Swedish Lover

7 Dec

With Santa living in the Lapland (the Finnish side), give a gift from Scandinavia is a wonderful way to make Christmas festive!  Here are a couple ideas from Sweden or inspired by Sweden.  If anyone knows any authentic Sami vendors, please add them in the comments section.

 For the person who loves Swedish crime literature:::

 

The Millennium Trilogy Series (starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) by Stieg Larsson

 

The Inspector Van Veeteren Series (starting with The Mind’s Eye) by Hakan Nesser

 

The Kurt Wallander Series (starting with Faceless Killers) by Henning Mankell

 

The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson

 

Box 21 by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

 

Red Wolf by Liza Marklund

 

Bonus tip! – If you can afford it, give the whole set!  If you’re not sure the person will like the book, you may want to give one of the books plus a gift card to their favorite bookstore.  You can also accompany the book with a coffee mug and Swedish coffee, a book lamp, or a cozy blanket from Swedish chain IKEA.

Gift ideas for the Swedish food lover:::

 

Swedish Breads and Pastries by Jan Hedh

 

Sweet and Savory Swedish Baking by Leila Lindholm

 

Hash by Torgny Lindgren

 

Swedish coffee basket by Anderson Butik

Coffee and sweets gift box by Anderson Butik

Swedish pancake basket by Anderson Butik

Bonus tip! – Select a coffee and food product that naturally go together and give them as a pair.  The gift baskets make shopping and wrapping easier!

Gifts for the Swedish home:::

Swedish table prayer tile

Iron candle holder with hearts

Iron candle holder with wild horses

Swedish blessing

Algfamilj tea towel

Bonus tip! – A gift card to IKEA would go nicely with any of these.  A lovely handwritten message or something that is personal and has sentimental value is also nice to give with gifts for the home.

 

Gifts for people on the go:::

Carrie Swedish lace bicycle basket

A Volvo

Bonus tip! – A nice key chain would go well with either of these.

 

God Jul!  Merry Christmas!

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