Eléni & M Move to Athens - Part 7

This new series has its history in the form of several short stories, several poems, and a 13-part series that is linked at the bottom via Part 6 of this series. Anthi Psomiadou has graciously agreed—she really did—to appear as a fictional character in this new series as well. Her full name in this series, Anthi Kanéna, is already revealed before it actually appears for a good reason to be discovered sometime later if I do not forget.

And then God said, let there be Greece. Unknown

We are going to Crete. We are going to Crete. I could not stop repeating these five words, and soon we were all chanting them like a hymn. O Athens would become O Crete for a few days, a few weeks, even a year. But what about Anthi? How could we manage without her? It was like deciding to forego one of our five fingers in a hand that needed them all. We wanted them all. We wanted Anthi. Love can be selfish, but this was a good sort of selfishness, and Anthi agreed. I felt her sudden sadness and I could not take it. We were free like a kind wind in a hot summer, but Anthi had a family. I beseeched Athena in my mind. Please, my one and only Goddess! How can we go without her? Please, do something sensible, something wise! I know that you can come up with something divine. And she did. Athena did. I love her to tears, our Athena, our queen, our Goddess.

Anthi has relatives in Crete, her maternal grandparents, a proud lineage, which Athena tapped into with her wisdom. They called Anthi the next morning, speaking excitedly of a dream they both had on the same night. Goddess Athena appeared, kissed them both on their foreheads and right cheeks, and asked them to call for Anthi Kanéna (I did not forget after all to use her last name) to stay with them for a few days, a few weeks, even a year, depending on the weather on Crete, which she promised will be sunny and loving like sunflowers caressed by blue and white all day and all night, that they were blessed to have such a granddaughter, and that her presence will bless them for evermore. It was settled. We were going to Crete. We were going to Crete.

I felt elated. We all did. I suddenly wanted to sing, in Greek, but it was not part of my voice yet, only in my mind, so I sang inside my head some Ari San and some Trifonas (there is a song at the bottom), and we all rejoiced with tsipouro, this time around, since Anthi sang its praise above that of ouzo. Anthi Kanéna. What a name! Five syllables of soothing sounds. Blue-and-white flowers with no stems, like a Cretan sky with blooming clouds. I cannot wait (Patrick too) because we have been there about ten years ago, but it was in fiction and it was both painful and serene. Now, we were going to arrive for real and both in love with goddesses and with Anthi as our go-between fiction and reality.

I mainly write about the plight of trees, about the positive advent of AI, and about French music recently but for a long time to come, and pussy and I are no strangers as far as words are concerned. Yet, it is only when I write these Greece-based stories that I feel as if I am within a dream where everything is possible but not everything is permitted given that even in a dream there are rules to follow, and not because of dear Athena or dear Eléni, but because of Anthi. I cannot even type dear for her because she also exists in reality, whereas all the rest of us are like figments of an imagination gone to Gagaland, or is it Kanéna, which means no-body as Anthi explained in a comment (she chose her fictitious last name). It is as if I write with mind only and a lot of heart and tears. Do not ask! I have no idea why they keep coming while I write this series of fictitious events. Am I tapping into some unconscious pool of repressed feelings, though I was always vocal about them, never hiding anything. There was nothing to hide. Life will always be a bitch and a bastard, and the reason why fiction is more than escapism. It can enable one to repair both small tears and large gushes in the fabric of one’s existence past. Fiction is a therapy in many ways, but it depends, of course, on the topic. It is better to write than to scream.

With Anthi’s help, we rented a large place not far from Anthi’s grandparents, and set a date for our voyage, an odyssey in some sense, a pilgrimage for Patrick and myself, a quest for something we still did not know we needed since the day we were born. It was summer facing the Atlantic ocean yet not far from the Mediterranean and Greece. And before reaching our third birthday, we found ourselves bathing in the Mediterranean about 865 nautical miles (1,600 km) from Athens. And now, we were there, wondering how did we get there. It took many years but it finally transpired. We live in Athens with Goddess Athena and are tied to a Greek angel called Anthi Kanéna. Is there such a reality? It is very possible with so many people on this pale blue dot. And yet, it must be rare if we combine all the circumstances and events that led us here. It may be unique like Earth in the universe. Even in a multiverse, our Earth will remain unparalleled. Did I digress? I am glad because my mind needed to think about something else, with Anthi always keeping popping in like a memory that has yet to find a permanent anchor as it is constantly fleeting between fiction and reality.

The last western society to worship female powers was Minoan Crete. And significantly, that fell and did not rise again. Camille Paglia

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I would like to thank Anthi Psomiadou for her continued enthusiasm for this evolving story both in Athens and the rest of Greece. Why Anthi? Because she helped me rekindle my fascination with Ancient Greece, with Goddess Athena appearing as the one to love both then and now, and because she offers me ideas in her comments. Anthi speaks directly to my mind.

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A famous Greek song sung both in Greek and Hebrew.

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