Whereas Leighton has struggled a little feeling bored with all this time we have here, I’m finding myself waking up from the so-called ammetåka (“nursing fog,” or, as I like to call it, having a “mush brain”). I can tell now how truly tired I’ve been, as the primary care taker of Lilly. It’s been so wonderful but also extremely intense.
One thing most people don’t talk much about is how boring the labor of love can be (I’ve only found Anne Lamott describe it, in her Operating Instructions). How one must make sure to activate oneself with daily tasks and activities. Go for a walk, run some errands, meet a friend for coffee, go to friends with babies same age or have them come to your home, take baby to a baby swimming class, or mommy and baby gym class. When Lilly approached the age of one (which she did on June 15), things got a little more challenging; she’d get bored more easily and would require more in terms of feeling stimulated to play and explore.
Days in Apollonas
So coming here to Greece has been wonderful for me; everything is so easy with her here!! We can go for little walks around the complex, meet and interact with people right here at or by our home, there’s the dog, Dick (a spaniel of some sort), and now there’s a family with young children next to us, the youngest four months younger than Lilly. Of course, Lilly seems to prefer their older soon, who’s 10 years. We can also go visit with Irini (the girl in the village who cuts hair; she came to our home and gave Leighton a haircut for 10 Euros, and that’s how we got to know her: she’s 28 like Leighton and has three girls: Marina 4 yrs., Maria 2 yrs., and Nelfini 5 mos.). We have a quick three-minute walk down to the beach where we can walk along the edge and into the water, play with other kids (she loves watching how bigger boys make sand castles), play in the sand with her bucket and spade, or in the mud by the water, finding rocks, or playing in the water. She loves jumping up and down in it while I sing hoppe sa gåsa, danse sa reven, så hopper vi, så danser vi, så faller vi ned, og en-to-tre, opp og ned, opp og ned, opp og ned (“jump said the goose, dance said the fox, then we jump, then we dance, and then we fall down, and one, two, three: up and down, up and down, up and down”), or when I swing her from side to side in the water, singing ro, ro, ro din båt (“row, row, row your boat”).
For errands, we can go to the little mini-market (which is closed in the winter). There’s nothing of interest to us in the two tourist shops, but sometimes we get fresh soft goat cheese from Sofia who runs one of them (the other night, we saw her husband milk their goats, by hand, up in the mountains). Or we go to the butcher, Giorgio, to buy his hard goat cheese (we’ve also tried his pork meat, but not his goat meat); he’s in his shop from around eleven till noon. I asked Christina if anyone sells chicken; she explained that just a few years ago, the people here would keep chicken and goats and more, but now they are old, can’t keep up with the work, instead they help their family who come in during the summer to do business on tourism (I do find this a little sad). There’s no bakery (or bank, post, pharmacy, or other typical shops; also no laundry service, so the other day I had to do a big load by hand, in the big basin-like-bucket we got for this purpose, and hang outside to dry; really made me appreciate the work women have put into this labor for millennia), but at noon the baker Petro comes into the village with his van stocked up with freshly baked bread (now in the summer he comes every day, in the winter only three days a week). We typically get some every day; it’s quite the experience, standing there with all the old women, crowding together for bread. There is a school, for children ages six to twelve or so; next year it’ll house about 10 children, total. That’s a big up from a few years ago when there were years with just one or two. Apparently, in the fifties and sixties, people left this village for Athens, to find work, five out of ten million people (the population in Greece) live in Athens, but now many are coming back to the land of their ancestors, perhaps they’re seeking a simpler way of living, the way Leighton and I are too.
Since Leighton and I take turns giving each other an hour in the morning to work, I also have more frequent and dependable time to myself. And then of course plenty of time while Lilly sleeps in the afternoon to rest and read. And be with Leighton. In the evenings, we all go for walks, it’s cool enough by then to walk up in the mountains, and so beautiful.
(Anne and Lilly, out on an evening walk, up by the Kouros)
(Leighton and Lilly, up in the mountains)
For Leighton, on the other hand, the change has been from long days to himself at the Ibsen center or the University library (leaving home around 8:30 a.m., returning at either 5 or 5:30 p.m.), reading, writing, attending seminars and lectures, except for some mornings when he’d be home with Lilly while I went to the gym. Lilly would go to bed earlier in Norway than here (more like 7 p.m. as opposed to 9:30 p.m.), so he’d have evenings to read or watch a movie or a show (while I would often be busy putty Lilly to bed or going back in to comfort her).
Relationship
There are gains for Leighton too, however, in being here. A big one is that I now have more time and energy to talk with him. For us to talk. When he approached me this past winter to talk through some of the many things he was going through (becoming a dad, moving to a new country with a foreign language, not having any friends, the dissatisfaction with his graduate school program (Master in Ibsen studies), homesickness for friends and life in the US, among other), I had to tell him I simply couldn’t do it. I was too tired at the end of the day to give him much at all. That made him feel hurt, and me feel sad.
So for us as a couple it’s been amazing to have this time to reconnect, with me somewhat recharged. I feel also that we’re now becoming more of the co-parents we’ll be in the US and Norway next year. Taking turns being with her. And when we’re both with her, it feels like we’re both taking our fair share attending to her needs. Of course, we’re in this new phase now because Lilly is ready for it too; in the beginning, she really did show a clear preference for my body, being comforted by me. There are still times where she prefers me for comfort, in particular at night, or when she’s very tired or out of it, but generally I feel she’s drawn to both of us for comfort and play, she loves papa and mama.
We’re also in this new phase because I’m ready to let go; while I realize I’ve had some resentment built up, feeling Leighton didn’t fully see how much laid on me last year, I also know that I haven’t been ready to let him enter that space I’ve had with Lilly till just recently. Our final month in Norway, between when he turned in his final paper May 22 and we moved here on June 25, was an awkward time of transition. As was our first couple of weeks here in Greece. We argued a lot, so much pent-up stuff that needed to get processed. It’s so good that we got to go through all of that. And now, also because I’m in a place where I can think beyond the daily care of Lilly, when we have time alone, we can actually talk, really talk, about things, big things, that we’re thinking about. Like what to do with our lives, how do we want to live them. What do we want to do, and where. We’re reminded of how connected we are in this way, how comforted and excited we are, talking with each other, soul mates, best friends, lovers, spouses, co-parents. Our love life has been blessed by renewed sparks this way too. Connecting us further. And who knows, maybe we’ll be able to conceive a little sibling for Lilly. While we’ve been here in Greece, we’ve come to the conclusion that we would love for her to have a sibling close in age.
Rhythm of life here
So the slow rhythm of life in Apollonas is very good for us, at least during this time in our life. We’re not following a very Greek way of doing things though; people here go to bed late (around midnight, children as well as adults), slow mornings (except for those with babies who wake early), some coffee and milk, then loud talk and play at home, swim and play at the beach, before a big meal between two and five, then dinner around ten. We, on the other hand, get up by eight, have breakfast, before one person gets to work for an hour, the other plays, go for visits, or walks with Lilly, maybe goes to the beach with her, or we all go together, before lunch around noon or one, then siesta, dinner around six, then walking and playing around home, going for a stroll in the village and/or the mountains, home for a snack, a bath for Lilly, then Lilly sleeps (after we’ve read Sjøvenner ("Sea friends") through and through, maybe played some dress-up (her new favorite game),
(All of us playing hat-dress-up)
given kisses to bamse (her favorite teddy bear, a pink one at that), and her stuffed animal dog, Eddy, and then if we’re lucky, Leighton and I get a final short hour to have a final glass of wine on our patio before we join her in bed and all sleep like babies. (A note on the wine here: the local wine of this area is very sweet, red, and very strong, more like a sherry. I asked Irini which island makes the best wine, between Naxos and Paros, and she, whose father is from here, while her mother is from Paros, answered that no doubt the wine in Paros is better (she added that the potatoes and cheeses here are better). Paros has the wineries in Naoussa (north on the island). She said it’s beautiful there, but we didn’t get to go. Christina has given us some local wine that is a bit too sweet and strong for our liking (though Christina doesn’t find it sweet and strong enough!). Fortunately, when we went to the supermarket in Naxos town, Chora, on Leighton’s birthday, when we went there to stock up, having a rental car for the day and all, we found some of the cheap, but decent wine from Paros, and we stocked up on that.
