The Life Bilingual: Kissing with confidence

When you uproot your life and transplant it somewhere other than where you've grown up, you know you’re going to probably have to learn a new lingo. So, you diligently sign up for classes, or buy the books, in preparation for your total immersion in a sea of words you don’t know.
But how many of us transplants gave a moment’s thought to learning the body language of the place we're moving to?

         

Experts disagree on the extent to which body language – or non-verbal communication if you want to get scientific – contributes to what we ‘say’. Estimates rate from about 65% to as high as a staggering 93%. No matter which you choose to believe, the fact that the actual words we use only contribute 35% (tops) makes you want to stop paying those tuition fees and chuck away the phrase books.

It didn’t take me long to understand the role of body language when I first arrived in Greece nearly 25 years ago. A loud, passionate bunch taken as a whole, Greeks can seem pretty intimidating when you first arrive. You get off the plane at Athens airport or the ship at Piraeus port and all around you are people waving arms, rolling eyes, and shouting at a rate of knots. Moustaches (male and female) quiver, faces turn a delicate shade of magenta. Any minute, you expect to see daggers drawn and blood spilt. And then, they roar with laughter and embrace like brothers.

Once I realised I hadn’t inadvertently walked in on the start of new civil war, I saw that I was probably going to fit in OK. By the relatively reserved standards of England, I have rather ‘loud’ body language. When I get my teeth into a subject, my hands flutter by face, fingers jab, arms flap, eyes bulge and teeth are occasionally bared. My dear old dad used to say that if anyone wanted to shut me up, all they’d need to do would be to tie me to a chair.

So, for me, mastering the basics of Greek body language was actually much easier than getting to grips with the convoluted grammar, use of three genders and spiky alphabet of its words.  I even quickly came to understand the seemingly counter-intuitive upwards head nod (sometimes accompanied by a 'tut' of the tongue) that actually means “No”, “No way!” or “Over my dead body” depending on its depth and vehemence.

But, what I STILL struggle with – especially when stepping away from Greek soil – is the whole kissing thing.

Most of us Brits are brought up to be a little stingy with our kisses. Apart from the erotic variety, we usually just deliver little pecks of affection on dry closed lips or the cheek of our family and closest friends. Really good chums might get a hug. And British blokes are horribly ill at ease with the very idea of kissing or being kissed by another man, no matter how well they may know each other.  

In Greece, it’s a completely different kettle of kisses. Lips are pressed to faces in a double-sided greeting for almost everyone you come across. Mwah-mwah, it goes for friends, acquaintances, families, distant never-met relatives-in-law, work colleagues....  you name it. Believe me, I was in serious need of a chap stick after the seemingly endless line of well-wishers at my marriage to Ovver Arf all those years ago!

OK, so you probably shouldn’t pucker up when you see your boss or bank manager (though you may have to metaphorically kiss some other cheeks), but you get the picture. Greeks kiss. A lot.

These days, so do I.

That’s fine, I suppose. Shows that I’ve assimilated into Greek society and that I’m not a stereotypical, stand-offish ‘kryokoli Anglida’. The double-cheek twin peck is now second nature to me.

The problem comes when I head abroad – either back to the UK for a family visit, or (worse) when on a business trip, which usually means Dubai or Singapore where such an intimate and invasive display is certainly NOT the norm.

My family seem to have come to terms with the change of my kissing etiquette, though I think some still find it odd that I now give them a peck on the cheek rather than a dry sexless kiss on closed lips (strangely, most Greeks limit mouth-to-mouth contact to lovers, small children and pets).

Yes, I’ve seen the fleeting look of surprise, bemusement, shock, even horror, flashing across the faces of people I know only vaguely as I home in on them and plant a smackeroo. Sadly, it usually only registers once I’ve done the deed – by which time it is too late, and too embarrassing, to take it back or explain myself.

So if you are reading this and nodding your head in recognition as you recall that time I traumatised you with an overly-effusive greeting, please forgive me.

I maybe bilingual these days, but can I help it that my body isn’t?

Right to reply: A cat’s tale

Miaow!! Grrrr. Harumph.

It has come to my attention that a certain someone (she of the hair the kind of red that could only come out of a box) has been bad-mouthing me, my kind and feline fabulousness in general. All in the supposed interests of entertaining a bunch of people not even in the same room as her.

Time to set the record straight, methinks.

First of all, let me introduce myself (Tails up! Sniff the air. Come on, turn round).

Joker’s the name. All round fluffy gorgeousness is the game. That, and being an international cat of action - so long as you count being squawked at by the humans in two different languages qualifies as ‘international’.

As you may have learned yesterday, it’s been a few months ago since I joined Big Red, he of the dangly bits and their equally large and dangly offspring, Noisy Kid, who insists on scratching his collection of oddly-shaped contraptions with strings every single day. However, what Big Red failed to mention when tapping away at the black box thing with a window on it was that like so many unrecognised saviours before me, I came with a mission.

(‘And what is that mission, o great Joker,’ I hear you cry. Don’t I?)

Simple. I came to make their lives richer, to give them purpose, even unconditional love (sometimes expressed in ways they just don’t get). If you like, I give them a reason to get up in the morning (something they occasionally need to be reminded of with a gentle nip of the nose sticking up from beneath their bed covers).

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s a chore. There are definitely perks for me. I mean, I do LIKE humans. They’re endlessly entertaining, always good for a laugh.

But really, that not terribly bright, are they? Half the time, I don’t think they even know how funny they are being with their odd little rituals and constant surprise at being leapt upon. Didn’t one of their more enlightened specimens once say that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result? Well, by that definition, they’re all (and please pardon my French here) BARKING mad!

Really people, even you lot have some odd expression about cats and curiosity. So why all the raised eyebrows when I want to check out what lives in all those caves in the house, or what exactly it is you do in the special room with the water?

I’ve been conducting extensive research for some time now but I’ve yet to get to the bottom (pun unintended) of it. From what I can make out, it seems to have a dual purpose – combining a daily ritual rain dance with their everyday needs to (ahem) relieve themselves. And yet, there’s not a dirt-tray in sight.

I must say, however, that they seem to be happy to provide the materials for a bit of creativity with rolls of paper just waiting to be rearranged in new and meaningful ways, and cables just asking for a Dadaistic touch (for obvious reasons, I’m no fan of BowHaus). But they never seem to appreciate the results when the muse takes me.

What can I say? I’m surrounded by Philistines - they just don’t know art when they see it.  They say that all great artists are misunderstood in their own time, so I suppose if nothing else, I am part of a noble tradition. Or perhaps, their taste is for the more visceral? If so, I’m hoping I’ll be able to win them around in the summer when we make that promised trip to the country, by broadening my horizons with installation art involving assorted bugs, birds and furry things.

They just don’t understand my sensitive artistic nature – especially Dangly Man, who insists on bring out the box of screaming monsters that want to suck out my soul every time I decide to spread some of the sand joy on the kitchen floor. Lucky for me I can run about a zillion times faster than him – and I know all the best hiding places.

Goodness me, all this ‘xplaining is tiring work – specially when tapped out with paws whilst keeping watch for huffy humans who still haven’t got the message that I CAN and WILL go wherever I darned well like.

Hang on, I need a stretch (remind me some time to tell you about the benefits of cat yoga), and a yawn (open, hold and… snap!).

That’s better.

Right, where was I? Oh yes, telling you how tiring it is being me. Speaking of which, Dangly seems to be meditating in the armchair. But really folks, let’s face it, he’s not the most spiritual of creatures. Think I’m gonna have to go and give him a hand.

Right, nose-to-nose in case he’s forgotten to breathe. Check. In fact, he appears to….  rumbling. Curiouser and curiouser. Odd things they do when they close their eyes. Oh well, better stay with him to make sure all’s well.

Just. Let. Me. Get comfortable.

Now on duty, curled up to attention so I monitor Dangly’s heartbeat. I’ll have to get back to you lot later. Duty calls, you understand.

Prrrrrrrrrrr.  ZZzzzzzzzzzzz.

You know you’re a cat person when….

Meet Joker.

He first came into our lives when my tender-hearted Ovver Arf found him abandoned in a rubbish skip on the last day of our summer escape to the In-Laws’ house half an hour’s drive from the city. 

I learned the news when Nikos (for such is the name of the tender-hearted one) turned up at the beach, looked at me sheepishly and bent to whisper in my ear "We've got a kitten".

(Incidentally, ladies and gents, this is the man who swore we'd never get another pet unless it was a Great Dane.)

When I first met Joker, he was not more than three days old. A scrawny, mewling, shaking mass of limbs paddling the empty air trying to make contact with something that wasn’t there, sporting the remnant of an umbilical cord still hanging from his belly. He was blind, scare and scrappy as hell.

….Fast forward four months and he’s now a sleek, smug curtain climber who preys on ankles, toes, fingers and the occasional nose, not to mention any kind of electric cable. A psychotic furball who can jump three times his own height from a standing position, like a feline Harrier jet, or spend 26 hours a day sleeping - depending on how the mood takes him. In short, your average household cat.

Me and the Ovver Arf both grew up with cats, and we had one of our own – the inimitable Max, the world’s laziest ginger tom – some years back. But Joker is a whole different kettle of cat food. Or maybe we had fallen out of the ways of the Cat People? Joker put that right.

And what have we learned? We learned that, with a cat in the house….

*  every shower you take is watched with great interest from the edge of tub, and followed by a personal ankle-licking service to remove every droplet;

*  iPod earphones have the life expectancy of the average fruit fly;

*  you’ll never pee (or pooh) alone;

*  tights are not an option;

*  everything you do, or own, is deemed to be for your furry friend’s entertainment;
*  fingers and toes are teething aids;
*  shopping bags are to be sat in;
*  then wrapped around necks before hurtling round the house in a frantic attempt to remove them (admittedly, this is more of a problem when the bag still contains three tins of tomatoes, a carton of milk and a head of broccoli);
*  as are all cupboards, including (especially) the one holding the kitchen rubbish;
*  the toilet bowl is a source of endless fascination, and hydration (despite the full bowl in the kitchen, which usually serves the purpose of a personal paddling pool); 
*  crashes in the night are no longer greeted with fear, but an exasperated sigh of “Now what’s he done?”;
*  every surface that can be leapt up onto, will be;
*  you develop the art of carefully sidling into the comfy armchair without disturbing its curled up occupant (the thought of simply turfing it out doesn’t occur);
*  you develop a tolerance to hard stares;
*  you worry if more than three hours pass without hearing the sound of a miniature pneumatic drill making its way up the hall;
*  dried turds make delightful balls for playing kitty soccer on the kitchen floor;
*  hours spent searching high and low for “the bloody cat” are pointless. Give up - you'll probably be greeted with a contented blink and smug cat-grin when you open the bathroom cabinet for a fresh bar of soap;
*  your arms and legs acquire an trendy new “distressed” look;
*  interesting new documents in a strange language appear overnight on your laptop;
*  you’re happy to be licked, for hours on end, even in the company of relative strangers;
*  the feel of sandpaper against your cheek makes you feel loved;
*  you wonder what it’s like to have a tail;
*  something feels very wrong if you wake up in the middle of the night and there’s NOT a weight on your chest (accompanied by a steady blink of gold-green eyes and quick rasping lick of ownership).

They’re bloody-minded, egotistical, contrary, cussed, lazy, manic, mad, indifferent, demanding, aggressive, and more. Many claim they’re God’s mistake or the revengeful creation of a fallen angel. But those of us who love them, do so in spite of that all.

Or perhaps because of it?

Tea: A love song

Oh tea, how do I love thee?
Like a flower loves a bee.
You're what makes me
human in the morning.

Only a cup of char 
is even up to par
to take my mind far 
from war and global warming.

Just give me a kettle
and I'll summon my mettle
to make divine dried leaves boiled in water
(or I'm not my mother's daughter).

Some crave cat crap coffee
to make them happy,
or flavoured syrups and milk all afrothy.
But not me.

In teaspoons Prufrock measured his life.
And like any good wife
I'll boil you up a cuppa 
whenever you ask, my dear old mukka.

And if they take me away
or to some Desert Island I stray,
only one thing I pray
- let there be tea.

Incubus

Frustrated and furious at myself for failing to keep up my personal (read unpaid) writing, I have decided to try to kick start the muse with some of the entries from a handy little book called ‘The Daily Writer’ by Fred White. This first attempt was inspired – if it deserves that word – by an assignment to describe in detail being in a scary place. And for me, there is nothing more frightening than a wholly familiar setting under sinister circumstances.
So, here goes nothing….

Clack! My eyes snap open like a discarded Tiny Tears doll disturbed during a rummage through the attic. And like a forgotten plaything, I see nothing. Pure pitch black as I stare into the night.

I can hear the soft, loose-lipped precursors of snores from Nick as he sinks deeper into sleep next to me, and the clicks and creaks of the flat as it settles into the small hours. A whooshing in the pipes signals the flushing of a toilet in a distant apartment.

Another sound sets my nerves tingling like fire. A footstep and a low cough - far too close for comfort - outside the balcony door. I want to react but my body refuses. I’m frozen, unable even to swivel my eyes towards the door, or raise a hand to shake the sleeping, gently grunting body next me. I try to speak. Nothing.

It feels like I’m been pinned to the bed by a large, black dog sitting on my chest, robbing me of speech, movement and the ability to react. My brain goes into overdrive, splitting into two separate streams of consciousness. The rational thread knows this is sleep paralysis, the state that gave birth to countless accounts throughout history of night-time visitations by ghosts, devilish imps, aliens and other forms of incubus. The other, primal stream just wants to thrash out and scream like a cornered beast – but can’t.

I struggle to hold on to logic, to beat the primitive instinctive self that is battling to take over, and do something about the presence I can sense just a couple of metres away from me, from the man I love and our precious child in the bedroom next door.

Shapes loom out of the darkness as my vision adjusts to the midnight light of the gloom, but the closed balcony doors hide any sight of the intruder. My ragged breath shudders as I try to force my body into movement. To do something. Anything but just lie there helpless.

Panic threatens to cloud everything with the red mist of fear as a click is followed by a sharp whispering swish as the balcony door opens. With what feels like a super-human effort, I take a juggering gasp and squeeze my vocal chords into action to shout or scream to scare off the intruder, or at least alert my sleeping boys.

Instead of the Amazonian battle shriek worthy of Queen Boudicea I was hoping for, an incoherent wordless jumble of moaned consonants tumble through my lips. I sound like John Hurt in ‘The Elephant Man’. There are no words, but it’s enough to rouse the sleeping beauty beside me. He reaches out to me, but by the time his hand reaches out to me, blind panic has taken a hold of me and the touch I feel comes to me as a thrust from our imagined intruder. Survival instinct kicks in and I hit out, landing an impressive thwack smack in the middle of Nick’s chest.

He chokes in surprise and pain, and the light clicks on. Miraculously, my body starts listening to the commands I’m sending it and the panic mist clears. I swivel round to face the balcony door, fully expecting to see a slavering demonic presence dripping saliva and brimstone, but all I see is the sad little pile of my clothes where I dropped them in a fit of ‘can’t-be-arsed’ before heading for bed.

Nick is nursing his chest, looking at me in stunned disbelief. Outside, a dog barks and someone slams a car door. Normality returns, but it takes til morning for my heart to return to its rightful place from the base of my throat where it has been beating like a trapped sparrow that’s flown into the bedroom.

My incubus has fled, but my memory endures – as does the spreading bruise on Nick’s chest.

Ain't random grand?

When I first clapped eyes on him half a lifetime ago, romance was the last thing on my mind.

I was newly arrived in Greece, for a six-month stint as a holiday rep on the island of Samos (or so I thought). Little did I know that the bloke with the lop-sided grin of Bruce Willis (who still had hair back then) and a slight glint of danger in his eye like Micky Rourke (this was '89 - don't judge me) who gave me first taste of Greek iced coffee would be The One.

I was more concerned about how my dodgy home perm would behave in the Mediterranean heat, the aesthetic impact of my ill-fitting polyester rep's uniform skirt on my substantial backside, and where the hell I was going to hang the noticeboard for the tourists I was supposed to be nannying through their two weeks in the sun. 

Men were well and truly off the menu so far as I was concerned. Having walked away from an imploded marriage and had my heart battered and bruised by a series of charming bastards since (quite an achievement at the tender age of 24) I was well and truly in "All Men Are Beasts" mode.

And yet, he wormed his way into my heart. And by the time I realised he'd skillfully hidden the fact that he was a good three inches shorter than me, it was too late.

Now, I am about as spiritual as a breezeblock sitting in the corner of a deserted supermarket. I don't believe in love at first sight, or fate, or soulmates. I don't subscribe to the theory of any great universal plan to drag me across Europe and throw us together. But, 24 years later, we're still together and have a beautiful, funny, talented son with a lop-sided grin and a glint in his eye to show for it.

My Ovver Arf is not perfect, but he's mine - and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

There are plenty of other things that he IS: smart, funny, frustrating, demanding, laid-back, quixotic, loyal, confusing, inventive, complicated, creative, generous, cynical, excitable, cool, infuriating, original, kind-hearted, quick-tempered, borderline manic depressive, idealistics, capricious, fun, warm, a right royal pain in the arse, sexy, cuddly, charismatic, abrupt, conventional, odd, neurotic, tolerant of my small eccentricities, clever, charming, hard-working, lazy, talented, a challenge.

But then, I'm no Stepford Wife. My main marital talent seems to be an uncanny ability to make him roll his eyes and sigh heavily when I get up on my soapbox about something (and believe me, it doesn't take much).

Out of the soup of random events that threw us together, love emerged. At first, all sparkly and fresh and exciting. Then, a little tired and less shiny as adult responsibilities arrived - including a baby that decided that sleep would be a really bad idea before starting school. And in latter years, perhaps a little battered, world-weary and sustained by hefty doses of dark humour, manic laughter and lots of music. 

Our union is the result of a random series of events. It wasn't made in heaven, nor showered with kisses by dumpy cupids with wings too feeble to keep their double chins and dimples afloat. It wasn't karma that brought our two worlds together (actually it was Monarch Airlines and a very old ferry boat that took 18 hours to cross the Aegean).

But it works.

It's his birthday tomorrow, and though I can't give him the world he deserves, I can certainly give him all of me and thank the randomness that brought us together. 

Happy Birthday, sunshine. 

Identity crisis

Who am I? How did the core of me come to be? How much am I influenced by surroundings and events? What makes me tick?
After nearly a quarter of a century of almost total immersion in Greek society, why are some aspects of me still so utterly English?

And why, when visiting my old haunts, do some things seem so familiar whilst others feel like I’m visiting a foreign land?

It’s a common theme with many who live far from where they grew up. That sense of disconnection. Never really ‘belonging’ wherever you end up, always being the outsider, the odd one out, and yet feeling like a tourist when revisiting your roots.

Has living abroad really changed me? Or am I just the same old square peg in an all-too-often round hole that I ever was – just with a second language?

I want to believe that the core of me is the same as it was in the late 1980s. That I am still the same person, with the same values and outlook on life I always had, but that I have (hopefully) learned a few lessons from what life has decided to show at me.

I’m still the one who’ll speak up (often to the mortification of my companions) when someone starts spouting hateful nonsense. That “Oh no, she’s scrambling back onto her hobby horse” rolling of the eyes was seen in many an English pub back in my youth, just as it is today in Greek cafeterias or parents' meetings. That look of panicked “Bloody ‘ell, find something to distract her and shut her up” has been seen in in as many Celtic peepers as it has in my Mediterranean mates' eyes.

But maybe I’m looking at the wrong dimension. Perhaps it’s not the place that makes the distance, but the time?

Someone once said “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Maybe that’s what creates this sense of disconnection?

The past two decades have wrought massive changes to both the place I grew up in and the city I moved to. The jury's still out on whether the change was for better or worse.

When I’m back in the place that threw my own unique mix of DNA together (as I am this week), the place is reassuringly familiar and packed with reminders of what moulded me into the person I am today. But there’s something that feels a little ‘off’, a tweaking of the details that makes it feel like we don’t really belong.

But, and this is a great big beautiful 'but', there are some things that stay the same.

Family, friends, things that make you laugh out loud or talk with real passion. People who have always loved you, accepted you, even celebrated you for who you are – partly because more often than not, they helped make 'you'.

They're the ones who never had any issue with your square peggedness, and never EVER tried to use a sledgehammer to bash you in round hole submission.

They're the ones who will always have that ‘connection’ with you – even if it’s been decades since you last spoke. The people you can pick up the thread after half a lifetime, just like you saw each other only yesterday.

So, next time I have one of my existential identity crises, I’m stop thinking about the gaps in time and space that separate me from my touchstones, but I’ll smile and be thankful for those constants in my life.

After all, they’re part of what make me that closet outsider that I always was – and which, secretly, I'm rather proud to be.