Somersaults on a washing line

 Viollanda, my ex-mother-in law of 20 years, was nearly 90 when she passed away some weeks ago. 

What a woman. She had 12 children, ten of whom survived. As a girl she hid in a hen coup while soldiers rounded up the men of the village and set fire to them in the church - at least I think this is what I understood her telling me, as we communicated in broken Greek and Albanian. She had no formal education and an arranged marriage to boot, but possessed boundless love, wit and determination, surviving a very difficult domestic life and incredible poverty, for decades. And she loved me like a daughter, even after I left my ex-husband. 

I am so fortunate to have known and been close to her. I have many wonderful memories (and photos and film footage) of her: singing and cooking, holding my hand and talk-talk-talking, pretending to be a servant rushing to make her husband’s coffee, screaming with delight next to me in the car when I drove through Sarandë on the wrong side of the road after getting it fixed. (The gear pedal came off in the Albanian mountains close the border with Greece following a mammoth drive from Bristol to Venice and then a ferry journey to Igoumenitsa, one summer.) 

A few nights before she died, I dreamt about her: she was in her raggedy nightie and undergarments, doing somersaults on the washing line that hangs off the balcony outside their flat. I was begging her to climb back in, so afraid for her. But she was laughing and spinning and, as ever, displaying her strength and resilience. 

She had been bed-bound for over a year and I think she came to me in this dream to tell me that she would soon be set free. I think perhaps also to send me love and strength, and perhaps remind me of the qualities we have in common - which I now think were perhaps the source of our special connection, which all the family were so generous in acknowledging when I called them after the funeral. It turns out she’d asked to speak to me the evening I dreamt about her, but the family didn’t realise how soon the end would come.

Viollanda would always give me a bar of soap for the journey back to England or Greece, after our visits to Albania. She didn’t have much else to give. Sometimes a plastic bottle filled with honey, or a bunch of mountain chai.

My eldest son went to Albania for the funeral with his dad. Met cousins he barely knew existed, in the rite of passage of a lifetime; it’s not every day a matriarch like his yaya passes away. 

I gave him a bar of Bronley’s best, that they put in the casket with her, for her final journey. Lily of the Valley. I so wish I could have gone to the funeral with them.

Images of perfection

 As a wise (and also totes gorgeous) man once said, ‘if you climb up a small hill, you’ll be able to see where the path is leading’. 

I’ve been offered a job I think I’m going to accept. It’s a job with lovely people where I know I can have impact but it is literally half the salary of my last job and I can’t really afford to take it. But my self esteem needs employment and I need something I can do standing on my head (or thereabouts - I’ll have plenty to learn), given the family stuff I need to traverse over the coming months. 

I feel so much guilt at having not been able to thrust myself into something bigger, and better paid, but I guess sometimes we have to appreciate the small hills and see where the shorter walks take us.  The same wise man suggested  that even if my perfect job came along right now, I might not be in the right place in my life to do it anyway. 

Which made me wonder what my perfect job would be. Simulating company, achievable targets, a place that will simulate my creativity whilst using my strategic head, a place where I can make a tangible difference, hybrid working and not too much travel, somewhere I’ll learn and share my skills and expertise. Not feel stressed. Earn enough to keep the balls in the air and have an occasional holiday. Ideallly four days a week, not five, so that I can use and develop my side hustles too,. The new job ticks a fair few of those boxes. I mean, if it were on a Greek island that would also be quite cool but one has to realistic. And I don’t believe perfection exists. Or do I????

I started to think about the things that can be perfect. I’d invite you to consider this for a few moments. The pleasure of a really nice cup of tea. Or sunshine on your face. To dry yourself using the perfect towel: absorbent, light but snuggly, not too big, but big enough to make you feel small and cute, ideally in a nice colour that flatters your complexion. A smiling exchange that fills your heart - boom! 

In some places, it seems perfection can exist. 

This took me to consider some things that I have no expectations of, in the perfection department. I came up with pecan nuts as a low hanging example. Or handbags. I  gave up on that search a long time ago. 

I started to consider why I have walked away from some things in my life that have felt so nearly perfect (I think the not-perfect bit simply mattered too much) but decided not to go there right now and invite my pheonix to take a nap in some tucked away location while I held my face to the sun. 

In other news, a woman stopped me in the swimming pool today, and asked who devised my exercises for me. This made me feel very good because the answer is ME! My working assumption was that I honestly looked like a bit of a plonker trying to run up and down the pool, doing leg kicks and body twists.  

We chatted for a bit and she talked about her neck pain, and some other stuff (quite a bit of other stuff) and I gave her some energy holds there and then by the steps. She said I made her day. And she made mine. A vignette of female connection, support and mutual warmth. 

As moments in time go, pretty perfect!