New Year's Day 2013

After two years (almost to the day) of absence, I take up the weekly blog again. I never had many readers, so I don’t suppose that my absence made a lot of difference. It’s just that I came to miss it, that chatter with myself. On days like these I remember past New Year days, when my mother divided the Vassilopita, the New Year cake, assigning a piece to Christ, to the poor, to my father, who was often away as a sea-captain in the merchant navy, and to every member of the family. The Vassilopita contained a coin, so the person in whose piece the coin fell would be lucky throughout the year. Ayios Vassilis (the Greek version of Santa Klaus) visited every house after midnight and left presents for my sister and me. We used to get lots of presents, bought really by my mother’s relatives who lived in our neighbourhood. Funnily enough, I can’t remember specific New Year days when my father was actually in Athens, except one, when I was 13. We saw the new year in together, but then he had to catch a flight to his next commission. I had got an oil painting set and two canvases with the outline of ships drawn on them, and I sat on my bed colouring one of them. I couldn’t bear to stay in the living room. When his taxi came before lunch, he came to my room to say goodbye. I stayed there after he left, tears falling on the canvas I was still colouring. A long life full of farewells, and the last one my father and all of us are now in, the most painful of all.