One lifetime is not enough, for all my words – Koraly Dimitriadis

Yiayia mou(my grandmother)

October 2, 2011 at 11:10 am (Cultural writing (migrants), Poems (PG rated)) (Cyprus, grandmother, granny, Poems (PG rated), stories)

The last time I was here, you were alive. I sit at a desk and write my stories with your photograph beside me and wonder if you are watching me and what you think of my stories and my poetry. Cyprus is different without you, and I am glad that I didn’t see you when you were really sick in the nursing home and that I lived with you when you were semi-well and would sit with me and tell me stories and sing songs whenever you felt like it.

I have another granny too. I am with her now in the remote villages of Cyprus, up in the mountains. My uncle from Pafos happened to come and visit the village while I was here. He didn’t know I was here and he hasn’t been here since Easter. I thought it a strange coincidence. I think my aunty had something to do with it but I didn’t want to say that because she has passed away and I didn’t want to upset Granny. I miss my aunty a lot here.There are lots of photos of when she was young. I like looking at them. I think she is here visiting too.

In the bedroom where I sleep there is a wardrobe and my uncle showed me that on the inside of the door, are all of their birthdays. Every time my Granny gave birth, she would rise from the bed and write the name and the date on the door so she would not forget.

My granny cracks chestnuts with her carer from the Sri Lanka, Rosa. She came to Cyprus two and a half years ago and knew no Greek and my Yiayia taught her Greek. Amazing! My Granny is up with the latest technology. She Skypes with her family all over the world. My Granny is losing her memory. She forgets how long I have been here. She can walk but only small distances so she can’t leave the house, but my granny is a busy bee. People are always dropping in to see her. My granny has chickens in her yard and we eat fresh eggs.

My granny is a poet. I didn’t know she was until six months ago, Dad said to me as a passing comment ‘ah, you’re grandmother wrote poetry too’. My family back home don’t really like that I write. They prefer I was working as a programmer which is what I studied out of highschool. But my Granny, she’s wrapt that I write. In fact, we had a chat about creative processes. She said that after her family fled her village when Turkey invaded, one day she had the urge to write. ‘The story came out,’ she tells me, ‘without sitting down and thinking, it just came out, and i didn’t change it, I just wrote. Then I sent it to the radio, and they read it. They’ve read it a few times. Yes, I have had poems published in newspapers as well.’ We sit and she reads me poetry and stories laced with nostalgia, lyrical poetic imagery and heartache. I wrote my first Greek poem at my granny’s house. It is written in the Cypriot dialect:

sto anathema tous

sto anathema tous
antres sto anathema
ate, re
ftiaxe thiko sou kafe
efkala tin psishi mou
e halasa tin zoi mou
skeftou ginon, skeftou touton
ate, kori
sikostou kori
htise tin zoi sou
pantrepse tin psishi sou
min perimenis kanena
kane ta ola gia sena
sto anathema tou, kori
ftaxe tin valitsa tou
oles tes skepsis tou mialou sou
kai na pan sto kalo
i valitsa tou kai aftos
sto anathema tous, kori
sto anathema

‘I will kiss you,’ she says to me before she goes to bed while I am busy at my laptop writing stories. I smile, and we exchange a kiss on both cheeks. ‘I wish you all the best with your writing,’ she says to me. ‘That you publish books and succeed in your career.’ Nobody in my family, extended or otherwise in Australia, has said that to me. I smile. ‘Thanks, Yiayia mou’.