Visiting Anna
I felt you today. It was strange. When I arrived at your grandmother’s street off the main road and turned the corner, I felt a great whoosh of your energy. Her name is Anna too. You were named after her. It’s strange. I can’t seem to write about you, or I can, but not in the way that I feel you deserve to be written about. Instead there are references to you in poems about sex and guys, but still no short story about you, no brilliant poems, no words worthy enough to describe you.
As I walked down the street, images of the film you made on that very street, replayed in my mind. I saw you young, and beautiful, alive, not sick, and brittle, like the scleroderma made you.
We all gathered at your grandmother’s house, your brothers from Australia, me, and another very close friend of yours, we all gathered at your grandmother’s house, for you loved her so much and the bond between you two was powerful and unique. We all gathered there and said how strange it was that we were all in Cyprus, at your grandmother’s house, at exactly the same time. Nobody said it, but we all knew you were there too.
I asked your brother if it was okay to talk about you to your grandmother, because I didn’t want to upset her, and he said it was fine. I told your grandmother what a beautiful person you were and how you changed my life, and how she should be very proud of you. It felt really nice inside to say those things to your grandmother. She’s ninety-seven years old but her mind is as sharp as an axe. She was crying but they were good tears, the ones when you need to have a cry sometimes and you let it all out then feel good later. She told me her husband died when she was 36 and when you were born she was reborn. She said all the pain in her heart went away.
She said okay to recording a poem(below). She didn’t know what I was saying and I’m not sure if she could hear me all that well because she’s a little deaf. Your brother said she’s used to having artists around her, and I know how freakie you were so I thought if she was okay with you then I’d be a walk in the park for her. (haha, kidding!)
After we had lunch and said our goodbyes, as I walked down your granny’s street on my way to the beach, my Cypriot blood was beating so strong I almost felt like it could spill out of me and onto the pavement. Your two brothers, your granny, me and your other friend, we are all Cypriots, all of us linked together by Cyprus, and I know, that with me and Cyprus, I am only, just beginning.
