MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
15TH FEBRUARY 2010

Today is Green Monday. This is the first day of Lent in the Greek Orthodox Church and is similar to Ash Wednesday in the Western Church. Outside Cyprus it is known as Clean Monday. This means that all the Cypriots are out today having barbecues of their fasting food – shellfish is allowed but no meat or dairy products. They will then traditionally get together and play games and fly kites.

Personally I am having a Blue Monday and I am in a sulk! I wanted very much to be able to take part, or at least go and watch the carnival in Paralimni yesterday. Unfortunately my body, as it so often does, had a different idea. The tiredness had been creeping up on me all week, but there was much I had agreed to do and I ignored it to my own detriment. Consequently I could not move out of bed yesterday and I had to miss the carnival. It is very disconcerting lying there with your brain moving at 1500 miles per hour but not having the strength to even open your eyes and I lie there getting angrier and angrier with myself – which is not conducive to recovery! Needless to say I have made it out of bed today but I haven’t got dressed and I haven’t got the energy to leave the flat which is very cross-making indeed, as there is very little in the way of food and water around. Still, I can always do with not eating and being Green Monday it is unlikely that anything is open.

However, spring has definitely begun here. The weather is noticeably warmer and when I have been walking I have been able to do so without a coat a couple of times. Sadly, although dry it has been very overcast and I haven’t been able to see my beautiful purple hills for a few days. After my ‘conscious walking’ last week I seem to have been participating in unconscious drifting this week – another clue to my tiredness which I ignored! Last Monday I was walking along to meet some friends in the evening who play in the local pool league. I was so engrossed by the fabulous lightning that I could see lighting up the end of the road – although it wasn’t raining – that I walked into the wrong pub! I even spoke to someone on the way in. It wasn’t until I stood looking at the doors and thinking ‘I don’t recognise this’ that I realised that I was in completely the wrong place. So, I turned round and carried on up the street. The lightning was beautiful – forked and sheet at the same time. The whole sky lit up, much more interesting than the tarmac underneath my feet. I had also been attacked by kamikaze frogs as I made my way past the tomato fields. They were all leaping into the middle of the road. I hope that they made it across. I was given a lift home so I did not see if they had been squashed.

A couple of days later I was walking across the fields on my way to my shift at the charity shop. There are paths that have been worn through the undergrowth that are the easiest ways to follow. My mind was wandering in so many different directions that it forgot to look where my feet were going and I kept ending up in the middle of the undergrowth looking around me thinking ‘where the bloody hell am I now?’ and retracing my footsteps back to the paths.

I don’t know if it is because my body is tired that my mind gets jaded, or whether it is the other way round, mind, body and spirit are an immutable triangle after all, but there had been a couple of issues going through my mind that were making me weary with the human race - mind you a couple is not bad really, but these were not abstract issues, rather ones that involved people I knew.

The first was only very minor but I was just bored and tired by it. I have always walked the fine line between many groups of people, never really belonging to any, but happy with all. However, they seem to need me to be ‘with them or against them’. Some so-called spiritual people, who live an ‘enlightened’ life, ask how I can bear to be with ‘those people’ meaning people who enjoy a drink and a laugh. Those who enjoy a drink and a laugh wonder what I see in the ‘weirdos’ and lump them all together in the same box, despite their varying natures and beliefs. I really struggle to understand why people cannot accept people for who and what they are. Why do people need to conform and be in a box that is easily labelled? I know it makes people feel more comfortable if their ideas aren’t challenged in any way, but how is it possible to learn anything from people who think entirely the same way as you all the time. Not only that, how boring is it to be with the same people every day, doing the same sort of things, having the same sort of conversations. I love all the people I choose to spend time with and I don’t see why I should not enjoy being with all of them; but I also do not see why I should need to justify it to any of them.

The other issue is not one which is to do with me per se, but one that has been brought to my attention this week. I have spoken with a couple of ladies in their late 50s, not from my local area, both of whom have found themselves single after over 30 years of marriage. They were both quite upset as, through no fault of their own, they had been ostracised by their communities. They were now not part of a couple and as such were not invited to anything their neighbours organised. One of them did not drive and so could not get out of her village and thus felt stranded. I am very lucky in being happy to go anywhere on my own (indeed I often prefer it!), but it is much harder for people who have been in a relationship for the whole of their adult lives. Why should they be made to feel as though they had done something unspeakable just because they had split up from their partners? What is it that people find so embarrassing about women on their own? Do they think that just because they are alone that this automatically means that they are out to steal someone else’s partner? Maybe if it wasn’t a requisite of having a social life then they wouldn’t even think about it. It has made me wonder how many people are just together because they are afraid of being alone, rather than because they love the person they are with. What kind of a life is that? How can people be so cruel as to leave these women alone when they are struggling through possibly the loneliest period of their lives so far? Shame on them all.

As I say, possibly this sheer exasperation with the human race has just come from my exhaustion, or maybe it has contributed to it. I don’t know.

On a lighter note – thank goodness for that I can hear you all sighing – I went to a Charity Do on Saturday night (one of the things that had been arranged that I could not put off). It was at the Eterno in Derhynia. It was in aid of Helping Hands, The School for the Disabled at Liopetri and the Cyprus to UK Project. It was extremely well organised and a lot of effort had been put into making it go well. I had offered a Reiki Session as a raffle prize, which was won by an old man who has no idea what it is, so that could be interesting!

Scruffy and I managed our usual walk this week and we managed to find a way home right along the coastline. This was achieved by sneaking through the bottom of Malmia Holiday Village. Poor Scruffy was a bit nervous because of the noise of the waves, which due to the wind were rather large. The normal susurration of the serene Mediterranean had been replaced by a crescendo of crashes and was outstanding. I didn’t take her right to the sea; we kept to the paths, so she was fine. One thing that has come to my attention since moving out here, and which I seemed to see a lot of that day, is white dog poo. I didn’t think it existed anymore, but it is here in abundance. What’s that all about then?

So, I think I will end there today and crawl back to my sofa. Hopefully next week’s Meanderings will be much lighter, but that does depend on the sun coming back out in full force. No more overcast skies please. I want the sunshine back!

I hope you all have a brilliant week and that you aren’t surprised by any white dog poo, or indeed kamikaze frogs!