Pushing an Elephant up the Stairs

Marika and Marika

Marika and Marika
Originally uploaded by beadmouse.

We arrived on Kos late at night after a four hour flight. We were both tired and a little nervous. The coach trip from the airport to our hotel seemed endless and it was too dark to see much through the windows. We were the last drop off. The hotel was small and appeared to be in a back street well away from the town.

I had packed enough mosquito repellent to protect a small country, but had not thought to use any before our arrival. By the time we had unpacked the sprays and plug-ins, word had got round the local insect population and feasting had already begun. I knew that my holiday was about to begin with huge blisters on my arms and legs and could only hope that antihistamines would prevent the worst of my usual allergic reactions to the dratted creatures.

The apartment was small, clean and reasonable well equipped. We had a bedroom each (both with access to a small balcony) and a view of buildings shielded by trees.

When we arrived, we had noticed that there were still people drinking and chatting on the small terrace at the front of the hotel so we decided to join them for a little while.

Both tired, Marika and I said very little as we sipped our drinks and enjoyed the soft warmth of Kos evenings that we would come to love so much.

The barman was also the receptionist. A tall, friendly Russian who we were to discover was a fount of information about Kos and extremely good company. He had a daughter studying in England and a Greek wife named Marika. My daughter had never met anyone who shared her name before so a photograph was a must.

As relaxation gave way to exhaustion, Marika and I made our way back to our room for a few hours sleep. Our first night on Kos and the beginning of a very special holiday.

From my notebook 1

The room is hot and stuffy making it hard to sleep.  I open the balcony doors and push my bed as close as I can. A gentle, occasional breeze provides welcome relief. At first I used to worry about mosquitoes and unfamiliar insects, now the passing weeks (and the heat) have inured me to such trivialities. 

I can hear music. Greek and R&B blending, folding, separating like an argumentative couple. Kos keeps late hours.  I lie, half asleep knowing that soon the music and the laughing voices will fade as people make their way home or to the beach to sleep.  Already a few giggling couples have tiptoed noisily down the corridor outside my door.

I sleep.  And when I wake again the sky is black velvet lit by a handful of diamonds.  In the distance a chorus of cats keep up a night time conversation. The air is cooler now and smells of dreams and summer nights.  I pull the sheet over me, to my waist.  Enjoying the crisp feel of it against my skin.  Again I sleep.

This time when I wake the sound of cats calling has been replaced by that of birds chattering. It is the touch of sunlight as it steadily climbs through my window that rouses me. I fetch a new, cold bottle of water from the fridge, light a cigarette and go to sit on the tiny balcony.  There is not much to look at.  The back of the hotel. Flat roofed buildings emerging from the night time shadows.  The whites and creams splashed with blue, softened by the early morning light.

I watch the sky.  Breath in the air that smells and tastes so different from home. And think of nothing. Drifting with the birds into a new day.

It was supposed to be a two week holiday. Nothing more. Something that millions of people do with regularity every summer.  No, that is not quite right, it was always going to be something 'more'.  It was about my youngest child and me.  About our relationship and finding space and time to repair something that I had sometimes thought was shattered beyond all fixing.

M is my second daughter and the baby of the family.  As a small child she would cling to me.  She was the centre around which the whole family revolved. Adored by all, parents, brother, sister, friends.  Perhaps that is what went wrong.

She was the easiest of children.  Until her 13th birthday, when, like Kevin, the tv character, she underwent a personality transplant.  Overnight, my sweet, even tempered daughter turned into the teenager from hell.  No matter how I tried, I could do nothing right.  I still stand by decisions I took at the time. I took them for the right reasons and even with the benefit of hindsight believe that I would make the same ones if I had the time back.  I did make mistakes in the way I handled our relationship.  It was as if there was no common ground between us, no ability to understand or empathise with the other.  Eventually she chose to live with her father and I thought I would die from the pain of loosing her.

For more than two years she barely spoke to me.  Birthdays and mothers day would pass without so much as a few words.  I learned to deal with not seeing her.  I learned to stand back and bite my tongue, watching from a distance as she made mistakes that could have ruined her life.  Mistakes that I longed to protect her from.  The relationship between her and her siblings became equally frought.

Then a few months ago she began to visit.  To come to my house each day after college.  Initially, the attraction was new friends she had made that lived close by.  But then slowly, almost imperceptibly, things began to change.  M would choose to spend the evening with me rather than go out.  Carefully, we began to talk to each other.  Arguements still happened, but they were fewer and the lessons we had both learned meant that one or both of us would step back before things went too far.

By the time the summer began we were getting along pretty well.  M had also begun to mend fences with her older sister, although her relationship with her brother was still fragile.  It was at this point that my ex husband offered to pay for a holiday.  He thought that if we had some time alone, away from the every day, we would, perhaps, finally put things right between us.

Looking back, I think that M and I were both aware of the risks. We were nervous.  Aprehensive. Afraid to loose what had been gained.  I remember the wary glances we occasionally gave each other on the aeroplane.  The brittle brightness of conversation when we arrived at the hotel. 

Somewhere during those two weeks we got to know each other all over again.  To the bond of mother and daughter was added that of friendship.  I learned that despite every thing, M has grown into a lovely young woman.  At 16, she has more maturity than many an older teenager.  She is funny, intelligent, stubborn and very good company.  She knows, and admits that all that happened in the past is not something she can simply blame on me.  We both made mistakes. 

We talked constantly.  About the past and about the future.  We learned to compromise and to try to understand each other as the people we are.  We learned that in many ways we are a lot alike.  Which perhaps, was part of the problem in the first place.

When we returned to Kos, after the original two week holiday, my eldest daughter joined us  -

We spent the most amazing week together. Me and both my girls.

Looking for a beginning...

My notes, like my memories, are in no particular order.  A jumble of impressions, funny stories and special moments.  How do I put this summer into words? Should I start at the beginning with tales of a two week holiday? Or even earlier explaining the reasons my daughter and I needed to spend time alone together?Maybe I should take Kos itself as my starting point, using its geography and history as an introduction.

I wonder if I have the words to conjure up the people I met, the sight of a ship sailing into harbour at the end of a day touring three islands.  The sound of singing and laughter drifting across the water, a pirate ship party. The way the light gradually changed at dawn and the coast of Turkey emerged from a soft mist.  A water colour view that I could not quite believe was real. How do I tell of friendship, laughter, the casual kindness of strangers, of the night I danced in the street with a handsome young man and suddenly saw myself differently?  My first birthday party, my first swim in the sea, the first shots I had ever drunk...

...so many experiences.  So many memories. Eight weeks that while I was living them seemed more real than my real life and now seem like something I dreamed a long time ago. I want to hold on to that person, the person who did all those things, but she is slipping away. Fading with the last of the summer as we slip into autumn and then winter.

I look through the photographs and I think, was that me?

Not Quite Shirley Valentine...

I did consider telling the story of this summer in a new blog.  This adventure I shared with my youngest daughter, that came so unexpectedly and changed the colour of my days for eight weeks. Then as I worked on a new layout the thought came to me that what happened was not something seperate from this life, it should not be cut out and placed apart as though it happened to some one else.  I may feel as though I accidently walked through a magic door into a new world, but this is still my story. And my story belongs here.

As I begin to sort through the photographs I took and the drawings I made, read once more all the diary entries, I will post in a new catagory - Not Quite Shirley Valentine - a tale of one woman, her daughter and the beginnings of a love affair with the Island of Kos.

Looking for a beginning...