This is the first Easter I have spent in the UK since 2015 when I chased my then 4 year old nephew around the garden on an egg hunt. The air was warm and I think we all got sunburned while he found a basketfull of slightly melting eggs. We realised later that we didn’t quite find all the eggs and some laid undiscovered until the summer! So here we are at the Easter Weekend in the UK. I don’t even know what that consists of these days. For those people lucky enough to still be working I guess it’s a weekend off…although talk to anyone with children there seems to be zero real time off or away from responsibility in lockdown. We persist and try to make the best of it, telling ourselves this is all normal.
I do love Greek Easter – the rituals and long days of sunshine and feasting but the Orthodox celebrations won’t be taking place next weekend. Greece’s lockdown continues and so far it seems to be showing good signs – very few infections, low death rate and a health system that has increased ICU capacity. So Easter here and there, like life, will be different this year. No big church services – no fireworks lighting up the sky to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection ‘Christos Anesti!’ – no shops full of decorated candles for the children and bakers windows full of neatly plaited Tsoureki. No red dip dyed eggs and smashing contests. Of course some of this will happen in households but without the big village celebrations and family gatherings it won’t be the same.
The first Greek Easter celebrations we experienced were in Patmos, an island in the Dodecanese; I recall watching the town gathering in the square for church services, flags adorning the churches and then midnight fireworks and bangs that went on, and on, and on. The next night there was music and dancing and long tables laid out in the square to share the feast. The lovely couple who ran the hotel we stayed at gave us ornately wrapped tsoureki with red dyed eggs nested in the bread and explained the significance of each; the bread made with butter and eggs, to provide a rich treat after fasting. Designed with three plaits that are braided together to represent the Holy Trinity—God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit and the red eggs blood and rebirth. All to be baked on the Thursday before Easter and only eaten after the midnight service on Saturday when the celebrations begin with feasting. Oh, and one can’t forget that delish Magiritsa soup made from sheep entrails – which isn’t actually awful – just a rather unique taste!
I’ll be missing the sights and sounds of a Greek Easter next week but making the most of what we have here and trying to stay positive. I struggle to hear anyone talking about ‘exit strategy’ when this is becoming more obvious by the day it is a long range crisis with an unknown human and economic cost. Whatever normal is again, it won’t happen for a long time. Accepting that is scary and we (the UK) seem to be nowhere near getting a grip on it. But given that we are all in this together, even if that is in our own separate human ways, there has to be good to be found and here’s a few things that I have found joy in:
1- Baking: having finally located flour in the store I have made an apple and fruit traybake, choc chip cookies and some no-yeast herby focaccia bread. There is a high chance I’ll bake again today…and will need to step up the exercise!
2 – Planting seeds: loving my little kitchen window experiments, I have not been this excited to watch cress grow from seed since I was 5 years old! Herbs, tomatoes and courgettes might be taking their time. But all offer hope and/or acceptance that we could be here a while!
3 – Walking/running: out in fresh air across flat fields and bridleway paths. Never have I been more appreciative of low population and wide open spaces. Also the weather freakishly glorious.
4 – Writing: just words, one at a time, piecing themselves together and forming fragments of the world we live in. No, definitely not a time to pen a novel from scratch or finish a dystopian masterpiece, but keeping going is key. Also was also great fun having regular video chats with other creative folk and attending virtual sessions of the StayatHomeLitFest!
5 – Distraction: “I have seen the best minds of my generation lost to Netflix”™ Deborah Levy. Not to say TV is bad, but away from the news it can be uplifting and distracting in equal measure plus we all suddenly have the time to watch. Currently dipping into Unorthodox, but haven’t even watched Tiger King. Should I?
In many ways what I am living with perhaps isn’t so different from what I had thought I would do after quitting a job. It just hasn’t worked out in any way that I considered. A month ago when I packed up my virtual desk we lived in a totally different world. The map has changed, the lines redrawn and exist in different place now, physically and mentally.
Being present in this day to day is my only option; the prospect of getting other work has diminished vastly, any plans of travelling, volunteering or setting up a new venture are in flux and for the first time in my life I don’t have a fixed point to race towards. Yet in all this chaos there is calm, stillness, patience. In this state of now I am being really thankful for everything I have and can exert control over.
For now, everything else will have to wait.