Dreaming of a Homeland

Dreaming of a Homeland

This is a story about a return to Greece. It is my husbands story, but because I came along for the ride it is my story too. I would also like to include stories by those who leave one country for another and then, at a later date, return to their homeland - taking on the adventure of a second uprooting and resettling.

My name is Julia Catton. In my early twenties, as a Ten-pound Pom, I left Europe to live in Australia. So, in general to ‘return home’ for me means to go back to England from my new home in Australia. However for my husband – a Greek-Australian – to ‘return home’ means returning to Greece, the country he considers his homeland. (I put it this way as in fact he was born in Alexandria, as were many Greeks at that time.) And because we are neither of us ‘simple Greek’ it has not been an easy decision for either of us to return to Gr eece, nor has the process been without problems, but it has been an adventure.

Ours is a particular story as are all the stories of returnees with as many stories as there are people who return to homelands. For all of us have slightly different reasons for leaving the life we’ve made to return to something that we once found familiar.

Once the move is made we may be called repats’, incomers or even migratory residents, and each of these names indicate a slightly different reason for our being there. Birth place, age, work situation, all ensures a different experience but the very fact that so many of us do return indicates that this journey ‘back home’ is important. And, even if the need to find ones original ‘home’ can never be fully satisfied each story – about nostalgia and the shock of unfamiliarity on the return – offers an interesting take on the human migratory phenomenon.

I’ve read a number of these kinds of stories, and now I have written a book about our particular repatriation adventures. And though this blog will look at the experience of others I’ll also be sharing some of our particular adventure.

For the two of us this change move back to Europe from Australia involved a complete change of lifestyle, from being fully employed workers, to the life of retirees, from owning a house, to renovating a ruin, from living in Melbourne, to living on an Aegean island.

It all came about when my husband decided he’d like to ‘save from ruination’ an old family house. And thus I’ve written a lot about us renovating Takis’ grandfather’s old (and partly ruined) family house, but I’ve also explored (for my own sake) what it means for a Greek-Australian and an English-Australian to live in a Greek village. But before I share anything about the old house, or the island, I’d like to describe the birth of this idea, and set the scene.

 Dream

Reality  

It was over ten years ago and I had gone on a holiday to the outback of Australia with four women friends. Meanwhile Takis had decided to take this opportunity to catch up with his sisters and brother in Greece. At the time the idea, that we might retire and take up a project to ‘restore an old house and live on an Aegean island’, had not occurred to me but apparently it had been brewing in my husband psyche.

The following paragraphs tell about the time I got the first inkling of what was going on in his mind. And, in case you are wondering, the book is called ‘It all started with a watermelon’, because evidently none of this might have happened if it had not been for a particularly large watermelon.

Here is my report of that important phone conversation; the one that started my suspicions, that such an unsuspected life might be ahead. As I remember it I was about to have dinner with the group in an outback cattle station when the phone rang.

 It all started with a watermelon  

  

'We four women were sitting in the kitchen with the owners and the station hands waiting for dinner, and I was engrossed in the discussion. The talk was about quandongs, cattle problems, and the latest long drought, and so it was with a jolt of surprise that I heard the station owner call out, ‘Someone from Greece for you, Julia.’

Even though the others were patiently waiting for their dinner I happily took the phone, knowing that Takis wasn’t one to chat for long. Indeed, after an initial greeting and a sentence or two about his journey, he told me his phone card was running out. True to form he just wanted to say a quick hello and tell me he had a problem with his back that had prevented him from swimming. He’d evidently put his back out when lifting a watermelon out of a fridge, and he went on to tell me he’d been to see a physiotherapist, adding almost as an afterthought, ‘Her husband gave us some good advice, and we’ve all been talking about it since then – about turning the old house here into a hotel....

I’d been planning for a while to go for a couple of weeks’ holiday with a couple of my women friends to visit another friend who lived in Coober Pedy, an outback town in South Australia. It was after listening to me planning the trip by phone with my friends that Takis suddenly announced that, rather than stay at home alone he’d take time off work and join his brother and two sisters who were on their annual summer holiday on a Greek island. So it came about that, as I walked with my friends across the inland plains of Australia, near Coober Pedy, Takis was enjoying a Greek summer on the island of Lemnos.

The time-lapse pips vividly reminded me that he was phoning me from a very long way away. Also it was a little hard to catch every word of the conversation so I asked him to repeat what he’d just said. ‘Who said what? Advice about what house?’

 ‘The physiotherapist,’ he said in answer. Then I thought I heard him say, ‘I think it might be a good retirement project for me.’ He repeated, ‘We’ve all been talking a lot about the suggestion.’

Not quite understanding what he was talking about, and a little bemused, I just answered, ‘An inteesting idea. We’ll talk about it when you get home.’

Beeps sounded again, signalling the end of his phone card, and our talk. Just before he was cut off I heard him say hastily, ‘I’ll explain when I get home.’

At the time, not aware that this was a watershed moment, I was just left thinking, ‘Some typical cryptic Takis-style statements!’ The puzzling nature of this conversation didn’t immediately worry me as I returned to the table and turned my attention to the delicious meal being served.... '

 Some Books...

If you are mad enough to be contemplating doing something similar (renovation in Europe, living in Greece) I would like to bet that you too have some books like these that have inspired your dream.

Here are one or two that I believe contributed to my willingness to go along with my husband's idea, by inspiring in me dreams of living in the Mediterranean

Lady Fortescue, Perfume from Provence (Black Swan 1920) Fortescue was writing in the early 1930s. In this book, and others to follow, she writes about her life with her husband in a village in France. Mixing in a few local anecdotes, she describe her live, house and garden with great affection.

Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi, (first published in 1941, republished in Penguin Books 1950). This book is an impressionistic account of Miller’s travels through Greece as a very young and poor writer. He arrived at the invitation of Lawrence Durrell and left as World War 2 loomed.

Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals (Penguin Books 2004), and Laurence Durrell, Bitter Lemons (Axios Press, 2009). These books are filled with the joys and pleasures of expats living in vibrant Greek communities. Gerald’s book describes his boyhood growing up with his family in Corfu, Laurence’s book is about the time he was living in a village in Cyprus.

And on looking back on this move at a later stage, and trying to understand the drive that sent us surfing across the globe I came upon this quote that provided one of my ‘ah, yes!’ moments.

And Some Quotes:

Greeks, like the Jews whom they resemble in so many ways, have long been able to adjust themselves as merchants in many climes and to many ways of life. But, also like the Jews, they have preserved in their heart of hearts a vital memory of the homeland to which they yearn to return. Encyclopaedia Britannica

And yet another such moment in Eleni Gage’s book, North of Ithaka. This book gives the account of her rebuilding her grandmother’s house in Northern Greece. When reading this book I realised that it was very likely that Takis’ dreams took the form she writes of:

The concept of a natal village occupies a major place in the Greek psyche. It is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, both in theory and in practice, because the village is where many Greeks were born before they moved to a big city, and also the place they hope to retire to, eventually to die and be buried there. Eleni Gage

This is my first ever blog (its been a struggle to get pics and text together!) the next may be easier. But I intend to keep exploring the subject of 'in-betweeners', or 'hyphenated citizens' as we are sometimes called. I hope, if you decide to follow this blog you'll find some ‘ah yes’ insights of your own in our story, and share some of your own with me.