Skip to main content

Greens and mud: embodiment and trauma.

Picked up greens, 31 October 2017.


One of the legendary ethnographic descriptions I had read at my undergraduate time in Anthropology was – and will forever be – Nadia C. Seremetakis’ description of picking up greens from the field during her research period in Mani (Greece). I am recalling it from memory, being now in my own field and having my copy back home in Athens.

She went out to the field and started cutting greens herself. A villager passed by and asked whether her mother (or grandmother, cannot recall this properly) had shown her how to do it. Momentarily she waved and answer yes. Then, she halted and thought that, as a matter of fact, she had never picked up greens before. How did she know which ones to pick and which ones not, and how?

It is a fortunate coincidence not to have my copy of The Senses Still (1996) with me. Had I brought it to Samothraki, it would have probably been ‘adorned’ with muddy water when the deluge took place, just like my other books that travelled to the field. The brown trace of mud, that night’s memory, an irrational proof that all we remember happened, would still be there. It would be forever.

I cleaned each of my books meticulously. Over and over with wet and then dry cloths to get rid of as much brown as possible. Then positioned them across a dehumidifier. And then across electric heater. It took hours. Eventually I had to rip apart the cover of one of them, the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (2017) by the same author; mould had moved too fast.

So, it bothers me to have this brownish ‘add-in’ on my books. It reminds me of that night. It stays with me, transgressing space. I have moved to a different house now. It stands as a cacophony to every topic in mind, to any discussion taking place in the room. Some other books, fewer, I brought later from Athens, stand next to them, seeming indecisive as to that their position is. It’s true what they say; you cannot get rid of mud. Not thoroughly.  

I stand indecisive, alike my shiny white books; what is my position? Facing me is my other self, the one who dealt with that night, who lived it through. That self is still muddy and messy. She interrupts the restoration of daily life with headaches. She makes me feel unwell, somehow damaged. That self is stronger than I am. I cut my hair to minimise the headaches, to let her go, but there she is, reminding me I cannot make it without her. But, well, at the moment, I cannot make it with her either.    

I find a kind of resolution in finally understanding what Seremetakis had written about and I had read so many years ago. A bridge connecting what was and what is, and rejecting neither. It is too soon, though, to consider what could have been and, worse, what is no longer.   

The other day, I washed by hand a white blanket that had absorbed a small portion of muddy water at the deluge. It had been machine washed immediately then and returned to its regular, all-white colour. I changed my sheets that day and thought of giving it another wash. Brownish water started coming and coming and coming, filling the bathtub, as if the – always white – blanket was actually some portal to a different dimension.    

Later that afternoon it was sunny and relatively warm for late October. Someone was kind enough to take me for a walk to the heel of Vrihós, which is rising above the village of Chóra where we live. I was told to bring a bag and a knife along, because wild greens would have probably grown on the hill. I, born and raised in the city, had never cut greens myself or seen someone else doing so.  

I was shown what to pick up and how; some you cut above the root and some you can just uproot by hand. I memorised their local names. Next time I will be able to do it by myself; embodied knowledge. We were collecting them while going higher and higher, coming across the wild goats, assessing the damages the rushing torrent had caused to the little path on the hill and how it had grazed the trunks of the trees. The soil was soft and made walking a pleasant experience. Distanced places of the island were emerging to sight, only to be later hidden by the foliage of the pine trees.

Returning after an hour or so, I felt refreshed. There were no headaches for the rest of the day. I boiled the gathered greens and baked a traditional pie. Suddenly I felt the mundane pleasure an everyday task can give; a routine, a normality – something I had been striving for ever since the deluge.

Picking up the greens, boiling, cooking and being in the landscape was a kind of re-approach between nature and myself. My doctoral project is about residents’ and visitors’ embodied connection to the nature of the island, but the deluge had – has – replaced this with an emotional and intellectual cyclone. If there is a way out, the sky has to clear first to be able to tell. We stand in the eye of the storm.

However, being able to make something out – with – nature, even more something to later consume, restored a basic instinct of trust. Rinsing with water the greens, cutting the edges, preparing the crust with my hands was a much unexpected, unscheduled way of dealing with the trauma that night has left behind. A trauma that seems to have sealed daily life in the community and to have deprived the mundane pleasures of daily routine: daydreaming and boredom.

At those times when I cannot write fieldnotes and reflect on my project, I can feel the need for my other self, the stronger one, the survivor. I feel disembodied, a fairy trying to escape, a changeling; and overwhelmingly embodied every time the rain starts pouring again, attached to that night. A split has come about; self from self, body from nature. But nonetheless the greens are sprouting.  

My muddy, courageous self is salvaged under the skin, resting. She absorbs all the remaining, unseen mud (books, blanket, other garments) and deals with it. I cannot. But it is the same hands under the skin of which lies the mud, the skin of which cooks the greens. Mud, like dust to return to Seremetakis, ‘offends the senses’ (p. 12). The embodied home has been lost ‘to otherness’ (ibid) and in that a new relationship has taken shape. A different body, muddy and dusty – ‘by the perceptual waste material formed by the historical-cultural repression of sensory experience and memory’ (ibid) – is trying to convince a new self to emerge, somewhat between the courageous and the denier.   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Έγκλημα στη Σαμοθράκη

Συγκλονιστικές είναι οι εξελίξεις σχετικά με το μέχρι στιγμής ανεξιχνίαστο έγκλημα στη Σαμοθράκη. Η σωρός του Μολδαβού επιχειρηματία βρέθηκε τελικά σε δύσβατο κομμάτι του βράχου Βρυχού, περιφερειακά του οικισμού της Χώρας. Η αστυνομία κάνει λόγο για δολοφονία, αλλά δεν έχει δώσει προς το παρόν λεπτομέρειες για τυχόν υπόπτους ή για τον τρόπο που αφαιρέθηκε η ζωή του θύματος! Ρίγος στην τοπική κοινωνία εν μέσω καλοκαιριού! Θα επιστρέψουμε κοντά σας μόλις έχουμε νεώτερα... Ο αστυνόμος Μακρής έκλεισε το ραδιόφωνο με αργές, σχεδόν θεατρικές κινήσεις. Όχι πως ήταν λάτρης του σανιδιού · μάλλον το αντίθετο. Τον επιβράδυνε περισσότερο η σκέψη της τελευταίας φράσης που άκουσε. Θα επιστρέψουμε κοντά σας μόλις έχουμε νεώτερα... Ήξερε τι σήμαινε αυτό. Το τηλέφωνο θα χτυπούσε σύντομα. Στην Αλεξανδρούπολη επικρατούσε πνιγηρή ζέστη. Ο απογευματινός παραλιακός περίπατος περισσότερο είχε αυξήσει παρά ανακουφίσει τη δυσφορία που ήδη ένιωθε. Βέβαια δεν ήταν μόνο ο καιρός. Στην πρα...

Solace

  The city swirls and swirls undoing itself, in all the ways possible. From this side, the sun warms the skin differently and as I walk deeper in the gardens I am not sure what year I find myself in, or if it matters. I borrow someone else's face as I am allowed and I am confidently another, or maybe many at once, while the square circles me and around me; the only thing that makes sense in the moment. The trees have stored the memory of you, their roots absorbing the pace of your walk, their leaves reflecting your, likewise, many faces. A woman who resembles me stares from the surface of a pond sprouting next to my feet; and she also looks like you, the many versions of you that are all me now. Tavistock square, London, 25 April 2025.

Μετά τα μεσάνυχτα

Κι αν έρθει το φως αργότερα απ' το ξημέρωμα αν έρθει το φως και δεν είσαι εσύ μαζί του, τι φως σκοτεινό θα είναι αυτό; Γενάρης 2025, Αθήνα. Φωτογραφία: Σπιανάδα, Κέρκυρα, Δεκέμβρης 2024.

Safe place

What it feels like to watch the ferry sail from ashore an island remote urged to absorb and write about all; the smallness of the houses the vastness of the stars the firmness of the mountain and the thriving sun the  stove  warmth the cricket songs the raven flights the goat bells from within the heights; what it is like looking for the winter in the uncanny light of the dusk and wanting to stop, eat up the day, and again start. Once, I walked at night in the dark crossing the ancient forest and ever since I walk, the forest every night. Samothraki, November 2024.

The desert island of Samothraki

 Samothraki, a remote island in Northeastern Greece... 3 days without electricity as a result of the supply station in the mainland across having been damaged by the fires blazing across the East Macedonia &Thrace Region  (now known to be the largest wildfire recorded on European soil in years). There used to be an independent electric station on the island which 20 years ago was closed down on the grounds of the island's population reducing. Since then, the electric supply on the island has deteriorated. Evidently, it is harder for people to remain or move to an island were electricity is not a given. See how the circle goes?  3 days with restricted access to telecommunications due to the local antennas being electrically powered. On the first day, large parts of the island had no access to water due to water pumps being electrically powered. On the first day, and while Samothraki had been for days on Amber alert for fire hazard, the sole ferry connecting t...

Where the world ends

I drag my senses, exhausted and washed up, to the furthermost shore as the horizon turns for the last time until the windy air tastes like salt and my mind is confused enough to let go. The waves return every time like a promise of what's yet to come, but don't make it close enough. Sometimes this place feels ready to collapse right into the sea - as if this is the only rational sequence of things. The chirps of the evening birds stand out in the deafening wind coming from where the mountain starts rising somewhere far behind; an observer of the scene. Surely, the birds will fly away and won't be devoured by the sea; unless they decide to change their songs. May 2025, Kipoi – Samothraki.

Στοές

Μια σπάνια παχύρρευστη ησυχία κουτρουβαλά τα σκαλιά της παλιάς πόλης · σα μουσική που δεν ακούστηκε ποτέ. Μόλις τελειώσουν οι γιορτές και πήξει το σκοτάδι θα πέσουμε στη χειμερία μας νάρκη. Και θα βλέπω πάλι σκιές γνώριμες να ξεπροβάλλουν από υπόγειες διαδρομές, και να χάνονται πάλι μέσα τους. “ Δε φταίει ο χειμώνας. Φταίει ότι στο τέλος του έχουμε ήδη μεγαλώσει.”* Κέρκυρα, Γενάρης 2025. * Ευριπίδης Κλεόπας, Ατέρμονη θάλασσα (2020), εκδ. Μελάνι.

Iranian auras

  As the eastern sky fills with explosions and smoke I try to reach you, my dear friend, through interrupted phone lines and networks cut off, at times unsuccessfully. I try to mark your last known location on the map measure its distance from the latest bombings and conclude that you are far from this all, far enough for me to pretend I sleep at nights. The weather warms up fast and in my uneasy sleep I dream about planes crashing and bombs hiding underneath our feet. I wake up upset in the middle of the quietest night; Iran is 30 minutes ahead of Athens summer time, still no word from you. June 2025, Athens. Picture: Cloud formations above Ch ó ra, Samothraki; May 2025. 

Dreamwalks

  I. The light so eternal shapes you in the world. II. You float bluer than any dream. III. I hold you on the surface before you slip from me away and beneath. IV. The morning star fades in the bergamot atmosphere. V. I long for dreams asleep and awake and always. VI. Night flights above us and I envy their promises, each and every single one of them. VII. Cricket songs as the night deepens first and foremost in my heart. VIII. Night flights now mistaken for rushing stars. IX. Rushed smokes in-between card turns quiet games underneath a quieter sky. X. You thrive in the light of the dashing dawn. (“You always look so cool”, Daisy Buchanan would have said instead.) XI. A taste of salt and sunscreen memories elsewhere short-lived. XII. The sun burns now and suddenly the mind more than the skin. XIII. The summer deepens; deeper than its nights deeper than the sea. XIV. The sun die...

A month being "portless": the final evacuation of the makeshift refugee camp at the port of Piraeus and its traces in history and society.

Port of Piraeus, Gate E3, playground time, 13 March 2016. Wednesday, 27 th July 2016, 09:00 am. As we were driving inside the port, we saw at the horizon three coaches parking close to the last remaining refugees’ tents, under the bridge, close to the formerly evacuated Gate of E1. We had all been informed that the port would soon be completely evacuated, but we had been given no exact date. As we walked to the food distribution point to prepare the breakfast, one of the coaches’ drivers asked whether they should come closer for the people to start embarking. We had no answer. But something whispered in my ear, this would be our last ever meal. Port of Piraeus, Gate E1, lunch distribution, 3 May 2016. Photo courtesy of Pierre Haddad.                               Port of Piraeus, close to the bridge, breakfast distribution for the remaining refugees of the camp, 22 July 2016 (one of ...