Tears from the Sun

My cases are still just as they were three days ago, in the middle of the room, unpacked. Where am I going to put my clothes? There is no wardrobe and the drawers stink of mothballs. At least it has stopped raining. The day is bright, and little sparrows are fluttering around the telegraph pole outside. Leave the cases Kate. You need fresh air. Go and explore a little.

I am getting some funny looks as I walk through the main square - stranger in town. Somewhere in the back of my mind is Clint in his poncho, a little music-box fob,the good, the bad and the ugly. Curtains move. Old men shuffle on their cafeneo seats. A dog barks, but even though the streets are deserted I can sense the powerhouse that Vrahassi once was: the rattle of weaving looms, the clopping of donkeys, the butchering of meat, the tapping of cobblers, the vendors, the shepherds, the sheep, goats, pigs. Breathe Kate. Smell the animals. Listen. Hear the bartering, the gossiping, the arguments, the spirits of all those people who hewed the rock to build Vrahassi, stone by stone. They are calling out with every clang of the church bell.

I have learned that the Greek word for rock is Vrachos, and Vrahassi is a village built into the rock. It is clinging to the mountainside in a very Mediterranean way, all higgledy-piggledy and neglected. I wonder through its narrow streets, which lead either up or down from the main square in a maze of uneven terraces. Some houses have been left to fall down; unwanted hovels abandoned in favour of a new property by the coast. Alongside them are pristine, be-flowered balconies, perfectly paved yards and houses with modern shutters. No two properties are the same shape; no piece of ground is uniform. As I reach a rude-stone water fountain I see a peasant woman leading her donkey up the track, its saddle baskets laden with branches of olive wood. Fountains that were once the only source of water are now only visited by the occasional peasant-farmer. It is easy to imagine a time not so long ago, when all the women would have had to make several trips to the springs each day. Their earthenware pitchers would have been confidently rested on muscular shoulders, as they climbed the narrow cobbled streets - shoulders which would have been covered with a brightly coloured piece of hand woven cloth. They would all have congregated around the old stone troughs to do their washing, and the whole day would have been taken in fetching and carrying, while their men were working in the olive groves, the family donkey grazing the day away before being laden with sacks of greasy black and green olives. Now, the abundance of fresh tap-water to every house has made the fountains redundant.

Tap-water or not, the village is still quite medieval. In between the houses, or under the houses, or on the roofs of the houses are smelly chicken coops and rabbit pens. The occasional goat or lamb peeps out from behind its stony manger. I know that rats are a problem, and wild cats are almost as bad. However, every nook and cranny is decorated with beautiful terra-cotta pots and pithoi, from which bloom geraniums, fuchsias, hydrangea, cacti, palms and plants of every kind. They are unceremoniously jumbled together with old tins, holed buckets and any suitable container in which it is possible to grow flowers or food. Vrahassi is another world, a world that my grandmother possibly touched on. I suppose in rural Cumbria, where there was no electricity and no plumbing, daily life would have been the same once upon a time. Shepherds will always be shepherds, sheep will always be sheep.

Kate, you have got to break free and be who you are. So, who am I? I am Kate Sutcliff, 40 year old widow, independent, as in, can survive without a man, and strong, yes strong enough to take a journey into the unknown. I want solitude to work through my grief and to begin a new life, make new friends, and write my novel. Breathe Kate. Breathe... Breathe in this wakening morning, it belongs to you - thank you God for allowing me to be part of this wonderful world. As the first rays of the sun wash over me, I breathe in all that being alive really means. I listen to the twittering of birds. The smell of wild herbs and wood smoke infuse my nostrils, and beyond the village a collage of emerald trees and grass appear, as through a kaleidoscope, in the spotlight of a new day.