Memories of Home

There is a village in what is now Turkey I will go to. It used to be Greece before Greece fought for independence. It is not where my journey will start, nor where it will end, but somewhere in the middle. I will look for a restaurant that probably isn’t there anymore, but I’ll look nonetheless. And I’ll watch as a phantom of a girl who looks like me hurries home, glancing over her shoulder. She’s running from something, or someone. It’s the last time she will come to this restaurant and the last time I will come here, too.

There is a road heading towards the mountains. I will drive this road as the ghost cart follows, knowing somewhere within the girl is wrapped in a carpet, afraid for her life, as her family flees the Turkish army. I will not hold my breath as I drive, my car will not be searched three times and even if it was, I don’t have anything to hide nor a reason to be scared to be found.

There is a trail in the mountains I will walk, following the mirage of my family before me. And I will lean against the granite of the mountains, resting, knowing that somewhere along this path, my great-grandmother gave birth, miles from medicine and unable to know what kind of world her son would come into when they were still fleeing for their lives. And I will thank her for being brave so I could return and walk the path she did.

I will come to a beach, sinking my feet into white sand and staring at the water, waiting for the sun to go down. And when night comes, I will wade into the water letting waves lap at my feet, my ankles, my knees, until I am chest deep. I do not have to wait for a boat to save me and take me someplace safe. I’ll lay on my back, staring at the stars, as that phantom ship comes to steal my family away to friendlier shores. And I’ll breathe a sigh of relief as I watch them go, knowing no matter what peace Greece and Turkey know, I won’t be able to forgive.

There is an island where refugees were brought, where my great-grandmother waited with her son for her husband to find them. And he will, after defecting from conscription in the Turkish army three times, he will come for them. They will go to America and never come back to these shores. I’ll watch them sail across the ocean as the strings that bind them to this land get thinner and thinner as time goes by.

Knowing they’re safe, I’ll return to Athens. Another shadow of a younger girl meets me there. My mother and Thea Onie walking with their friends from church, laughing and eating gyros as they head to the acropolis. They all know their history, grew up with immigrant parents scorning home but smiling softly as their children ask them to return. I will follow that group, in awe of the ruins my mother will tell me about for years to come, so much so that it’s almost not a surprise to see the marble columns piercing the sky. They’ll probably still be restoring it when I go, but not when she was there.

I will not change, but my mother will. Older now, her features stronger and no longer with my Thea Onie, now with someone equally as familiar to me. I’ll walk in the market, watching an image of my mother tell my father to stay back as she shops because he looks like an ξένος with his blue eyes and German brow and she knows they will overcharge him. I will follow her stall to stall, maybe buying something to bring back for her.

And I will follow them up Mount Olympus, their laughter and joy beckoning me onward when I tire. And when I reach the top, their memory will fade and I will be alone, looking out over a land that is and is not mine. I will look toward Thessaloniki, where a different side of my family took their own path to America, where my Yiayia was born, where she left. Where my mother and Thea visited our family still living in the village, where they went to my Yiayia’s home that is still empty, as if it’s waiting for her to come back. She never did make it back. And suddenly, looking out at the mountains and sky, I’ll be nostalgic for a place I never knew, for a language I was never taught.

But somehow, despite never knowing this land and the language, Greece is as much mine as America is. It is in our food, our holidays, our names. It is in the bedtime stories we forgo to retell myths and in our dances. I was soothed to Greek music before English. I was eating koulourakia instead of chocolate chip cookies. My mother cautioned me away from Greek swears before the English ones. Some part of me was always yearning to return where my grandparents would not, some part of me will always call for soft beaches and late nights, for family the comes for the afternoon but stays for a week, for the strong coffee my Yiayia swore she could tell the future in the grounds of. I will always feel the same childlike wonder when we light the sakanaki on fire and douse it with lemon.

I will sit atop that mountain, tired, watching the sun go down, but satisfied knowing it will always come back to this place. Greece is riddled with shadows and memories of my family as far back as we know. She is woven in our blood and I will, in turn, weave myself into the fabric of home, putting myself into the tapestry of our history.