Ho!Ho!Ho!

Christmas is wonderful. Christmas is perfect. For the “SantaClauswillbringme” ages.

Because anyone above that age lives under the threat of the global conspiracy, with the code name “Christmas holidays”. We all know that everyone hate their guts with this story. But as if a deadly menace is hanging over our heads, no one will ever admit it. We do all the appropriate shopping, and all that red decoration, we cook as if there is no tomorrow, we generously give away smiles, and wishes and “oh-we-are-so-happy” looks. As if someone from above checks our Christmas mood level, and no one would ever like to be found with a Christmas mood below the generally accepted limit.

I know no living creature being brave enough to refuse to buy the slightest gift, to eat fish instead of turkey or other fleshes slowly cooked in absolute harmony with mushrooms of a nominal value standing at 25€/50 g. And all that because the day is special. The day is special only to the guy who pocketed 25 € for selling three funguses! This Christmas holiday thing equals to violation of human rights and should be seriously checked by the competent authorities. At both national and international level.

I’m escaping Christmas bringing to my eyes images of the world at this very moment. A Buddhist monk, no more than 12 years old, is shaving his head at Angkor, Cambodia. He does it skillfully, almost ritually, and I’m impressed that he uses no mirror. - A young woman helps her husband aligning multi-colored processed leathers. The leathers must stay under the sunshine for a while before finding their way to the bazaar of the town of Fez, Morocco. A heavy smell is in the air. – A barefoot bunch of children is chasing a ball in the pastel streets of Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. – A cormorant and his owner are having some rest at the banks of Lee river, near Yangshuo, China, after a long day of fishing. These cormorants-fishers are precious in China. A ring obstructs their throat making impossible to swallow the fishes and thus they deliver them to their owners. – The fountains and artificial lakes behind India Gate, New Delhi are crowded with boys and girls having the time of their life as they play with the dirty water. There is even a band playing!

It’s comforting to know that the world is still spinning around. It is comforting to know that the world will go on spinning around. That our personal highlights and dramas are not so important after all. And Christmas is not special because someone named Christ was born. There is no such thing as Christ and there is surely no such thing as virgin mother. You can say that Christmas is special because lots of us have extra free time. And this is good.

I will keep a sense of melancholy for the days. I will remain un-glamour and bleary. I will keep in my mind the people whose only reason to celebrate is that they made it through one more day. Santa Claus is a fat man in his middle age crisis, with serious problems of regression to childhood, and allow me to say, with a very suspicious attitude with his wanting to take all children to his lap. I will decorate my balcony with a hung Santa. With sparkling lights around the rope. I will let the passengers wonder: Was it suicide or murder?

All I need is a bitter song

I heard you. You were standing in front of me. In the bus, Tuesday morning. I heard you because you wanted to be heard. You have the impression that you are dignified enough to express powerful opinions, such as the one that caught my attention: “If he were a nice boy, he wouldn’t be hanging out in a place like that.”

Your brain is a small as a peanut. And your hair is oily. Women with oily hair should be spending more time using hair products than expressing opinions. What makes Exarhia an area with strong heartbeat is that you, and your super market and laiki agora friends, and your miserable skinny husband and your castrated son, and your daughter who will never be married to a doctor because she is a slut, and you know it, have never passed below my window. And my window is at the gates of Exarhia.

My sadness those days is so thick you could cut it with a knife. All I need is a bitter song, to make me better. There is no anger in me. Anger is for those who are lucky enough to be 15 years old. Hearing them screaming out in absolute orgasmic unison “Μπάτσοι μουνιά σκοτώνετε παιδιά” was like all angels and cherubs chanting in the central square of paradise. It’s divine to see so much anger in so beautiful creatures. Anger for the young and painful sadness for those who were once young, is to me the proof of being alive and healthy.

I have been accused to take things personally. Hearing that a young life probably deserved to be extinguished, seeing my neighbors swiping the relics of their properties, trying to fit myself in the categories of a stereotyped world, is personal. It is personal to live in the terror of a dozen of men who keep their faces covered only because they have this little problem with the size of their penis. Come on, guys. Show us your faces, size is not everything after all (yeah, right…).

If only we could try to retain stupidity at the lowest acceptable levels. If only we could see politics beyond the terminology of political parties. Be curious. Be touchy. Our times call for involvement, participation, information and knowledge. I want to respond to the murder of a kid, by being a less frightened person. Even a better person. I will start by smiling to the Pakistani living next door. I cross them ten times a day and one of them has the best hair style ever. I will start buying my coffee from this little cafe risking to close down, although what they serve is hardly a good coffee. I will be polite to those who are, and bitter to those who are not, but always with a smile on the face. What If we all did the same?

Because as an old friend used to say, I believe we can be extraordinary together, rather than ordinary apart.