The continuation of the article
With her, at the very beginning of the school year, we had made a small window out of hard cardboard. We had painted all around it. In mine, we had made a swallow's nest above its windowsill. In the place where the windows were supposed to be, she herself, who was much more skillful than us, had cut the paper to give the impression that it was open. So we put this paper window over the text in the reading book and when she told us to let a word fly, we had to locate it by bringing the opening over it and read it. She would go through all the desks to make sure that we had all found the right word. Many times she would move the window left or right and ask us to whisper and then read the syllables. And we read the easy words with ease and the difficult ones with a thousand sufferings. But no matter what, the words eventually made it and flew!
Sometimes, involuntarily, I would follow them on their flight, the distance from the reading room to the large window was not that great. Mrs. Antigone was anxious to teach me to read and I would fly with them, without luggage on their journey, whispering almost to myself, without saying them out loud most of the time.
"Come on, spell it out and then read it out loud and clearly, don't be shy," he urged me, "you know the word."
I looked her in the eyes and then dared, not to utter the word but to justify myself: "since they know that I know them, why should I do it? They might even be scared..."
That same day she had bent over my reading book and sometimes she would spell, sometimes she would read, moving the paper window from word to word and from page to page after we had repeated everything we had learned and there were already a lot of them. “Hour, good, car-ra-vi, si-re, gialo – gialo, e-said, sire, me, the, good, said, oh, Mimis…” she had started from that and we all repeated it together as children. Her voice lulled me. My mind was traveling. She would certainly have expected my participation to be more lively, but at some point when a swallow entered the room, my attention was completely distracted. I got so excited and following its flutter I left. It made two or three rounds chirping, enough to announce Spring, and then it flew away.
The teacher continued to read faster, however, while gently patting me on the back, she tried to remind me that we were in the classroom. "My sweet swallow/ who flies in the sky/ come down so I can tell you/how much I love you." Right there at the "I love you," I understood something, I jumped up and hugged her and with a clear heartbeat, "ma'am, I love you too, I love you," I told her, "but, ma'am, the drizzle is coming, I'm waiting for this rain today, the rain, ma'am, the drizzle."
"My eyes are dripping," I can still hear her voice, like when she leaned down and said it in my ear, again secretly, like every time. Before me, she had whispered something secretly in Kostis' ear. Then she found the word water and opened the cardboard window for her. "What word are we going to let fly, become droplets and then rain?" she asked. "Water," I spelled out hesitantly and then loudly, "water, water, water, water," and now more droplets were falling on the windows and then they became sudden rain and Ostria was playing, but no longer stubbornly, with the heavy curtains and the window.
"You'll learn everything in a minute, you'll know it better tomorrow," she had said before the bell rang for break, and happily she opened the jar of candies and handed them out to us.
The paper window was left open by time, on the alphabet of memory, in that little swallow's nest, and on its windowsill there are moons, jasmines and colors. Everything speaks and everything falls silent at the same time. Every Spring the first swallow flutters high. I raise my hands, they touch each other and then it seems as if they climb the stairs of heaven together, the hands, yes the hands climb secretly from those who do not believe in magic and miracles, that's what hands do.
I try to follow the little swallow through the passages of imagination and innocence. My heart beats fast. I look down. The wet courtyards have a strange glow and smells brought from elsewhere. The elsewhere is beyond the ends of the soul or within us, there in the blink of lightning. I observe myself with other eyes. Everything is there, where souls lean, where it is still yesterday.
Is this journey difficult? No! I only hear the Dragon Rider's breathing in the silence. Soon she will light Selena, that's how it happens, it is the mountain that shines differently, it shines the truth. On her own mountain, she lights it and then dances on the sunlit threshing floor and beats her feet rhythmically so that the sounds of the bells can be heard, the ones she has hanging from her sandals and exorcises evil. This is how memories and the time of love are awakened. Grandma Garifalia reminds me of all this and I tell my teacher again, and she pretends not to know and remains with her mouth open and then hugs me and whispers to me: "My eyes are dripping..."
But first, the swallow must reach high, as high as it can, find the old time, wake it up, talk to it about the trembling water of life and the small - big life of the lover, that is, of the dittany. The ancient stone takes shape. Oblivion cracks. Mother Earth acquits the shadows on the sides and the novice swallow takes courage and grows taller, taller, longer and disappears, temporarily.
And then, happily, he marks a star, chirping. He takes off, touches the ink of the night, paints his wings, steals this flame that does not tremble in the wind. But again, it is not only that. He succeeds and tears the black velvet, sticks the paper window on it and then, then… The sky lowers and I see my own moon. We look at each other with love. We renew our appointment in August, every August at the top of Dikti, there with the ancient goddess, the beautiful and free Diktynn, the one who changes the line of the heart on my hand so that I may always be free.
I involuntarily go back and forth on the silver thread of time, sometimes behind and sometimes ahead of time, trying to find a corner in a garden, to suit my wants and I can, to fit in life and love. My heart, a red apple, becomes the same and unchangeable as the one that Mrs. Antigone used to have on the chair, a red apple from the Lasithi plain. With my heart I live and discover the world even when I have difficulty I stretch out my hand and the ancient goddess, Diktynn, comes and changes the lines on my hand.
Then Mrs. Antigone holds me tightly by the same hand and I continue to move forward and take my soul one step further and each time from the beginning I discover things that I either didn't pay attention to and passed by indifferently or I see new images, beautiful and the faces I meet suddenly change shape as if they were reborn in the light and my world fills with fragrances. "You, you made them bloom and fill the night with scents", says the teacher and then takes a deep breath and "my eyes are dripping, you are my precious student..." the little swallow listens.
Goes on
Tomorrow, in the name of love
Life of Diktao
photo by Vika_Glitter, https://pixabay.com
