One ordinary evening in 1981, while we were mindlessly absorbed in a popular series in front of our black and white television, the 80 earthquake in Athens came to swallow us up without warning.
Neighborhoods of the capital, poor and rich, were affected indiscriminately. At the time, we lived in a humble neighborhood in the Western suburbs.
In my childish mind, I felt that yes, giants probably exist because amidst the terrible shaking of earth and sky, it was as if the giant was coming down furiously from Jack's beanstalk.
The sense of security was shaken to its foundations and left a gaping void, uncovered by parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts who themselves didn't know where they were stepping.
No one asked, no one explained, no one wondered how we, the children, felt. I remember an old blanket falling on my shoulders and me grabbing it mechanically. I kept shaking.
With my teeth chattering from the shock, all I wanted to do was lie on the ground, on the dirt, with my arms outstretched. In a cross. I didn't dare say it, they would think I was crazy, I was sure. Much later I learned that this is called "grounding" and it helps to regain that lost sense of security, the connection to the earth.
I was lost in silence, I lost the words that I had been struggling to find before.
But when children feel alone, abandoned to the mercy of fear and the unexplainable, then they find strange comforts.
An animal instinct guided us, in an informal and unacknowledged alliance. The neighborhood became the pillar of our childhood, a safety valve.
Now that I'm writing, I think that writing is also a safety valve, a safety net in the acrobatics of life.
In.gr
