LETTER 01 · MEMORY & HOME

Have a kaimaki for me

From Athens, remembered in London.

There are things you don't realise you miss until Greece is no longer outside your door.

I was born in Athens. These days I live in London, and sometimes Greece comes back to me through the smallest things.

Not monuments. Not photographs of Santorini.

A sound. A smell. Something you can taste.

The cicadas in the street.

The sea.

Greek lemonade.

And in August, παγωτό καϊμάκι — kaimaki ice cream, with vissino on top..

That can be enough to make me want to go home.

August is for disappearing

August in Greece has always meant something particular to me.

You swim.

And then you swim again.

You let the sun warm you. You eat. You sleep. You stop doing all the things that seemed terribly important in July.

For me, August is when I recharge my mental and physical state.

I think Greeks understand this instinctively. Sometimes you need to disappear for a while and let the sea put you back together.

My perfect August doesn't need very much.

The coast. Swimming. Heat. And afterwards, a parfait kaimaki.

That's enough.

One metre from the sea

If you haven't experienced Greece yet, this is what I would wish for you:

Wake up with the sound of the waves one metre away from you.

Before the phone.

Before breakfast.

Before deciding what you're going to do that day.

Just the waves.

There are places where luxury means adding more and more things.

For me, Greece is often the opposite.

Take everything away until there is only the sea.

Greece sounds different

Maybe my years as a DJ made me notice sound differently.

I think about sounds as objects. Music, obviously, but also natural sounds — the things that create the atmosphere of a place without you consciously noticing them.

When I think about those sounds, I think about Greece.

Cicadas.

Water.

People talking.

The particular noise of a Greek street.

And silence that isn't actually silent at all.

Sometimes I can hear Greece before I can see it.

And then there is coffee

Greek coffee has perhaps the best smell in the world.

And you don't rush it.

The water has to be very cold. From the fridge.

Everything goes in before you begin heating it. You don't treat it like ordinary coffee and violently boil it.

You wait.

And of course the coffee isn't really only about coffee.

There is the glass of cold water beside it.

There is where you're sitting.

There is whoever has joined you.

There is the conversation that lasts much longer than the coffee.

This is something I miss.

The Greece I want my children to know

Becoming a mother changed Greece for me.

Now I see it as my safe place — somewhere I want to take my children and hide them inside this beautiful, fruitful nature.

Almost like returning to a womb.

I want them to eat Mediterranean food. I want them to know the sea and the sun. I want Greek things to become ordinary to them rather than something we explain on holiday.

But more than anything, I want them to understand what it means to be Greek.

And that's difficult because I don't mean a passport.

I want them to get the feeling of it.

It's a feeling.

Perhaps that's why I keep trying to recreate pieces of Greece in London.

Food. Words. Habits.

And, naturally, making children wear a cardigan when it's 22 degrees because otherwise they will obviously become ill.

Some traditions travel particularly well.

If you're there now

There is a strange pleasure in knowing that somebody else is experiencing Greece when I can't.

So if you're reading this from Greece, I have a favour to ask.

Have a vaníllia glyko for me.

Sit on a balcony beside a gardenia and some basil.

Have a glass of cold water and a Greek coffee.

Don't hurry.

And later in the evening, please have a souvlaki for me.

I'll be in London.

But for a moment, I'll be there too.

— From London, with Greece in mind.