Map of Greece (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Note 1 – May 12, 2021

      The real world is much smaller than the imaginary. Nietzsche

      Crete (Region 4) became heaven for Anthi and M; I mean me. We left Athens (in Region 1) for Crete as friends and returned to Athens twelve days later as inseparable lovers. Anthi refused to speak to her husband, already considering him now her ex and her why, although Delphine had come out from their union as the only worthwhile and beautiful result. I loved her, but I was green when thinking that Delphine could call me Father or Dad instead of M. I never planned to be a father, although I could never have declined the idea of a daughter like her. She was as wonderful as her mother, and the direct cause of our union, having revealed that her father has been cheating on Anthi. I could not believe it. How could anyone in their right mind prefer someone else over Anthi? I figured that he must be demented and or as stupid as stupid can get. We were meant to be together. It was set in motion after the Big Bang. Goddess Athena only facilitated our primordial desire to be together, granting us a union in our nightly dreams. But it was Delphine who hastened our coming together — perhaps pun intended.

      Anthi filed for a divorce as soon as we got off the plane. I listened to her speak to a lawyer, unable to understand much and unable to let go of the hand not holding the phone; it was her right. My need to touch her was extreme but mutual. She was blue-and-white flowers and I was a thousand bees. I could not get enough of her nectar, which was available all over her skin. Our first night together was still fresh in my mind and my flesh, and I could see it in Anthi’s eyes, looking at me with her love seeping through like her wetness all through the night. It is difficult to describe the feeling that I have when I look at her and really see her. It is as if she contains my soul. She carried it in her heart until over a day ago when she returned it to me to try out for twelve days and nights. Yet I still feel that she holds it, perhaps in her eyes, or it is possible that my soul is hiding between her toes. It could be the reason why I love to count them each time, perhaps unconsciously thinking that I could count to eleven, finding ten toes and one soul.

      We loved Crete but Athens was home, which now grew by two hearts. Athena and Patrick remained as they were, the original couple and together until the end. Eléni and M have now become, Anthi and M. My heart flutters just writing it. Anthi and M. I want to write it again and again. Anthi and M. Eléni was happy to remain with us and possibly live with Delphine, who was glad to see her mother happy and in love. Glaukopis was glad to return to perching on the olive tree, which was happy too, rustling its leaves approvingly. What seemed almost impossible just days ago became reality for Anthi and M; I mean me. I loved our Goddess Athena and I loved Greece, but I was in love with Anthi, and frankly, it is and will always be the one that counts the most, especially in a wooden heart that expands whenever she is near and almost breaks when she is too far. My soul is worthless without her, which may explain why I always felt soulless before finally meeting her. Life without her had been meaningless. She was the meaning of my life all along my various paths. It was the Greek path that turned out to be the right one for me, and for both of us as a result, since her path led her to me. Her eyes can often replace her words. I look at them and know that she is the end of my path, that I have reached my final destination, and it seems that I was hers as well.

      Delphine told me that she never saw her mother happier. I hugged her and told her that I too was never happier, as well as happy to have met her, my Anthi’s daughter. She looked happy and told me that she loved me. I could not hold the tears. I have to ask Athena for some help. I have nothing against crying, but I am a sea of tears. Anthi then joined us for a group hug and, of course, I had to cry some more. Tears of joy may sound like a contradiction. Laughter may be higher on the scale of wellbeing, but crying, while lower, has its own spectrum. O Anthi, my love! Je t’aime tellement (I love you so much). I want to dance with you from A to A to start, and then dance with you, my Anthi, until my last step. Leonard Cohen – Dance Me to the End of Love.

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      Every note in this journal is dedicated to Anthi Psomiadou, who kindly agreed to reprise her role as Anthi Kanéna, the main character of this journal and a previous series. It is only because of her that this journal will be kept. I had decided to end the story at the previous series following Part 37, but Anthi’s comment touched me deeply, triggering the idea of a continuation of the story in the form of a daily journal, which will report some of the events in Anthi’s and M’s life together in Greece and anywhere else their path may lead them. Thank you for caring, Anthi! You are wonderful and surely one of a kind.

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Note 2 – May 13, 2021

      A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares to cut the rope and be free. Nikos Kazantzakis

      When does love become madness? Never! I love Anthi more than the entire world. Is it madness? I would never have admitted to such a statement before Anthi, but now that I know her, and I believe that I do, I can declare it without a second thought. Anthi is everything to me. Anthi is my life. My existence depends on her, and I know that she feels it. I see it in her eyes. I wish that I could kiss them too. I have kissed her everywhere possible, and I mean, everywhere. I kissed her eyes when they were closed, both when she was awake and when she was asleep. I would like to look at her asleep, but we fall asleep together, so we can share the same dream and live the impossible. I want to hear her breathing when she is asleep. I want to see her rapid eye movement. I want to find out if her sleep is sweet or restless. I want to hear words from her unconscious. Would one of them be M? My unconscious has become saturated with Anthi. Everything else has been relegated to near oblivion. I only want her there. Is it madness? I think that it is pure love for one other, with my ego gone. It is as if Anthi has become my id, my ego and my superego; all three of them merged into a bouquet of flowers; my blue-and-white Anthi.

      I love to see her wet. She never asks for anything. Is it because I never forget to please her in every possible way that I am aware of? I think that she shows it by being wet. Her eyes also uncloak her emotions. She has tears from time to time, which I lick and swallow. They are sweet and rarely salty. Anthi is sweetness made manifest. I wonder if Goddess Athena can switch us for a day or even just an hour. I would become Anthi and she would become M; I mean me. I need to be her to really feel what she feels and think as she thinks. I want to feel her heart. I love her heart. When I kiss her left breast, I always kiss the skin underneath it with the intent to be closest to her heart. O Anthi, mon amour (my love)! A day without you would be equivalent to the end of the world. I need to count your toes again.

      “O M, mon amour! Comment pourrais-je vivre sans toi (How could I live without you)? You are also my life until my last dance. I want to tango with you, both in reality and in our dreams. I can already imagine what you will do to me in a dream, but in reality, I am already reddening just at the thought of your aim. I want you to make love to me in every part and island of Greece. It is only a wish, my M, my love. I think that it will be educational, to say the least,” Anthi said, smiling and roseate.

      I felt like a dove. Caetano Veloso – Cucurrucucú Paloma (Cou-Cou Dove).

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      Thank you for caring, Anthi! You are taller than Anthi Kanéna.

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Note 3 – May 14, 2021

      Whoever is happy will make others happy too. Anne Frank

      Greece is a sonnet of fourteen regions, though the 14^th is still unofficial. Anthi and M; I mean me, live in Athens, which is a small part in the south of Region 1. Given its name, Athens could have been Region 5, Athena’s number among the twelve Olympians, but Number 1 for the capital trumped the past. Our Athena did not mind it at all. I often hug her for no specific reason, but she always reciprocates with a kiss on the mouth. She is a loving Goddess, unlike the usual variety of human-like concoctions. She is always smiling, unless she has learned about a new atrocity that humans had perpetrated amongst themselves, which saddens her demeanour. I even told Patrick to spare her from some of our malicious mediocrities, and that to make her happy was his only duty. She could learn such things by herself. She is a Goddess and she is wiser than all of us combined. I love her too, but not like my Anthi who brings tears to my eyes when I think about all the years that I have lived without her.

      Happiness is finally real for me; for us. There is nothing that I dislike about Anthi, and surely not because love is purported to be blind. My love for her is all-seeing. I have looked at every part of her, from her hair to her toes, not missing anything, not even passing over her shadows. I love her few blemishes as much as I love her toes. One could construe that I have a foot fetish, but I do not. I have an Anthi fetish for the entirety of her being. I love the inner Anthi as much as I love her outer skin. My dream vacation would be to make love to her all the time for at least a month, only stopping for food and the other normal necessities of life. O Anthi! I often call out to her. You are all that I ever wanted to contemplate both days and nights. I look at you and wonder about the Universe. What an unusual time machine it is, with ripples still affecting its existence from that singularity almost fourteen — a cosmic sonnet — billion years ago until now, here, us, me looking at you with wonder. It still hurts to love you, my Anthi. It still affects my wooden heart. There is a fire inside, but now it is consuming my immortal soul. I have a soul and it is alright, for now, so it seems.

      Poor Anne Frank spoke of happiness. For her, I wanted to believe in the existence of the soul. Now, I do not need to pretend anymore, even if Anthi is my soul, which I always look for between her toes. Her toes, again? Her fingers are often in my hair, so I can always see her feet when I bypass her breasts, which I consider sacred. I respect them to the point of adoration. Her nipples are like two suns that become two moons at night. I cried the first time that I saw them. She had shown them to me before our upcoming dream. She wanted me to see them, so I would not need to imagine them. She must have forgotten that Goddess Athena would have shown me their reality within our dream. I did not say anything because she had decided to show me her nakedness of her own accord. Nudity is a word reserved for the gods and goddesses, but my Anthi was in the nude when I saw her. There was light emanating from her skin. Anthi is divine, at least to me. I would have carried her on my back had it been as whole as it could have been. I carry my years like Sisyphus, but I cannot cheat death. However, I feel that I cheated life when Anthi decided to love me.

      Happy? As long as I can see my Anthi looking at me with love in her eyes. Pharrell Williams – Happy.

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      Thank you for caring, Anthi! You are the meaning of life.

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Note 4 – May 15, 2021

      The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly. Nietzsche

      I asked Glaukopis to teach me to fly. It looked at me and started to laugh. How does an owl laugh? you may ask. It moves its head down and side to side, opens and closes its wings, and in the case of Glaukopis, Goddess Athena’s talking owl, it also repeats ha-ha a few times, both in Greek and French. It is learning French from Patrick, and I have yet to keep a single Greek sentence straight-faced. My Anthi is teaching me a little Greek every day, but we prefer to make love when time is kind. We just look at each other’s eyes and off we go to another world where the sense of touch rules every other one. At night, we often dream of the stars and make love on a cloud.

      Anthi’s divorce is in full speed, especially after Delphine threatened to testify against her father if he did anything to slow down the procedure. She loves her mother, and having discovered that her father was a cheating shit, she decided that she wanted her mother to be happy. What a beautiful daughter she is, and in every sense! You would think that she was fictitious. What a prick her father is, unlike Patrick who is only a prick in the good sense of the word! Is there a good sense? Yes! The harmless kind, who, for example, takes a one-way trip to Greece to look for Goddess Athena for M; I mean me, and then plans to commit suicide but ends up living with her as a mortal lesser half. What a good prick! I am serious.

      I asked Anthi to marry me but only if she thought that it was important to her. I am already all yours, I told her, both in body and soul, and it is still an understatement. There is Anthi on one side, the right side, and the rest of the world on some other side, the left, I guess, and I can only see Anthi. She knows it and she said, yes. I felt that my heart was expanding beyond my chest. Even Goddess Athena seemed worried for a moment until she understood that it was pure joy. I am wondering if we are going to have a big keto Greek wedding or one where Anthi is both the bride and the flowers. I love you, Anthi, I keep saying whenever I see her, which is all the time, and she keeps smiling, with her love for me shining through her eyes.

      I asked Patrick if he wanted to write something, or even take over one or two of my usual daily pieces, except for the trees. Trees, I love, sometimes more than many humans. I thought that he could write the AI haikus and tankas, and the occasional sonnet or longer piece, as well as present the French singers, or at least some of them, but he declined on both accounts, mentioning that he only wanted to write about Athena. I wished him, good luck, although he will not need it, having her by his side all the time. I wrote about her before and did not even capture one hundredth of what she was and is. Of course, I did not know her up close and personal, but still, I studied her history, which is surely lacking now that I got to know her. I do not believe in perfection, but she seems to be the exception. Anthi is my perfection.

      Delphine called me Dad just to see my reaction. I looked at her and asked Glaukopis to teach her to fly. We laughed and I, of course, had tears in my eyes. I had asked our Athena if she could help me control them, and she replied: “No, M! I do not soothe tears, only hearts, and minds if I can help them to see what is already in front of them.”

      I still want to learn to fly, if only to carry Anthi on my back. Rod Stewart – Sailing.

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      Thank you for caring, Anthi! I never loved flowers as much as I do now.

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Note 5 – May 16, 2021

      One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Nietzsche

      When I hold my Anthi against my heart, my soul plays a game of transfer. It leaves me and enters her heart and returns just before we part. When I count her toes, with her fingers in my hair, I want to lift her up, but my back is unfair. When I kiss her all over and bite her neck, my Anthi purrs like a pussy, ready to partake in the infinity of fervent affection. Like in Pedro Almodóvar’s unforgettable masterpiece, Talk to Her, I want to disappear in her and have her touch me with any two fingers. If Anthi were a cat, I would have surely been a cat as well, or a mouse, ready to be eaten to become part of her.

      Life with Goddess Athena is full of surprises. Besides her fondness for mouth-to-mouth kisses, she likes to tickle. She is so lovable. It is difficult to believe that she was a warrior. Do not get me wrong! She looks strong, but she is so loving. I often think that I live in a dream. And then I actually dream with Anthi and find myself in a dream of dreams. My whole life has become an endless dream. Yet, most of it is reality, and it is wonderful. Am I lucky? Am I blessed? There is Goddess Athena on one side with all her glory, fortitude and pure love, and my Anthi on the other side, with all these qualities and my undying love for her. Plus, there is Eléni with her unconditional love, no matter if she is fictitious. We can all see her and she has all five senses. And there is even more. There is fine and fiery Delphine, Anthi’s daughter and mine too from the looks of things. I must be blessed. It took many years for me to get here, but it happened. I guess that perseverance can pay off, and knowing which goddess to choose, and being lucky to “meet” a Greek writer on Medium who helped me connect all the dots. It would never have happened without her. I think that I am mixing fiction and reality again. I am confused. Who am I? M? Who the fuck is M?

      “You are the man that I love. You are my M _ _ _ _!” Anthi replied when she read this past paragraph.

      I know, my love and my life. I was just writing a thought that remains suspect as far as I know. I know who you are. You are my world. I am M. A letter. The 13^th letter. You are A; the first. Together we form another 14; a letter sonnet. It must be it. We already complete each other by our initials, which together form AM. The woman is always first, so there is no MA.

      “O my M! Je t’aime (I love you).”

      I would be symbolically dead if you did not. I want us to dance and sing about love.

      “Take me, my love! I am already dancing with you between the stars.”

      I know, my Anthi forever. I look at you and I want to never look anywhere else. Any place without you does not exist. There is only this place in Athens, Greece, where your feet touch the floor and where my soul always aspires to be forevermore. It belongs to you, my love. It wants you more than I want it. All my being wants you. Anthi m’aime, Anthi aime M, Anthi m’aimera (Anthi loves me, Anthi loves M, Anthi will love me). Nino – Amor Amor (Love Love).

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      Thank you for caring, Anthi! How many flowers is Anthi made of? Some may think twelve, but I prefer infinity.

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      There are 31 additional parts available on Medium, which will also be included in the upcoming novel: Greece Is My Anthi.