Our Story Goes On
This is my favorite picture. If the house were on fire and I knew my family and pets were safe and I had time to grab just one thing, this would be it. Of the three people in it, I'm the only one left.
That's me in the middle, age 5, with my mother and her mother. To be honest, we were never the most photogenic lot. In most family pictures, someone always has her eyes closed, or her mouth is caught in a funny shape, or the shine on her nose reflects off the camera, or we are having a bad hair day (usually that's me). But in this picture, to me, we are perfect--perfectly happy, and perfect-looking, with every bit of our beauty, inside and out, shining through. Each one of us looks serene, happy, and completely natural; the fact that we are all captured together this way seems miraculous to me.
The setting, too, is perfect: This photo was taken at "the cottage," the little bungalow on what seemed like acres and acres of land, but which was probably far less than that, where my grandmother's brother, Theo Christo, and his wife, Thea Thespina lived. If someone said, "We're going to The Cottage," there was no doubt as to which cottage. It was situated on a lake, out in the country, down a tree-lined lane. It was exactly what people today aspire to have when they talk about "cottage style": dormered rooms, genuine barkcloth drapes, a white enamel stove on top of which a pie was always cooling. (One exception: My great-aunt and uncle raised four children there, threw wonderful parties for Christmases and graduations, and never once did anyone think their tiny galley kitchen need to be expanded to 20' x 30', unlike today.)
My cousins and I all had fond memories of The Cottage: there was a green and red striped swing on the back porch overlooking the lake; the adults--our parents and their parents--would send us out to the porch to amuse ourselves while they played cards (mostly Knock and Pinochle) until we nearly rocked the porch with our swinging, and then they would beg us to stop before we broke something (on our bodies or the swing, I never knew). There were always cats and kittens to play with, fruit trees from which my grandmother and great-aunt made jam, flowers to collect in bouquets, and lots of time and space to explore, with one exception: we were forbidden to go down to the lake without an adult.
When I look at this picture, I remember the sunlight off the water peeking through the trees, the picnics outside with the "old" Greek aunts (who were "aunts" even if not actually blood-related and probably younger then than I am now) who wore print dresses and aprons every day if their husbands were alive and black from head to toe ever after if they weren't. I remember everyone making a fuss over me, giving me big, bosomy embraces, pinching my cheeks, teaching me to say "I love you" in Greek and Turkish, and feeding me watermelon and Greek butter cookies called koulourakia.
My uncle Spero, a gifted photographer, took this picture. He calls it one of his "soul pictures," where the image he has captured transcends the visual to illuminate the subject's inner spirit. He and I don't always agree, but I have to say on this subject we are in complete accord. In this one picture, he has captured the soul of my childhood, and the deep connection between mother and daughter and granddaughter.
