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Sage Tzamouranis: Ridgefield, Conn

The document provides a description of old women in southern Greece known for their resilience and strength despite enduring great hardships and loss. It describes how the women dress from head to toe in black clothing to signify their status as widows and dress this way to mourn through their clothing rather than show emotion. It then draws a comparison between these women and olive trees that can grow in very dry soil and through rock without rain, showing persistence and stubborn endurance. The document concludes by revealing that after the sun sets and the women visit their husbands' graves, they change into secret stashes of colorful nightgowns, showing there can still be beauty and joy despite great loss.

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Hannah Vuelta
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82 views5 pages

Sage Tzamouranis: Ridgefield, Conn

The document provides a description of old women in southern Greece known for their resilience and strength despite enduring great hardships and loss. It describes how the women dress from head to toe in black clothing to signify their status as widows and dress this way to mourn through their clothing rather than show emotion. It then draws a comparison between these women and olive trees that can grow in very dry soil and through rock without rain, showing persistence and stubborn endurance. The document concludes by revealing that after the sun sets and the women visit their husbands' graves, they change into secret stashes of colorful nightgowns, showing there can still be beauty and joy despite great loss.

Uploaded by

Hannah Vuelta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SAGE TZAMOURANIS

Ridgefield, Conn.

There is nothing more irrepressibly badass than


the old women of southern Greece. They have
never seen a dentist. They can clean their own
teeth, thank you very much, all two of them.
They are familiar with loss.

Waking up every
morning before the unforgiving sun can shine
through the window, they dress from head to toe
in thick, black clothing that doesn’t let in the
light — of the day or of the spirit. The black
attire signifies the status of a widow, of a stoic;
mourning is only displayed through the color of
clothing, never through emotion.
The women are like the olive trees, which reside
in soil so dry that it crunches under your feet as
you walk. Somehow, they manage to grow
anyway; persistence and stubborn endurance are
all they know. The trees can grow through rock,
live without rain. They stagger, twisting and
turning toward the heights despite the farmer’s
careless pruning; the mere matter of amputated
limbs will not stop them.
When I was 5 or 6, I thought that my Yaya was
the most beautiful woman in the world, with her
wiry white hair fresh out of curlers and laugh
lines showing around her eyes like a map of all
of her times spent smiling. She used to sing a
song called “Μαρία με τα Κίτρινα,” “Maria in
Yellow,” and we would laugh because Yaya also
had a yellow dress, but she did not emulate the
risqué behavior of Maria, who couldn’t decide
whom she loved more, “τον άντρα σου ή τον
γείτονα” her husband or her next-door neighbor.
As I got older, I realized that there are more
worry lines than laugh lines. Deep trenches of
lineaments cross her forehead, revealing the
hardships of a childhood spent in poverty. More
prominent than her crow’s feet are the wrinkles
etched into her eyelids, from squeezing her eyes
tightly shut, trying to block out the pain of
having her daughter taken from her, after only 18
years on this earth, by the unrelenting grip of an
untimely death. The most recent are the lines
chiseled around her thin mouth, as if out of
marble. They are from pursing her lips in an
attempt to suppress the pain after my Papou was
taken by the same merciless hands that took her
daughter away, but this time, those hands looked
like cancer.
The yellow dress went away after Papou died.
As did the levity with which we used to make fun
of Maria’s foolish infidelity. The black clothes
are suffocating; they invite the sun to beat down
with more cruelty than before.
Once the sun starts to set and the day cools, my
Yaya and the other women of the village venture
out of their homes, carrying olive-oil lamps to
their husbands’ graves, the lineaments of their
faces illuminated by the lanterns. The lines are
unforgiving, the trenches have been dug, the
stalemate between the want of joy around the
eyes and the stubborn endurance of suffering
around the silent lips wages on.
However, I know a secret. When the sun sets in
southern Greece, it rains.
No matter how helpless the olive trees look, rain
will come. When Yaya gets home from the
cemetery, she closes the shutters and peels off the
black clothes, folding them carefully and placing
them on the dresser, next to Papou’s old bifocals.
Yaya has a secret drawer of floral nightgowns
that she only wears when the day has ended and
the sun can no longer punish her misfortune.
Maria’s yellow dress is long gone, but the pinks
and blues and purples are still there. I like to
think that the other widows also have secret
stashes of light, brightly colored clothing. The
olive trees flourish and yield fruit despite the
oppression of the sun. There can be beauty in
spite of loss.

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