My camera makes me look like a ghost: My feet are still on the ground, but my head is starting to disappear. My brother, on the other hand, is completely rooted in this world. He's wearing my grandfather's old jumper, I'm wearing my grandfather's sister's old cardigan, we're carrying on.
My last university course before the holidays was wonderfully intense, as usual. We discussed the intentions of the editions of poems by the wonderful Greek poet Konstantinos Kavafis and at one point I realised that even though my family's going through a hard time, even though I'm over-worked, even though what you could call my love life is going down the drains, at the end of the day there are still two things: There's the excitement and satisfaction I feel about what I do at university, about the theories, about being able to connect a German edition of poems with an old Greek concept of identity, about being asked to explain things to other students.
And then there're situations like the one pictured below. There's tea, there are books, there's light, there's cake and there's the family, people who like you no matter what, people who know you inside out, people who fight with you and say mean things but who still accept you just the way you are, who don't try to compare you, put you into categories or disregard you because you're old news. That's what love is all about, to me. It's not Hollywood, it's not whispered words, it's not even romance. It's acceptance and affection. And that's what I'm grateful for - and Christmas is the time to be grateful, isn't it?
"Since it's Christmas let's be glad, even if your year's been bad. There are presents to be had."
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