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Hypothyroid Health Journey:
Fiona Goes to Corfu, Part 1
Fiona Goes to Corfu, Part 1
By Fiona Klonarides
Fiona Klonarides is sharing her new life with us as she looks for health and happiness and to make peace with her hypothyroidism on the Greek island of Corfu. This is the first in an ongoing series.I’m counting the Greek lemons dangling from the tree below my balcony. Some are huge, with thick, gnarly skin, the size of grapefruits, others small and perfectly shaped. There are about ninety lemons on this tree, all waiting to fall or be pulled off their branches by passers-by.
It’s six weeks since I quit my (stressful) internet job in San Diego. On my last day at work, my computer crashed. Later that morning, in a double irony, the mailroom guy delivered my business cards six months after I’d ordered them, complete with my new senior title printed on them.
As I drove home that evening from the office for the last time, I felt completely calm. I had longed for a break from work for the last six years, and here it was, finally. Since 1996, I have felt like hypothyroidism has zipped me into a padded ski jacket, padlocked the zipper, and stolen my energy. Within months of my diagnosis, I had dry, lizard skin, my eyes became puffy and my hair fell out. My thyroid packed up, and over 50 lbs packed themselves on to my body. This was not the glamorous look I had aspired to in my late 30s, and to make things more depressing it wasn’t my weight that was dropping after endless visits to endocrinologists, it was my bank balance.
Alternative therapies helped a bit (acupuncture and herbs) but at a price. It occurred to me that I was working these long and tiring hours to pay others to help heal me, when I might as well stop working altogether, and live frugally on a Greek island for the summer, to see if I could heal myself.
Now I live in the hilltop village of Pelekas (pop. 600), a place famous for its sunsets and overrun by backpackers and hippies in the eighties. It used to be so busy that travelers would sleep on balconies; now it’s a sleepy village visited by hikers from Germany and Scandinavia, not that busy apart from July and August when the Italians invade.
I miss a few things about America: the phone system, chai tea, my nice bathroom and my wonderful friends. But I’m getting used to the hole in the floor next to the toilet (the shower) and if I boil some water and infuse it with nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon sticks, I can make a Greek version of chai tea. “Tsai” in Greek means “tea”, so I am making a sort of “chai tsai.”
When I first arrived in Corfu at the end of March, all the bars and cafes were closed. All you could do was walk, uphill and downhill. The villagers said it was the coldest March/April they could remember, and on 8th April I woke up and looked out of the window and saw snow falling. On sunnier days, I walked to the windy and completely deserted local beaches wearing my fleece pyjamas under my fleece jacket, with only stray dogs for company. At first my legs ached so much from the 3 mile walks that I thought about moving to a beach community, but it was too early.
Last week was Greek Easter, symbolically marking the first signs of life on Corfu since last October. The tourists have started to arrive, and I can hear more scooters on the street outside my window. My walks are longer now, and day by day it has warmed up slowly. This week we are having a heatwave, with an average temperature in the shade of 90 deg. F. I wonder how I will survive here when it soars even higher, if I get a job here and have to get the bus to work, or walk miles to work in the heat, but I will get used to it.
I feel at peace here, but also lonely: not the loneliness of not having people to talk to, but a sort of universal loneliness that seems to stem from being 44 and single, and I don’t know what the future holds. I have started to notice changes to my body: my hair and nails are growing faster, and my psoriasis has completely vanished. The lack of stress, the walks, and my Spartan diet of Greek yoghurt, Greek salads, beans, tuna and nuts and honey are helping. The only anxiety I have now is about money, so I am starting to look for a part time job on the island (which, without a car or scooter is not easy, but I can’t afford my transportation. ) But, when I wake up in the morning and don’t feel exhausted any longer, or manage to make my way up steep hills in the sun without collapsing, and see how my face looks less puffy, I know that leaving my job and the regular paychecks was a good idea.
Now, in this extreme heat, I think about how cold it was last month, and how, on my way home after my walks in the evenings, I would stop off at the local “kafeneion”, the men’s café. This is an institution where women still are not really welcomed, a bastion of Greek (and Albanian) men from 19-90 years, who gather each night to talk about politics, drink coffee and ouzo, play pool, and smoke heavily. I had forgotten how much the Greeks smoke, and by 7.30pm the café would be a haze of cigarette smoke wafting under fluorescent lights. After a quick brandy to warm me up for the walk home (I am not a drinker but the brandy has become a ritual) in the dark, I would leave behind my new admirers: two charming 23 yr olds who were either desperate after the long, rainy winter or were into mind older women; the ex-mayor of Pelekas, a sleazy old man with swept back grey hair and a red Alfa Romeo; and a sweet and handsome 29 yr old called Yiannis.
I find out that there is a rumor in the village that I have come here to find a husband, because I am alone and have arrived very early, but a Greek husband is the last thing I need. However if you are single, female, and in need of some attention, I recommend visiting a Greek village before the tourist season starts. Not only am I getting more compliments than I’ve had in years, I only have to walk down the street and my new “boyfriends” are shouting my name telling me how beautiful I am.
After a few weeks this attention becomes annoying, but it’s ironic. In San Diego I was all but invisible. Here in Corfu, surrounded by stray dogs, the donkeys and the wildflowers, and my Greek admirers, I am the Cindy Crawford of Pelekas.
Copyright 2003, Fiona Klonarides. Reprinted with permission.
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