My Big Fat Greek Family

I am 100% Greek.  All eight of my great-grandparents came through Ellis Island to California, and here we've stayed.  On the spectrum of "How Greek a Family Is," my family doesn't really place high.  Sure, we go to the big picnics for Easter; and one time we all brought bundt cakes with flowers in the middle because we thought it was funny.  My grandma does still have the plastic on some of the furniture.  And the ladies in the family always force you to eat.  And we're loud.  And I have cousins in Alaska, California, and in Greece whom I've never met.  And we don't put hats on the bed...My mom took us the the Greek Orthodox Church of the Ascension every Sunday I was alive and living with her. When I was little, my mom taught me English words and their Greek equivalent at the same time.  And when her and my grandma don't want me to know something they talk in Greek.  That was always the fashion in my house; if you want it confidential speak in Greek.  What they didn't realize is that for some reason, I became the most Greek out of them all.

The reason I say we aren't traditionally a very Greek family, is because, while my mother was very involved in the Greek church and my father went to Greek school and Greek dancing, my brother and I never did.  Part of it was because it was hard for a single mother (my mother and father are divorced) to drive 45 minutes on a Tuesday night to Oakland with two small children, and I honestly think the other part of it was because my mom didn't necessarily want obscenely Greek children; she wanted us to be who we were.  And unfortunately in my case, that's exactly what she got.

My grandma taught me a little Greek cuisine, but I have far excelled her and my mother's knowledge in the cooking of traditional Greek foods (Grandma used to cook a lot more back in the day) I have always felt fiercely proud to be Greek, and only Greek.  And I've always felt a really strong connection to my culture.  I'm teaching myself how to read and write in Greek and it's going surprisingly better than one would assume.  And I can now Greek dance.  I've also developed a nasty smoking habit which everyone had warned me about when I told them I was going to Greece after graduation.  I pride myself in being awkwardly unique with a hint of strange and a dash of pervy.  And I've had some difficulty over the years feeling at home and being completely comfortable with who I am.  Until I landed in Athens on May 26, 2010; and I was home.