Everything That Happened
What a year, huh?
Dear reader
How are you? It’s been a while since my last email, and I’m afraid you’ll have to wait another week for the usual dispatch of links to the quiet, odd, and poetic web.
Today I’m sending my annual year review. It’s an intimate tradition where I share some of the things I otherwise exclude. You can find previous years here: 2023, 2022, and 2021.
With care
Kristoffer
January
January 5th, God visits me in a dream. He stands at my bedside and pulls my arm. I thank him but tell him I’ll stay in bed, lying next to sleeping Uno. God is tall, he floats above the floor, and his touch feels real. The rest of the night, I fly in a spaceship between planets, it scares me to the bone but not as much as the following night, when Ana breaks up with me in my dreams.
I have an unusual social Saturday. It starts with Janos and Miriam visiting us from Berlin, followed by neighbourhood pizza at Lukas’, and Cretan folk music at Alkinois, a nearby gallery. As I exit our building to go to the concert, I’m met by flashlights from the police. They ask me who I am and what I’m doing. Without telling them how much I struggle with these questions, I let them inside our building.
Everything seems fine. To double-check, I get the key to our downstairs neighbour’s apartment. The moment I opened their door, it was evident that someone had been inside with stuff was thrown everywhere. I put the police on the phone with Felix, our neighbour. He can’t come because he is hosting the concert and Alix, his partner, is out of town. Together with the police, I lock-up the apartment and join Felix and my friend Liam, who is waiting at the concert.
I also initiate the process of opening a company in Greece and spend hours on the phone trying to solve Danish bureaucracy.
February
There are days I don’t think about Uno’s tooth1. But there are none where I don’t think about mine. Uno’s tooth is back in place. Mine still hurts. What I didn’t share last year is that I finally began making up for a decade of neglecting the dentist. The last fix, just before Christmas, continues to hurt despite additional check-ups.
The pain gets too much the day before I’m hosting a Screenwalk about Diagram.website, the internet map I published in January with Elliott. I’m also sick. So with a fever, I get my first two root canals, and I’m still in pain when I take people with me on a walk through the internet. My dentist tells me that I’m grinding my teeth at night.
While my internet projects attract attention, I’m short on the type of work that pays the bills. I also still don’t have a company, so I can’t send invoices. The situation is similar for Ana. The combination of little work and the inability to send invoices adds a lot of pressure on our family, and we start to count the months until we run out of money.
I apply for a job for the first time in a decade. It’s a niche position that aligns perfectly with the past 15 years of my professional life. Later, I learn that they hire someone else from the 30 other applications without inviting me to an interview. I don’t write this in pity. Rather I would I like to describe my life circumstances when Emily and Josh got in touch about supporting another edition of Naive Yearly.
March
In early March, we publish the talks from last year’s Naive Yearly. In the foreword, I touch upon the surprising weight of sunflowers. Soon after, my mom visits. It requires the effort of the entire family. My mom wears the sunflower strap to make her hidden disabilities visible. But at this stage, her disease is, at best, the elephant in the room.
The visit is heavy. It is unspoken, but we all know this is likely to be her last visit to Athens. I’m familiar with the thrill, excitement, and anxiety of doing things for the first time, but much less adept at doing things for the last time. “Everyone can eat an elephant,” my mom used to tell me when I got overwhelmed. “It’s just one spoon at a time.”
We are sitting on the couch when my mom shares that she listens to a recording of Uno signing when she can’t sleep. I’m tempted to write that it’s the lullaby where elephants walk on a spider web because, despite the heavy circumstances, there are uplifting moments like when she pushes her wheelchair at the foot of the Acropolis. In reality, it’s the lullaby where the person who arrives last dies in a black pot.
For Mother’s Day, I gift Ana a notebook filled with Uno’s quotes. Ironically, I didn’t finish the book in time, so I leave her alone with Uno and sit at Morning Bar, our regular coffee spot, to finish her gift. A few days later, we join friends and locals on the backyard hill to fly kites on Clean Monday. It’s my new favourite tradition, hundreds of kites decorating the sky as a symbol of the resurrection.
April
Ana’s work starts picking up from the seasonal hibernation. Her company and business bank accounts are functioning too. Uno and I travel to Slovenia to visit family and meet the people at the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, where I’ll host Naive Yearly later this year. Back in Greece, we take a short family trip to Hydra, the island we have visited most. Ana carries a few objects to photograph, and Uno is an eager helper. I love how familiar he is with styling, framing, and photographing. Like Ana, he articulates and commemorates what’s soft, tender, and poetic.
Back home, we create a small garden on our balcony using two repurposed fruit crates. The garden quickly grows into more pots. When we call family, the first thing Uno says is, “we have a garden now.”
May
We celebrate Ana’s birthday in Denmark. I gift her a Noguchi lamp. It’s the first house object we get for ourselves since moving to Greece. I can barely afford to buy the present as my company only gets registered by the end of the month. I also make Mygirlfriendisanartist.com, hoping it can contain some of all the memories Ana documents with her camera.
June
I was moved to tears at Uno’s school graduation2. He was on stage doing performances with his classmates, and Uno blended in perfectly. The program started at 5 PM, and by 10 PM, Uno ran happily around the playground with his friends. I realise this makes me sound like an immigrant parent (which I am), but no words can describe how it is to witness your child thrive in a foreign environment.
It is not only Uno who feels at home in Athens. Ana and I do too. We have an established social life with birthday parties, rooftop drinks, playdates, coffee hangouts, and art openings. Of everything, I’m the most grateful for the people we have met here in Athens. It feels substantial. Our lives are interwoven into webs that feel strong enough to catch a falling person.
One random evening, our neighbours Alix and Felix offer us tickets to a performance at Odeon of Herodes Atticus. We hesitate to go as we don’t know what to do with Uno. Only a handful of people have put him to bed. But when Alix and Felix offer to have Uno over, we decide that it is time to try something new. All goes well, and that night, I was introduced to the music of Meskerem Mees, the soundscape of the rest of my year.
July
We’ve yet to take a proper one-week holiday as a family. Our trips are family visits or work, often both at once. But this summer, we went on three weekend trips to Greek islands. Sifnos and Serifos stand out. We spent the days at the beach. It was calming, and we built a tan similar to my childhood days when I was outside all day. Uno’s long curls turned brighter, and he resembled a musician while sitting with his guitar in his lap, singing songs in Greek, Danish, Slovene, and English.
Ana is busy. When we are not traveling together, she’s off on work trips, and most nights, she stays up late to edit photos. One afternoon, while she is away, my left eye starts glitching. I’m alone with Uno when coloured dots form a square, like a broken computer screen. I close my eyes, but the dots prevail. When I reach for my phone to search for what it can be, the screen appears in 3D. I’m close to panicking. After half an hour, the dots disappear, and the next day, the eye doctor tells me things are fine. To be sure, I wait a few days until I look at screens again, and in the meantime, I imagine how to earn money without screens.
On July 30th, Uno turns four. Our apartment is full of friends and balloons. Uno loves birthdays, and I love that he loves birthdays. Summer is my favourite season. I launch the Internet Phone Book with Elliott and appear in the Lux Capital Podcast.
August
We visit family in Slovenia. In Maribor, we take Uno to the puppet theatre, not expecting much. But he is mesmerised, so we end up going again and again.
For the first time as parents, Ana and I get a few nights away. Uno stays with his granddad in Austria while we visit Ljubljana to organise things for Naive Yearly next month. It’s slow mornings, dreaming, and incredible to have space to connect as a couple. Ana is such a generous person who lifts me and others with smiles, care, and acute observations. I’m lucky to be with her and could imagine living in Ljubljana.
Matt and I are doing another year of Tiny Awards. I’m pleased to see Elliott’s One Minute Park win the main category and overwhelmed by the wide reception, with longer features in It’s Nice That and Czech Wired, and mentions in the Verge, The Guardian, and other legacy media, alongside the usual internet understory of blogs and newsletters.
September
When we return to Koukaki, our neighbourhood in Athens, it feels like everything has changed. Most significantly, Morning Bar, our regular coffee spot, is closed. In turn, I feel estranged, unsure of where to place myself.
One Sunday, we make a day-trip to Aegina, the nearest island. It’s on Aegina that I have my favourite art experience of the year when we visit the Christos Kapralos museum, located at his former home and studio. I recognise the ongoing need to become a place, dedicating myself to one location and its horizon.
I’m working all days and ramping up Naive Yearly which came to define the month, and maybe even the year. It was magical to gather friends and strangers to celebrate the internet. People joined from as far as Australia (hi, Joel), and a dozen who participated last year were there again this year. It’s too soon for me to describe what exactly Naive Yearly is or should become, but I have a strong sense that this will be defining for the next ten years of my life, and I’m so grateful for everyone who is making it possible.
October
Uno and I travel to Denmark to celebrate my mom’s birthday. If I was afraid of how he would respond to her illness, I quickly calmed down. Uno seems to be more zen than I thought possible.
— Dada. When I’m as old as you are now, then you are not here anymore. But that’s okay. Then there will be other people who are not here yet who will have babies.
In Copenhagen, we visit the Lego store. Uno and I are mutually excited when we reach the Pick-a-brick wall. Where Duplo was the defining toy for the past years, Lego is now becoming our go-to playtime activity, and we start to build our experiences, including a miniature version of the Acropolis.
I’m on a short work trip with Lukas in Austria to take work projects forward. It’s good being on the road again with work. I arrive home at midnight, and by sunrise, Uno, Ana, and I take a trip back to our Naxos home3. It’s windy. The boat rocks from side to side, and everyone is seasick except me. It feels surreal. I imagine myself from a bird perspective as I dance around the rocking floor to get paper bags.
On Naxos, we go to the dunes to throw sand into the air and watch it fly out of sight. Momentum is building. Life starts feeling lighter. Then we return home and I get a call from my brother saying that my sister was in a traffic accident and is on her way to the hospital in an ambulance. I cry out loud and look for flight tickets, but they are all sold out. The next day, when things seem to be somehow okay, I decide to book tickets to celebrate Christmas in Denmark. We also take Uno to the hairdresser for the first time, saying goodbye to his defining curls.
November
Uno really wants a sibling. He asks daily if we can make a sibling. He would be an amazing brother. He is very maternal (paternal?) and keeps referring to the future when he will have kids himself and teach them how to cook, draw, and read. One day, when we talk about work, Uno says that “dad,” is the only thing he wants to be when he is a grown-up.
I have a few days alone in our apartment when Uno and Ana go to Hydra with visiting family. It’s the first time in five years. I spend the time working, running errands, and going to acupuncture. A rush goes through my body. Things are going to be alright, and we are where we should be.
On the last weekend of November, we go to see a potential school for Uno. It’s perfect. Smaller spaces, kids’ drawings everywhere, and an overall calm environment. We also bump into friends. Later the same day, we get the keys to an office space we spontaneously decided to rent. It’s raining heavily while we wait for the previous tenant to bring the keys. Maybe the first proper rain in months. The plants will be happy.
December
I’m thinking about the result of the recent blood test. I was taken by surprise reading my age in writing. 37 years old. Where did time go? The past seven-eight-fifteen years were turbulent and I forgot to take care of my health. I’m running again, but have a strong drive to build physical strength. The free years are over.
Uno and I have coffee dates with books and puzzles at Adad Books. It’s becoming my favourite spot outside of the home. Meanwhile, Ana struggles with a continuous cold. It keeps her in bed, and she has to cancel many of the Christmas gatherings she was looking forward to the entire year. I’m not the only one who lived a turbulent life. Fortunately, it feels like we are learning to take and give space for each other and ourselves. It’s still a cozy December. We burn church candles, decorate our home, and bake cookies while listening to Greek Christmas songs.
We go to Denmark to visit Legoland and celebrate Christmas with families. Uno calls it the best trip ever. The move to Greece is almost finalised, and, while in Denmark, we squeeze ourselves into emptying our storage and ship the things to our office. We leave a few things in a friend’s space, but that’s it. After two years, we have successfully relocated, including closing and setting up our companies, closing and opening all the various tax and insurance agreements, making a home, finding an office, and building friendships. I’m proud of us and excited for the old and new year.
Last email was sent to 3830 inboxes. Logo by Dreams™. Photograph by Ana Šantl. And you can reach me at kristoffer@naiveweekly.com.
Here in Greece, they call the kindergarten for school or preschool.
The place is called Anise and Ouzo, and it’s not actually ours, but friends of ours.