It’s been around Easter when we played around with my daughter with painting plates, melting bee’s wax and dropping shadows on different textures. We enjoyed it all and making different arrangements with different colour combinations. It was a playful and joyful time together.
I feel my internal batteries are a bit discharged today as the week days were long and intense but I hope you will find the photographs energizing and inspiring. Can you spot a bunny in the last photo?
Photo: ‘Tissue’ by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2024.
There is a famous painting by Andrea Mantegna called by many as The Dead Christ (see here). It is a striking picture. It shows Christ’s body laid down on a bed after the crucifixion. The painting uses foreshortened perspective as a compositional technique.
Christ’s body appears shorter than it really was. It is squashed almost to an unnatural size. Both of his palms are curved and fingers bent like claws. His pain is noticeable although He does not feel pain any more. The foreshortening of perspective is aching to foreshortened life, of course. I have no doubt about that. However, there is an aura to the painting of something forgotten too. Of someone lacking foresight or full sight. The painter did not have it. Neither do we as spectators. From Christ’s body posture, though, we infer that he was as much in psychological pain as he was physically suffering. Would his posture be different if he took less blame? Was Jesus tormented to mercy*? How did He experience this torment? And why on Earth did He do it?
On one level or another Jesus knew that making his soul of steel, would be ill-advised.
Making our souls of steel is ill-advised.
Jesus, it seems to me, was after nonconstructive criticism. He focused on stupidity, biased and prejudiced thinking. He sought out the injustices done to him and others through others.
As we seek those done to us and by ourselves less so
But why has Jesus gone through the hurt-optimization procedure? I can guess that it would be to build up his capacity for something. Could it have been forgiveness?
It sounds insane, doesn’t it?
*I read the phrase ‘a torment of mercy’ in one of the books by Adam Philips, I think it was On Getting Better. I apologize to the author for a lack of appropriate reference.
The post is a short version of a draft of an essay in progress by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2024-2025. All rights reserved. Copying without an written approval of the author prohibited.
Our car of 15 years showed three flashing lights on the dashboard while we travelled to Whitby last Sunday. It displayed them during Summer too when we were driving to Poland from the UK. We got it repaired but the same problem showed. ‘We’ll give it a rest when we get to Whitby. It will cool down and we’ll be able to drive back.’ my husband said. His prediction was right. We returned home safely. One thing to be rather grateful for today.
We travelled to Whitby for air. To feel the sand between our fingers and water on our feet. And to eat fish, of course, an irreplaceable custom of every food lover. We headed towards the beach when we saw a crowd of people returning towards the car park. We seemed to be the only family that walked in the opposite direction. ‘Was everything fine?’ I wondered examining the opened restaurants, stalls, coffee shops and calmly floating boats and yachts. The surrounding was reassuring and the lobsters and crabs painted on restaurant walls seemed to nudge us towards the beach. Who wouldn’t like to see where the crabs live after all?
We rushed to get at least an hour of the golden light at the beach. We passed the crab-fishing family, a man inviting us for a sea trip, new marine centre and just before we reached the beach we had to pause to urgently drop 50p coins into a designated place for overstretched bladders. A relief worth paying for. :)
We collected ourselves and all the 6 bags that we had with us for all the eventualities of the beach life. Just before the stairs we stopped at the viewing platform to see the sea and the beach but the beach was not there to be seen. The frothy waves were licking the sea walls and all the way to the cliff. A spring high tide took over the whole beach. Disappointment was hard to swallow and yet there we were exposed to the sea air, energised by the colours of the sky, caressed by the breeze. Enough to be grateful for. Not to mention the ice-cream and the dinner and a chat with a fisherman… but more on this at a different time.
Is it possible to improve in life without being grateful for the past and what it taught us? Could we make progress in life without seeing the positives in our personal journeys? Could we be artistic, creative, productive if we do not appreciate what we have or what has passed? If we are angry that the flowers have died, could we appreciate their textures, their patterns, their beauty highlighted by time? They were. They existed. They contributed. If we decide to engage with the past or the passing of time in a creative manner, the effect is usually gratifying. Could it be otherwise?
Czy można poprawić sobie życie bez odczuwania wdzięczności za przeszłość i za to czego nas nauczyła? Czy możemy robić postępy w życiu, nie dostrzegając pozytywów w naszych osobistych podróżach? Czy możemy być artystyczni, kreatywni, produktywni, jeśli nie doceniamy tego, co mamy lub tego, co minęło? Jeśli jesteśmy źli, że kwiaty umarły, czy możemy docenić ich faktury, ich wzory, ich piękno podkreślone przez czas? Były. Istniły. Przyczyniły się do piękna. Jeśli zdecydujemy się na twórcze zajęcie się przeszłością lub wpływem przemijania, efekt będzie zazwyczaj satysfakcjonujący. Czy by mogło być inaczej?
Once upon a time, there was a boy who could not feel happiness when other people were joyful. He always responded with a minimizing commentary or disapproving face. He saw others smiling, chatting, playing and appreciating a warm cup of tea and a free biscuit on a table but he could not reciprocate. with a smile. His eyes were always stern, lip corners dropped, body posture irritated. ‘How can they be so happy?’ he was wondering all the time. ‘How can they be so happy when so little is done?’
He was very puzzled but fortunately quite capable of self-reflection too.
‘Am I envious of joy?’ He thought to himself appealing to his inner wisdom but could not satisfy himself with an honest answer.
Tired from his own thoughts and worries, he went to a nearby park where an elderly lady was sitting on a bench feeding birds with seeds. She was smiling and talking to the birds. She was happy. The boy got irritated again. ‘How can she be happy just like that? Feeding birds?’ And then he got curious as he recognized the feeling. ‘Miss, could I feed the birds with you?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ She answered passing him a bag of seeds. He started smiling but then as soon as he felt his own smile he got irritated with himself for smiling.
‘Miss, why am I angry with myself for smiling.’
‘I think it is something to do with your inner mirrors. It is because of your adult inner mirrors.’
‘Are they broken?’
‘Did you notice?’
Story and photography: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025. Copying without the explicit permission from the author is not permitted.
In smart work there is less joy than in a game of tag and time is running out for children and adults alike into the hustle and bustle of memories.
Who caught whom? No one asks about the tag But everyone writes a report On the questions they asked And answers they received Only relevant to self It seems
But to receive an answer Is to make a promise of gratitude.
No one knows Few understand
Has the person who asked got lost earlier? Or did they ask in time? To be grateful? Or to be done? Choose.
– Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini
Additional good read for this week:
This article has caught my attention this week. Very interesting read. This is the Key to Achieving ‘Time Affluence’ (click to read).
Poem and photography by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025. Copying without an explicit and written permission from the author is not allowed.
Po Polsku
W mądrej pracy jest mniej radości niż w grze w berka, a dzieciom i dorosłym czas ucieka tak samo w zgiełk wspomnień.
Kto kogo złapał? Nikt nie pyta, Ale każdy pisze raport Z pytań, które zadał I odpowiedzi, które otrzymał. Dotyczących tylko siebie Wydawać by się mogło. Ale otrzymać odpowiedź To złożyć obietnicę wdzięczności.
Nikt nie wie. Niewielu rozumie.
Czy osoba, która zapytała, zgubiła się wcześniej? Czy zapytała w porę?
Być wdzięcznym? Czy po prostu mieć wszystko zrobione? Wybierz.
Wiersz Alicji Pyszki-Franceschini, 2025.
Ten artykuł przykuł moją uwagę w tym tygodniu. Bardzo interesujący!
Artykuł w magazynie Forbes zatytułowany “To jest klucz do osiągnięcia ‘Bogactwa Czasu'” (kliknij w link tutaj)
Do następnego razu. x
Material Copyrighted by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025. Copying without an explicit and written permission from the author is not allowed.
Do you remember the song by Ed Sheeran called Photograph? The official music video consists of photographs and video cuts. These are from his early childhood and his early music career. I love the simplicity of it all and the sheer joy of watching a growing child, his first steps, his running around and the shrieks of a toddler finding his voice. It is so moving. The decor of his family’s house that is sealed in time. The hands of the family members that carefully assist him in making his first steps, in music or drawing, busking and then all the Happy Birthday’s sung together to celebrate the child. Call me sentimental, but that song makes me cry. It is all moving and all beautiful. I am very inspired by the song and the video. It inspires me to rediscover my own family archive. These are the good times.
Photos taken in Derby (UK), in Poland and in Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
It's somewhat hectic here. We have children's activities, paperwork, house maintenance projects, broken mobiles, travels, birthday parties and attempts at reviving our personal archives and histories. Everyday life has kept us on our toes and it is not a bad thing. This week I asked my six year old daughter what she is grateful for. Appreciation strengthens children's minds as much as it strengthens ours. She eagerly listed several things. She mentioned dinner time and that she is thankful for Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. She also appreciates PE and a friend who makes her laugh.
She elaborated that she is grateful for Wednesdays because a funny lady comes to her class. She makes them laugh. They do pretend play and practice dancing with YouTube at school. She likes Thursdays because there is a drama club. She can move and sing a lot. For Saturdays, because there is a Polish school. She plays with her friend there and she likes her a lot. She is happy about Sundays because there is a mass for children at the church. There is tea and coffee afterwards. She can run around and play with many different children. In short, she is happy with her childhood and enjoys acting and friends.
It had always been my dream to start a multilingual theater. I even started making small attempts at it. But lockdown happened and plans and preoccupations changed. That said, every so often, I captured our attempts at pretend play and we had a lot of fun. The children were delighted. I am so happy I captured some of those moments.
Back to the drama, isn't it satisfying to express yourself by playing a person with a different culture or character, to go a little beyond the comfort of your own psyche? To live many lives using different languages, accents and body movements? To understand problems that do not belong to us and to feel the joy of the achievements for which other people have trained?
And then to love our Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturday and Sundays... and be grateful for them just a bit more than for our Mondays. What could we do to repair their reputation? Surely, a lot of good happens on those days too.
And Fridays, she kept quiet about them. I wonder why?
What's in your busy schedule that you are grateful for right now?
Text and Photography: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025.
Copying or reproducing the material without the explicit permission from the author is prohibited.
Polish Translation
Witaj Drogi Czytelniku,
Jak się ostatnio miewasz?
U nas jest trochę gorączkowo. Mamy zajęcia dla dzieci, papierkową robotę, projekty związane z utrzymaniem domu, podróże, urodziny, zepsute telefony komórkowe i próby ożywienia naszych osobistych archiwów i historii. Codzienność trzyma nas w napięciu, co nie jest wcale takie złe. W tym tygodniu zapytałam moją sześcioletnią córkę za co jest wdzięczna. Docenianie wzmacnia umysły dzieci tak samo, jak nasze. Skwapliwie wymieniła kilka rzeczy. Wspomniała o porze obiadowej i o tym, że jest wdzięczna za środy, czwartki, soboty i niedziele. Ceni sobie też WF i przyjaciela, który ją rozśmiesza.
Wyjaśniła, że jest wdzięczna za środy, ponieważ do jej klasy przychodzi zabawna pani. Rozśmiesza ich. Udają, bawią się i ćwiczą taniec z YouTube w szkole. Lubi czwartki, bo ma kółko teatralne. Potrafi się dużo ruszać i śpiewać. Za soboty, bo jest polska szkoła. Bawi się tam ze swoją koleżanką i bardzo ją lubi. Cieszy się z niedziel, bo w kościele jest msza dla dzieci. Potem jest herbata i kawa. Potrafi biegać i bawić się z wieloma różnymi dziećmi. W skrócie, cieszy się dzieciństwem, a najbardziej wszelkimi próbami teatralnymi i przyjaciółmi.
Zawsze marzyłam o założeniu wielojęzycznego teatru i zaczęłam nawet podejmować małe próby, ale nastąpił lockdown i mi również plany i zainteresowania się zmieniły. Bawiła się z dziećmi czasem w teatr w domu, kiedy były mniejsze i podczas lockdownu. Dzieci były zachwycone. Tak się cieszę, gdy myślę o tych momentach, że ich kilka złapałam.
Wracając do dramatu, czyż nie jest satysfakcjonujące móc wyrazić siebie grając osobę o innej kulturze lub innym charakterze, troszeczkę wyjść poza komfort własnej psychiki? Przeżyć wiele żyć, posługując się różnymi językami, akcentami i ruchami ciała? Zrozumieć problemy, które do nas nie należą, i poczuć radość z osiągnięć, do których trenowali inni ludzie. A potem pokochać nasze środy, czwartki, soboty i niedziele... i być za nie wdzięcznym trochę bardziej niż za poniedziałki. A tak swoją drogą, to co możemy zrobić, aby poprawić im reputację? Z pewnością w tych dniach też dzieje się wiele dobrego.
Co dzieje się w Twoim napiętym harmonogramie, za co jesteś teraz wdzięczny?
Take me beyond forgiveness Where love ends all quarrels And gratitude replenishes hands Tired of work For nothing So it seems…
Take me beyond forgiveness Where I understand the concept of a nutrient without doubting its worth or value and I clean and I eat wisdom for breakfast and love for dinner. With you.
QUESTION TO PONDER
If you were to take yourself beyond forgiveness, where would you take yourself?
Who is ‘you’ for you?
What would be on your wisdom plate?
Acknowledgment: I first saw poetry combined with questions in the book 21 Spotkań. These questions lead to individual insight. Click here to see. It was written by Maciej Bennewicz and Katarzyna Zaremba. Both psychologists create poetic dialogues and work with metaphors that aid individual growth and self-understanding. The more humble I become, the more I grow in the appreciation of this approach.
May is a mental health awareness month and I would like to strengthen us all using my talents today in a similar manner. I learnt yesterday that a friend of mine died being only 48. She loved travelling and this blog too. I wish I had still a chance to eat a dinner with her. Travel. Keep on living. x
By engaging in this exercise you are practising these mental skills:
self-compassion
self-awareness
inner peace.
So if you were to take yourself beyond forgiveness, where would you take yourself?
Enjoy it.
POLISH TRANSLATION
WIERSZ
Zabierz mnie poza przebaczenie Gdzie miłość kończy wszelkie kłótnie A wdzięczność wypełnia dłonie Zmęczone pracą Za darmo Na to wygląda…
Zabierz mnie poza przebaczenie Gdzie rozumiem pojęcie składnika odżywczego nie wątpiąc w jego znaczenie i wartość I już teraz sprzątam i jem Mądrość na śniadanie i miłość do obiadu. Z Tobą.
PYTANIE DO ROZWAŻENIA
Gdybyś miał/miała zabrać siebie poza przebaczenie, dokąd zabrałabyś siebie?
Co by było dla Ciebie mądrością na śniadanie?
Z kim jadłabyś obiad?
Podziękowanie: Po raz pierwszy zetknęłam się z poezją połączoną z pytaniami w książce “21 spotkań”. Te pytania prowadzą do wglądu we właną sprawczość. Kliknij tutaj, aby zopoznać się z książką. Autorami tekstu są Maciej Bennewicz i Katarzyna Zaremba. Obaj psychologowie tworzą poetyckie dialogi i pracują z metaforami, które pomagają w indywidualnym rozwoju i zrozumieniu siebie. Bardzo doceniam to podejście.
Maj jest miesiącem zwiększania świadomości na temat zdrowia psychicznego i chciałbym nas wszystkich wzmocnić, używając moich talentów w podobny sposób. Wczoraj dowiedziałem się, że moja przyjaciółka zmarła mając zaledwie 48 lat. Uwielbiała podróże i ten blog. Chciałbym mieć jeszcze szansę zjeść z nią obiad lub kolację. ”Podróżujcie. Żyjcie dalej.” powiedziałaby dziś. x
Angażując się w to ćwiczenie, ćwiczysz poniższe umiejętności:
współczucie dla siebie
samoświadomość
wewnętrzny spokój.
Warto?
Więc: Gdybyś miał/miała zabrać siebie poza przebaczenie, dokąd zabrałabyś siebie?
Once upon a time we had a rabbit. The rabbit died over a year ago just on New Year’s Eve. We took the rabbit tray outside, it was in our garden collecting rain water and algae. It was a big cage, capacious. When the big freeze came over the last week all that water with algae froze creating interesting patterns and compositions. I chopped the ice with an old bread tin. It was also filled with heavy ice. Our son lifted it off the tray. He placed it next to his knee to show how tall and thick it was, impressive in size. I photographed the blocks of ice while they were still floating among the icy water and when son was holding the ice.
The algae surrounded them. I then post-processed the photos in Lightroom. My favourite abstract composition is below.
I wonder what you think of it all?
Let me know.
x
And yesterday while walking, I met this little being. I think its eye is in the abstract.
Writing and photography: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025, Home Studio, Derby, UK. Outdoor photo taken in Willington, South Derbyshire.
I’ve got an impression that last winter my mother was making this soup every three days for our children. Her grandson was competing with himself to see how many bowls he could comfortably consume. We all looked at him in disbelief, wondering where that quantity was disappearing. Surely, he was not spoon-feeding the dogs under the table. He loved it. Everyone else did too. They gladly returned from the cold and sat in front of a steaming bowl and each bowl came with a piece of popular Polish bread showered with flax seeds. Yummy.
Do you cook? What do you like making?
The knitted cloth that the soup is placed on is actually a scarf made by my aunt. It is so warm, you won’t believe. Shoulders wear it gracefully indebted to my aunt for many hours of her work. I was comforted by the softness of the scarf. The warmth of the soup also brought reassurance. I am grateful that my mum and aunt keep their skills fresh and that they continuously make an effort. It is mesmerizing to see how things emerge in other people’s hands. As if from nowhere…
Creativity blossomed in our house over the weekend. Icy weather gave us many opportunities to refresh and revive our spirit and gave us hope for a good and creative year. I hope you are feeling equally energized.
The photos of the soup were taken last year in Poland. The photo of my children was taken in Melbourne (UK) at Woodhouse Farm. Many thanks to Brian Woodhouse for allowing me to take photos on his farm and fields.
Below is a photo from my parents’ place in Poland.
How was your day? What you’ve been up to lately? I so rarely hear from you but you often hear from me. It would nice to hear from you. Who you are? Where you living now? What has awakened your heart recently? I am sending you a few photographs of our fairytale wonderland yard. They are still performing well against the darkness of the world. Making neighbours smile or wonder why they are still there. Wouldn’t it be lovely to get all our front yards’ decorations and place them all in our local park to make a magical fairytale land out of this world? Can you imagine children’s faces and all the wows exhaled with joys of laughter and fingers pointed: ‘Look at this!’ ‘Look at that?’ Maybe neighbours and local community centres would be up for it?
Sash Milne from Inked in Colour believed in the power of human connection and community. She planted a strong seed. Thank you for making the difference through your voice and writing, Sash. We can be resilient independently and we can be even more resilient together. Yes, we can.
And I was also thinking…
Sometimes magic is not readily available to everyone. Sometimes children cannot walk through the city or even ride through the city for various reasons. Sometimes it is because they have to stay at the hospital. And I think that they need magic too, so on the 24 December, trying to observe Polish tradition of having one more place at the table for a stranger I thought that no stranger would come really (they hardly ever come), but I thought to myself that I can be a stranger who makes someone feel better. And I think you can too. If you would like to.. so I wonder if you would like to manifest some hope and joy.. I have something in confidence to share or rather a recipe for joy to share. Good deeds are embarrassing to share but then The Gita for Children taught me this year that goodness leads to intelligence and it leads to knowledge. So perhaps you would like to do it too?
I bought these lovely aurora LED lights (click here to see) and I grabbed my second-hand copy of the book 100 Reasons to Hope. True stories of everyday heros(here) and I took them to our local hospital for the children on the inpatient ward to enjoy together with the nurses, doctors and other members of staff that were working during Christmas. The children’s team play coordinator was so moved. I felt I did the right thing and I’m feeling I am doing the right thing now too to share it with you. Maybe you would like to do the same for the children at your local hospital? Or others. Talk to your family and friends about it. Maybe they would like to do it together.
We have these lights at home too and we use them with my children of they are overly anxious or struggle to come down before going to sleep.
A bit of magic is so necessary when reality is too much to handle. Isn’t it?
It’s hard to see this. This amount of flooding and the road closure. It is easy to become overwhelmed. After all, we see Earth in a trauma response. With a compromised immunity system. When we cross Earth’s boundaries, Earth crosses ours. You feel this too? And yet Earth never stops being generous. Giving beyond the easily discernible. It tells us to look harder, better. Beyond the ‘road closure’ sign. There is art to be grateful for.
Two pieces of work abstracted from ice. Mostly created on this road.
I have one more post to share soon. Expect a new arrival on Sunday.
I hope you are really taking care of yourself. Make use of the refreshing icy weather if you’re based in this hemisphere. And do what makes you happier and stronger. Speak soon. x
We are all at home today doing jigsaw puzzles, listening to this relaxing music for children and experiencing some magic on the screen. It gives the room a warming atmosphere and it gives a festive touch to the living room bringing the fairy tale land inside the house.
‘Look mum, what I’ve done?’ our 5 year old said feeling a bit better today albeit still quite feverish. She took clear tape and wrapped it around a piece of card. ‘Look mum, I have a wiping board now.’ We practise writing and drawing on it and it was brilliant. Yesterday, she took a hoop and danced with it around the room to piano music, fluey but determined that ‘bed rotting’ is not what she would succumb to. Have you heard about it? In essence, it involves idling around in bed with food around watching videos, flicking through the phone or watching TV series and it is an increasingly common form of rest. Not necessarily the most helpful to our nervous systems long-term but it’s easy to understand the allure of it. (You can read about it here. The article is in Polish but Google can translate it for you.) The term itself, however, seems to me like a good blocker to excessive indolence. I hope our 12 year-old will embrace it in his lingo.
There is a pink silicone pig walking on our floor right now.
‘What do you like most?’ I asked my 5 year old.
‘Mum and pizza’.
‘And if you had to give up Mum or pizza, what would you give up?’
‘Play. I would give up play.’
Children are smart. Their instincts rule. They rely on their parents for survival and they rely on food for survival and when faced with a dilemma, they will most likely give up what brings them joy. And I guess that is why there is a pink silicone pig walking on our floor right now.
It’s funny. It’s loud and it has the biggest and the most loving eyes, I’ve ever seen. It makes us laugh a lot by being a keynote speaker at the dining table designed to revitalize our instinctual goofiness. We become as silly as it is by imitating, of course. You just cannot help it, can you? The pig honks, you honk. And so it goes.
What made you laugh this Christmas?
I wouldn’t have got the pig years ago when I was doing the Nothing New project or years later, but now I give in, perhaps too often, in order to remain sane and find internal balance between different societal requirements, personal values and competing ideologies that surround our thinking. I justify the not-so-environmental purchasing choices by ‘wanting to get to know my daughter’ but perhaps it is not the best justification or rationalization to have. Surely, there are hundreds of other ways to get to know her. But maybe it is also the way?
Have you ever watched The Fiddler on the Roof? The main character, Tevye the Dairyman is often torn between choices and decisions to make, mostly whether to allow each of his daughters to marry who they want or not. His internal dialogues are characterised by the phrase ‘but then on the other hand…’ He keeps on weighing the pros and cons of every choice and decision giving in either to the pressures of the outside world or his own feelings about the situation. He calculates. The rights, the wrongs, the benefits and potential losses. Don’t we feel similar today with all the array of choices that we have to make about our ways forward in life and our children’s wellbeing. We want to make a difference in their lives and for their futures and then we are like Tevye… ‘But then on the other hand…’
But then… the reminders or signposting of what is right for them come from our own children.
‘What should I do with my wedding shoes?’ ‘Should we give them away?’
‘Mum, could you keep it for me and then my daughter can have them after me. This would be nice.’
Children don’t always want to discard what we have. They don’t always want to have new things. They often appreciate things and what they appreciate they want to last.
Can you imagine our joy when we discovered a Brussels sprouts field and a flock of pheasants on our walk? Neither of them expected or planned. They felt like rewards for venturing beyond the comfort and warmth of the house when it was so tempting to be inside to make it all perfect for Christmas. We did not plan to make it all perfect for Christmas. We planned to go through it with good and steady pace that would render us less fragile and susceptible to germs in winter and would give us time and space for progressive clean-up. Haven’t quite succeeded at that as the younger one managed to catch a cold that has just developed into a 38.5 fever but we’re trying so I commend us for trying.
Back to the joy related to the Brussels sprouts field. I was thrilled. The kids even more. I felt someone was reminding us where the Christmas food was coming from and feeling both an awe and gratitude for those that must have worked very hard for these small green balls to appear on our table was a very natural response to have. All of a sudden the connection between what we eat and what is grown around us became very clear to the children. It was great to see it.
We walked a trail that we took years ago on a Mother’s Day but we took a slightly different route this time – one that guarantees an enormous amount of psychological space. I appreciate this so much. This feeling of being unobstructed by buildings, houses, objects, cars or people is life-giving. Our thoughts and anxieties need to be processed somewhere and when we travel through spaces like this one, they seem to be swimming away into a distance and it’s easier to detach.
I think I cannot live without vast spaces and open landscapes. The breathing spaces. That trail years ago was my treat and it remains so. With new routes discovered as we follow the children’s instincts and wishes. They discover paths, we agree to follow and in return we discover new vistas. It is a very fair arrangement. Well… as long as we don’t get lost and there is a safe path of return…
As for the pheasants, aren’t they mesmerizing? Always a joy to see one passing across a road, let alone to see a flock of them landing on a grass patch next to not-even-slightly bewildered sheep. You end up being twice surprised. First, with the number of pheasants appearing at once, a second time with the calmness of the resting sheep. ‘Haven’t you noticed what I have just noticed?’ You almost want to nudge them to get curious, to little or no avail.
Wherever you are, I hope you are relaxing now and if you fancy a bit of magic in your living room, to cater to children around you or your inner child, I recommend this magical relaxation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRSAx2gwDA To bring the fairytale land inside your home or wherever you are right now.
Thank you, Dear Readers, for visiting Postcards Without Stamps. My gratitude today if for your presence and love of reading. I hope that every page you read will contribute to your greater well-being and you will accumulate strength, resilience and joy.
Two tiny colourful dwarfs are proudly standing on our front yard at the moment bringing, I hope, happy smiles to delivery men that seem to be stopping on our street more often this week than usually. I wonder why… Children feel happier when they come back from school – the dwarfs make up for a lack of a dog to some small extent. They do not wag any tails, but they have funny hats and welcoming expressions and it is of course always nicer to return to a fairyland rather than to a grey and sad looking front garden full of sticks. That said, even the sticks, when they hold some lights, they change purpose. They seem to be designed for charm rather than hibernation. I think there is even a device that uses this re-purposing function of a stick. I think this device is called a magic wand.
Last week was filled with school performances, studying and end-of-year reflections and cleaning and sorting (I am still at it). We got so frustrated with the state of the house that we decided to stay at home over Christmas to finish our small-renovations and to restore the state of the house to a hospitable condition. It might be not the most glamorous way of spending the Christmas holiday but to be honest I could not bare the thought of going somewhere for rest, just to return to a house that is in a constant state of disarray. It has been like this for a bit too long for us and we must face the dreaded renovation before 2025 pops in for a longer stay. Interestingly, if you look for synonyms to the word renovation, you are likely to get such words as ‘redevelopment’, ‘improvement’, ‘renewal’, ‘restoration’ which are actually quite positive in sound and are fitting well into the theme of the new year. They are not quite close enough to the ‘new me’ type of concept, but perhaps a bit more true to reality since what we refresh or improve has already got its life and a beating heart. All that it needs is some work and attention. What do you feel would make your renewal possible during these coming weeks?
Last week I attended a supervision meeting with Maciej Bennewicz Institute of Cognitive Studies. There is always a sense of relief after discussing serious matters and dilemmas with others so I am very grateful today to the Institute for giving us the opportunity to discuss what we are troubled by and for taking very seriously the cognitive and relational dilemmas that professionals have. The Institute is well-known in Poland for its unique focus on Psychology of Subjective Experience as well as cognitive sciences and social psychology and provides support and guidance to coaches, tutors, mentors and psychologists. Back at home my mum worked as a social worker and she never had this type of support and I think her life would have been much easier if it was a staple at the time. I hope, Dear Reader, that you now have this type of support if you need it, wherever you are. This aside, Maciej Bennewicz practices a daily habit of posting a reflection or story online. He shares it on Facebook or in his publications. These posts are koans. Their structure and purpose derive from a Chinese tradition. They aim to open the door to a different way of seeing a situation. The story might seem illogical or paradoxical in some way. You can read his stories here. I always like this type of thought-provoking writing and I thought I would modestly attempt my own short-story here but on the theme of gratitude (somewhat inspired by the dwarfs on my lawn too) that might perhaps be more helpful to you than my own personal list of gratitudes. It would be lovely to write quite a few of those and to turn them into a book too. It seems like a worthy aim. :)
Forest Loops
Once upon a time there was a little boy who went to the forest to collect berries. He walked for over 3 miles, reached the woodland and searched everywhere for the berries but he could not find them. He left the forest upset and angry with the forest that it bore no berries. He only walked for a mile when a woodland dwarf stopped him and asked him why he was so upset. He explained that he went to the forest but found no berries and was upset that the whole journey was wasted. The woodland dwarf told him to go back to the forest and take the same walk again. The boy hesitantly did as he was told, walked through the forest and as he predicted he found no berries. He left the forest even more upset. When he met the dwarf on his way back, he complained loudly and angrily to him. The dwarf again instructed him to go back to the forest and take the same route. The boy although upset did as he was told and walked the same route for the third time. He found no berries and with anger headed home. The dwarf waited for him in the same spot and did not allow him to walk away. The boy exploded with anger and shouted at the dwarf to which the dwarf simply pointed to the forest and told him to walk there again. The boy being thoroughly upset entered the forest again. ‘There are no berries here!’ ‘There are no berries here!’ ‘There are no berries here!’ he kept on shouting and the echo was reiterating what he had already known. The boy sat down on a stone disappointed and angry and looked around. He saw some mushrooms glistening under a birch tree. He picked them and put them in his basket. Then he walked further and found more mushrooms, and then some more and kept on picking them until his basket was full. Then he noticed golden coloured leaves that would make a good crown for his sister’s school performance and filled his pockets with them and when he was walking further he saw a fallen tree and thought that the he will take a few branches for firewood. Equipped with woodland graces, he ventured home worried that he would meet the dwarf again. The dwarf was there waiting for the boy, looked at him and smiled broadly seeing the boy with the basket full of mushrooms, pockets filled with leaves and wooden branches on his back. ‘Now, you are ready to go back home’ the dwarf told him. The boy looked at the dwarf surprised and went back home.
Both photographs taken at The Birches, Ambergate, Derbyshire, UK.
Images and photographs copyrighted by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2024.
(...) When ego bursts It makes space For the other...
Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, Autumn 2024
From the anthology On Immaturity (not yet published) by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini Photograph: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, Ambergate, The Birches, Derbyshire, UK
I suspect you’ve been extremely busy this week, getting yourself ready for Christmas and making plans for days to come, completing tasks that had to be done.
Life has been hectic for us too in the last few days and Tuesday disappeared under specialist appointments, quick drop-ins to friends, school matters and joint learning.
I have, therefore, only a humble gratitude point to share this week. I am thankful today for good moments that we spontaneously initiate.
The photo below was taken at a farm nearby. I will forever remember my son cheekily running after a pheasant that proudly strolled around the field and my frustration that I couldn’t stop him (my son, not the pheasant). Young, energetic, stubborn. As most of them are at that age, I think.
The photo above was taken during a solo walk around our local woodland, Stanhope Woods, near Trent and Mersey Canal, Stenson, Derbyshire. I thought that I’ll share this with you before winter replaces autumnal decor with its frosty brush strokes.
So today I am thankful for spontaneous ventures that turn into memories captured and revived in photographs.
Is it only me or have you also noticed that we are buying less than in the past two years in the UK? Of course, inflation has a lot to do with it. The realistic capacities of our rooms and houses also play a role and, I guess, our self-control has vastly increased too. I have an impression that we shop differently now. That said, when you add something to your shopping basket, what do you like to add? When I was a kid we used to love when my auntie was coming back home from her shopping trips. We loved to see what she bought for herself and her kids. It was a shared delight, of sorts. But now these type of conversations have gained a different flavour to them and consumerism is not as straight-forward as it was in the past, but we do like talking about it so, prompted by a recent debate on BBC Radio Derby, I thought that I will ask you if you impulse-buy a lot and how you go about it?
From observing myself, my children and people around me, I noticed that impulse-buying rarely translates to over-buying everything. It is usually the same type of item that lands in our shopping carts and often that item is simply something that we find of value but also something that we get ourselves anxious about, be it health, education or cleanness, entertainment, or belonging. Anxiety can have a strong grip over us and does manifest itself in sudden weight-losses in our wallets. Sometimes, don’t get me wrong, it is so worth it. We invest in a better quality of life, a peace of mind and a sense of shared experience. We also invest in a smoother flow to our days. But when the impulses become another problem to solve, we feel that they no longer work in our favour.
But how about if we think that actually the impulses are working in our favour? That there is something that they are trying to say to us that we have to notice. Maybe that you are already this thing that you have bought over the years. That you are already healthier, cleaner, more educated, funnier, greener than several years ago. Keeping our confidence stable about ourselves and knowing that we are surrounded with people who notice our growth is I guess what could quite successfully reduce our propensity for impulse-buying. It would keep us in a good mental space.
Should we agree then that next time we shop, we notice our inner needs first and our growth?
Conscious-consumerism is a legitimate state of mind. :)
This post was promoted by a discussion on BBC Radio Derby that happened a few weeks ago. It seems like a relevant topic to tackle before Christmas.
On the 31st of October, we celebrated in Derby the festival of light, Diwali alongside other festivities and the hype of Halloween. It can seem a bit strange that I am writing about this on Thanksgiving Day but on the other hand I feel it is most appropriate because in fact we rarely give thanks to each other for permissions to see and participate in the lives of our diverse communities. When we start to socialise into the routines of communities other than our own, we spot differences but at the same the common needs and burdens as well as the efforts to make us feel welcomed and included. This is a lot to be thankful for.
When years ago I started a doctorate (and never completed) at MOSAIC at the University of Birmingham in Multilingulism with the use of autoethnography as a research method, I was learning how to write about oneself as placed in a multicultural British landscape and in an eclectic family. The task was confusing and insurmountable at times and for a long time I could not pin down where the difficulties were coming from. Until of course I understood… One was coming from a commonly held belief that talking about oneself is not the done thing, let alone to research oneself in the context of multiple cultures… this seems even more odd. Anyhow, my doctorate collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic under the pressure of ill health, two small home-educated kids, my husband’s increased workload (no, he was not on furlough) and my need for creative rest that I am still very much a supporter of. That said, although my doctorate collapsed, the need to engage in local communities remains strong.
On the surface looking into the culture of a different community seems like having nothing in common with doing research into oneself, except when the holy scripture of that group teaches you a lot about self-intelligence and its importance for life well lived. The Gita actually uses the term ‘self-intelligence’ in its writing legitimizing self-knowledge, discipline and broader awareness of values that govern us and our choices. Indeed, who would we become without our ability to self-reflect and observe.
In the book Natural Law & Natural Rights, John Finnis lists 7 basic goods of human life necessary for our well-being. Among them, he lists: 1) life (itself with health, safety and self-preservation), 2) knowledge, 3) play, 4) aesthetic experience, 5) sociability (friendship), 6) practical reasonableness and 7) religion which of course concerns itself with love, the importance of truth, goodness, transcendence and the boundaries of human freedom. These common goods order and create what we call ‘quality of life’ and determine our overall satisfaction of life. Thus, part of learning about each other and our cultures is to see how we go about those values and common goods in our cultural groups and settings.
So here are a few postcards from Diwali as observed in Geeta Bhawan in Derby. For this post, I asked two mums to whom I chatted about the Gita, Radhe and Sarbjit, to explain to me who and what I saw at the Temple. They replied on WhatsApp.
Who are the gods/ deities here?
Radhe answered: ‘Shiva (with Trident) Parvati Devi (also known as Durga). In her arms Ganesha.
That peacock is standing besides Radha and Krishna’
“Abode of Krishna is called VrindaVan (Forest of Tulsi plants – one type of basil)
So eternally Krishna lives in a forest..residents of VrindaVan possess pure love for Krishna.
So in eternal vrindavan Krishna z devotees are in the eternally in the form of trees, parrots, peacocks, cows, cowherd boys, cowherd girls. Their forms are based on how they want to love Krishna…that will be a long discussion
Anyways, the story goes once Krishna was playing on his flute and has invited the animals of VrindaVan for a dance. Peacocks were dancing very gracefully. Soon Krishna joined their dance, looking at Krishna dancing peacocks started marveling his dancing.
Then the peacocks offered their best possession to Krishna, peacock feather. Krishna accepted their offering and honored it by always wearing peacock feather on his head.
In the middle, if I see correctly is Gopal – baby form of Krishna. Krishna reciprocates to the desires of his devotees. Many devotees want to love him as their own child so they worship him as Baby Gopal.
We worship deities by offering them clothes, food, jewellery.
So the deities are dressed in different colours the day you visited the dress happened to be of purple colour. Their is no particular significance of purple colour.
Next time if you ever choose to go you may see them in a different colour.
Traditionally on full moon day deities are offered a white dress.
On ekadashi (one day from the lunar calendar) offered a red dress.
By offering service to deity form of the Lord one can get purified of sinful desires. Sometimes people offer such service as an expression of gratitude.”
“Food has an significant impact on our consciousness. In Bhagvad Gita you may have studied about Sattvik, Rajasik, Tamasik.
We offer Sattvik food to the Krishna. When he accepts that offering it becomes Prasadam (which means Grace/mercy)
Prasadam will purify our consciousness.
That fruit was Prasadam. (…)
You visited the Temple on Diwali day, on Diwali people worship Lakshmi Devi and ask for prosperity.
[In the framed photo] is Lakshmi Devi, goddess of wealth.”
I also asked Sarbjit who visits the temple to tell me about a senior person who was distributing fruit towards the end of the prayer as I did not know who he was. Sarbjit replied, “If that man was wearing different clothes, then it was a Pandit. Otherwise, he could be a sevadar (volunteer).” During the worship people walk around the alter and worship each god separately after that they receive a piece of fruit, just before they leave the temple. The man very humbly told me that he is not a scholar in the study of religion and that there was someone else there who could have done it if I was there a lot earlier. But what he said, was that the most important thing is to remember that the gods/ the deities are indestructible and that what we as human beings cannot correct, they will do it for us. They will correct all the wrongs. This message I found to be most comforting. I hope you do too.
Happy Thanksgiving. May the light of Diwali keep on shining on us.
Thank you to Nikhila and Karthik for agreeing to be featured in the photographs for this blog post. Additional gratitude goes to Radhe and Sarbjit who supported me with their understanding of the customs here. Thank you very much.
Any comments and corrections more than welcome. :) Thank you all.
The text I referred to in the article is:
Finnis, J. (2011) Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
How have you been lately? We are in the National Tree Week in the UK right now and it seems utterly wrong to me not to acknowledge it. In the simplest of terms possible, trees keep us going, don’t they? To them and because of them. Sometimes it is their depth that invites us, other times it’s their shadow. Kind enough to overlook our mischief, tender enough to sense our sadness, generous enough to handle our joys. We return energized after reconnecting with their and our essence. We become ourselves and I guess that British English informal saying ‘To be out of one’s tree’ (meaning to behave somewhat crazy) is to a large extent an indicator of our reliance on trees for long-lasting sanity. It is a shared feeling, isn’t it?
Well.. to give trees and our connection to them a just thought and an appreciative stance, I wrote a few verses for this week and read a few pages of The Power of Trees by Peter Wohlleben to get myself into the topic. It is one of my favourite texts on trees and a consistent inspiration for me as the novel that I am writing is primarily based in an ancient woodland. Alfred Wainwright, a British walker, illustrator and the author of A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, gave himself 13 years, if I remember correctly, to finish his guides, I haven’t given myself that much time but my novel finds it hard to become a coherent piece. Nonetheless, I plan to finish it by the end of July 2026. It is a labour of love and I would like it to stay so. Are there any texts among your favourites that speak of trees and forests?
After I wrote the post about The Gita for Children by Roopa Pai, a few amazing things happened. One event led to me receiving the original Gita by post from someone. We were also invited to a lecture on the differences between Christ and Krishna (photos soon). I embraced it all because sometimes The Essence wants to come to us through multiple channels. I know that the Gita takes nature seriously and I am very curious of its approach to it. After all, our spiritual lives are one of our primary influences in shaping our ecopsychologies and our mindsets for scarcity or abundance, gratitude or non-recognition.
Hello you, Tree. Make us See. That without you, The course of life Forgets to breathe And goes wrong ways.
Through the dungeons of politics As dense as a carved slice of fog Placed in a jar of uncast votes That suffocate the future.
The tree, oh comfort and respite.
It stays potent and flexibly solid With its roots extending to neighbouring hills and branches simultaneously strong and tender protected by years of genetic experience against the utterly predictable forces of chaos.
The tree sways and it is its strength.
Chaos reigns Itself out of recognition. And it is its catastrophe.
The tree makes only one promise. To grow It gives you oxygen In partial compensation for space taken. As if it had to…
Furniture, instruments, books, crayons, utensils Firewood, bird-nests, frames and sledges are the givens within but in fact beyond expectations. This is how the tree excels Even after death.
If you like being inspired by woodland photography, see Nigel Danson’s Gallery for woodland and landscape photography. The gallery feels like a gentle massage for the mind and I can assure you it will be one of those moments of giving oneself some caring love to look through Nigel’s photos. They are great pieces of art. Enjoy them.
And let me know, how you are, will you?
The photos were taken in The Birches, Ambergate, Derbyshire as well as in our local park in Derby.
Irrespective if you are someone flamboyant about your gratitudes or modest in expressing them, Tuesdays seem to be the right day to create a list of blessings and positive experiences. To ward off the anxieties that might be resurfacing midweek and to keep our mind calm and to make our heart palpitate gladly.
The Life with The Crew started The Thankful Tuesdays. I want to cultivate this blogging custom. I believe it serves us all well. Do you want to join in?
Here I go with mine. Today I am grateful for:
– the snow, the snow, the snow… that did not melt too quickly and the fox that appeared in our garden just after midday
– my friend’s successful knee operation and his quick recovery and our chat over a cup of coffee and his sharing of insights and wisdom from life
– for a very considerate friend who dropped Castor oil at my doorstep to improve blood circulation in the shoulders
– a husband who made a lovely Mediterranean style lentil dish with leek and green pumpkin and parsley (on the blog soon)
– translators who translate children’s stories and allow us to move between languages but within the same storytelling sphere: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, La Strega Rosella – translated by the incredbly skilled Laura Pelaschiar, and the Polish version entitled ‘Miejsce na Miotle’ by translated by the excellent Michał Rusinek
– Jodie Wilson from Practising Simplicity for encouraging Yoga as a gentle exercise for busy lives, very useful for frozen shoulders too and any problems with posture that result from attached monkeys to our hips (be it kids or cameras) and also for her indirect encouragement to contact blog readers
– for Adam Phillips’ book On Getting Betterand his ability to put into words what we tend to hide from ourselves, i.e. that our transferences and regressions intensify with our resistance :)
– for our daughter who said today that she wants to do her homework on her own and allowed me to load the dishwasher in the meantime
– for the recent Outdoor Photography Magazine and the glorious portfolio review by Massimo Leotardi and their reminder that we are soon going into a National Tree Week that is uniting all the tree lovers in the UK (see treecouncil.org.uk). This is one of our favourite magazines at home and we like to have a conversation over the photographs in the morning either by exiling tensions over the landscape photographs or by giggling and wowing over aquatic creatures or mice hiding in a hollow apple
– our morning routine that has just greatly improved due to a managerial trick, i.e. a checklist with all that needs to be taken to schools. Seriously, we need it. Our working memory is only capable of remembering six items at once. Everything else is an excess. We also use a simple linguistic change of words. Instead of saying ‘Speed up’, we say ‘Focus on buttoning up your shirt’, etc. So we focus on the actual activity that we want the children to complete and use the verb ‘focus on’. In that way, the morning routine is smoother for all of us and we have nicer starts to the day.
– for a glorious Journey Through Time and Light event at Crich Tramway Village that has put us in a festive mood and brought a huge anticipation of joy for the coming Christmas season
– for finding ways of preparing our son for his weekly Polish dictation tests at his Saturday School.. gosh this was a hard nut to crack..
What would you put on your list?
At Crich Tramway Village, A Journey Through Time and Light, Derbyshire, 2024
I am sharing with you a blog post. I wrote it years ago while writing about living simply for a year.
I hope you don’t mind me asking if you are still interested in this topic? Also, would you like me to continue writing about living simply? I have departed quite a lot from the topic over the years. Since you are still subscribing, I wonder what you would like to read about? What has initially triggered your interest in Postcards Without Stamps? I definitely need to return to living simply.
We are very lucky in Derby to be surrounded with cultures. I often feel that we timidly coexist while in fact inside we are almost bursting with curiosity and a wish to get to know each other and to join in with each other’s customs at least in some manner.
The Gita for Children by Roopa Pai has planted a strong seed in me. On that Halloween day, I felt a desire. I wanted to see Diwali celebrated for at least a few minutes. After all, it does not happen often enough when the two coincide.
This was a very short and spontaneous visit to a nearby shop. I got stuck in traffic on my way to our local Polish shop to buy a few things for our trip to the Lake District. While waiting in the car, I looked at the shop on the right. I felt instantaneously comforted. In the darkness that enveloped us, their lights were lit. People were joyfully chatting and pointing to the colourful sweets. They were about to take them home and share with their families. The atmosphere was festive and very inviting. I just finished trick-or-treating around our neighbourhood with my little ones. One was dressed as a black cat, the other as a ghost. I was pleased to see how many people celebrated both or all. There was an All Saints Day happening in our Catholic religion a day after.
This is the world we live in. I often sing this to myself while I’m trying to give myself the right to experience and celebrate our city’s diversity and the inherent beauty in what we can produce: in food, language, customs, lifestyles and endeavours. Living in Derby can be in so many ways like travelling the world…
So above is a short photos essay from our local vegetarian Indian take-away and a sweet centre – Krishna Sweet Centre in Derby. The owner has kindly agreed for me to photograph his shop. It features clothing and traditional diyas – the candle and oil holders. They are adorned with traditional patterns. The shop also displays dresses and hair ornaments. He directed me to the Hindu temple Geeta Bhawan. There, I saw the fireworks while the stars were shining. I was reminded that Krishna is the god that plays the flute. I saw the offerings and rang a bell in the temple. I asked very politely to be guided around the praying custom. Everyone was so kind.
If you’ve got a child aged 12 or around, you would most likely have enough data on their likes and interests and you would probably see that some subjects always prick their ears and they like discussing them. Among football, biology, history and Minecraft, religious studies are my son’s favourite. He is very keen on learning and discussing different religious wisdoms, beliefs, traditions, and customs. When I was sent The Gita for Children by Roopa Pai by IBBY (International Board of Books for Young People) two years ago, I was thrilled. I knew that we could have a good time together.
The Gita for Children written by Roopa Pai and it is an introduction to The Gita, the sacred scripture of the Hindus. The book has a very intriguing purple, golden and dark blue cover and beautifully drafted drawings inside by Sayan Mukherjee and the elements of script that I could not recognize or comprehend. The elements of script used in the book are shlokas, otherwise understood as stanzas of Bhaghavad Gita.
Two years ago the book however was a bit too dense and difficult for our son to delve into with my help and on his own, but as we know, children mature and their mind’s abstract conceptual maps grow with them and what was a bit early to access two years ago, may find fertile ground in a boy who has just started his secondary school and is mature enough to admit: ‘Mum, I need your guidance. I need a lot of it.’ Now, this is a terrifying request for most of us, adults, these days as we seem to be navigating without a compass through the obstacles and challenges of our era, unsure which ways lead to greater good and less internal turmoil. If you read the backside cover of The Gita for Children, you are already presented with some answers, as the publisher, Swift, chose the following extract from the book:
‘The truth is, Partha,’ Krishna said, ‘there is no “better” path. Both paths – the path of knowledge and the path of action – work just as well. It is up to you to pick the one that you are suited to.”
This permission to choose a path encourages you to read on and learn more about The Gita and delve into this introduction to the sacred scripture of the Hindus and to slow down a bit to learn and reflect on wisdoms that we are surrounded with but we do not access. I took Roopa Pai’s book for a walk in Derby around our local canal to breathe in its wisdom with fresh air and I thought I’ll share with you here some of my favourite quotes as they may speak to you too.
“… the soul goes to that which the mind has been thinking about in its last moments.” p. 118
“ God does not belong to the privileged. (…)
All He needs is love.”
“Think of me as infinite space, the space around and above me below you – the grand theatre of the suns and the stars and the might wind; which holds the seed of everything in the Universe” p.132
“I do not favour one being over another; they are all the same to me…”
“Go(o)d will find a way.” p.65
“From goodness is born knowledge, and the fruit of the action is joy; from passion arises greed, and the fruit of passionate action is pain; from dullness arises negligent and wrong action, and its fruit is ignorance.” p. 194
I hope you enjoyed the walk with The Gita.
P.S.1. As if by chance ‘gita’ in Italian means ‘a walk’ while the holy scripture ‘Gita’ means ‘a song’.
P.S.2. For all those who love to walk, this walk started at Stenson Marina in Derby, walk towards Willington Marina (to the right while facing the canal).
(in the next post I will share with you some photographs from the celebration of Diwali that took place in Derby. It does not happen too often when Diwali is celebrated on the same day as Halloween and a day before the Catholic celebration of All Saints (in Poland also knows as the Day of the Deceased when we place candles and wreathes on our ancestor’s graves and reminisce about them).
If you mention a crumble to a Polish person, they would most likely very instinctively say that in Poland we have something quite similar but it is called ‘drożdżówka’ and it is actually a yeast-based cake that we often make with plumbs (or other fruit) when summer fades away and autumn takes charge of the table.
‘Drożdżówka’ has been always the treat that came out of my aunty’s oven every Sunday after the eleven o’clock mass that our priest always struggled to conclude. Hands were getting colder, legs were getting restless and as our stomachs were rapidly shrinking in size, our souls were working out their patience. Nourished with the Word of God, we either ran to our car or rushed to the pavements in hope for a piece of cake and a warming cup of hot coffee at my aunty’s place. ‘Niech Będzie Pochwalony Jezus Chrystus’ (May Lord Jesus Christ be Praised) was what used to be boldly exclaimed entering her kitchen. ‘Na wieki wieków, Amen’ (Now and ever shall be) was the reply. Interestingly, I observe, these words are slowly exiting our Polish culture as I hear us often saying ‘I’m back’ instead of the customary Christian greeting. I like the Christian greeting and it seems to me that our Sunday ritual is not entirely completed without those words. Ethnographers tend to notice these shifts in language patterns quite quickly just as they would note changes in how cakes are made. ‘Drożdżowka’ has changed and evolved in those Polish houses everywhere where the dietary requirements kicked in or other preferences are taking over, like losing weight, for instance.
The English crumble, I feel, is what is replacing this cake in families such as ours where gluten and egg whites, cow’s milk are off the menu and yeast should be avoided. Now, of course, there are hundred of ways in which crumble can be made and eaten. The one that I photographed here was made with apples and pears, honey (from my dad’s beehives), cinnamon, gluten free flour, coconut flour and coconut oil. I must admit I feel a bit like Willy Wonka by showing you photos of a dessert for a second-week in a row and I worry that the police will come and fetch me for introducing sweets to the city, but I am sure that you understand it very well that it is all done in the good faith of preserving childhood dreams and mother’s sanity as photographing it and writing it all up in a small kitchen with two frozen shoulders is not a small effort. ;)
So last week I had these questions in mind/ obstacles while photographing:
– how to photograph the food when the kids want to eat it straight away
– how to photograph left overs or food partially eaten in a manner that is acceptable to the eye but at the same to preserve the sense of realism
– how to make use of the sink
Essentially, I had this problem that we ate too much of it and too quickly but in all honesty waiting is difficult with hungry kids and all that you can do is to ask them to leave at least some for later or spoon some out before serving to preserve it for the photo (which comes in handy even a day after when you come back home from a cold walk and crave for some warming food). The crumble was lovely, but it resembled more of a pie than a crumble, I guess, because there was quite a lot of the dough. The dish was fairly flat, made of porcelain, rectangular and white. The very first thing that I thought of was that there would need to be a separation between the white colour of the dish and the white of the sink for a clearer composition so I decided to put it on a decoupaged beige tray that a differnt aunt of mine gave me a few years ago. I placed the dish with the tray in the sink for some photos to see what the effect would be with the white frame around the decoupaged try but in the end I like the one that sat higher on the edge of the sink as it gave me more depth to the background. The bits stuck to the side of the crumble pie dish were visible and quite unsightly so I decided to colour match the custard with a small towel and I placed it on the right side of the dish to cover the crumbs. That was done for the close-up. For a broader view, I looked for an additional item in the kitchen that again would somewhat decorate the food and take attention away from the fact that it was gluttonously devoured. I had this elegant chipped little coffee cup that I thought would take the attention and I placed it on a few wooden trays to give it prominence and posture. To complete the picture I used Contrastly autumn calm filters to give it it a calming and relaxing mood and feel – I wanted to evoke a feeling of calm after storm, one that you experience once the children are asleep and guests have gone home, and you are just on your own cleaning the kitchen. I included here also a backstage photo with my ring light for you to see how I positioned the light. I was taking the photos while standing on the left, just behind the ring light. On the backstage photo, the cup’s hand is directed at you. This is a compositional mistake. I remember a long time ago, I attended a course on children photography with Elena Shumilova and I couldn’t understand why one of the photos that I took of my daughter was compositionally worse than other ones. In that photo my daughter was sitting sideways and her elbow was somewhat lifted. Elena explained to me that it looked as if she was elbowing the viewer’s eye and in a way this is exactly what this cup appears to do in this backstage photo. It looks as if it was trying to elbow you so it is not the desired and the intended composition for a pleasing shot. Just the backstage photo. :)
Back to the topic of crumbles, last Sunday we visited Bradgate Park in Leicestershire and we stopped at the Coach&Horses for Sunday meal before the walk. Their crumble was a much healthier version to ours, I feel, as it had I think almost a triple the amount of fruit and it had less flour. As a result, theirs was a less fatty option to choose from. Avoid ours. But give photography at least an afterthought… :)
What have you been making recently?
Till now.
Alicja
P.S. I found heat patches to be very useful in easing my pain in the shoulders while I lift the camera up and while I hold it. I am using these ones at moment: Deep Relief Heat Patches. They might be useful to you too.
The Society of Authors has recently justly expressed in ‘The Author The Journal of the Society of Authors’ its strong disapproval regarding authors’ work being sent to to A.I. generators to create texts for education. This is apparently frequently done without authors’ permissions or consultations. Similar doubts, I suspect, appear among online writers and bloggers who simply worry that their writing style, crafted for years, would be hacked into and reproduced in multiple ways depriving the original author of their well-earned and unique voice. These worries are of course not alien to me and I do often question online publishing knowing at the same time that a lack of online presence reduces greatly my own verbal productivity and outreach to minds that also like to create with words (or images). That said, on examining my own writing styles, I can simply say that I am also made out all that I read over the years and my own inner A.I. brain is defiantly activated when I read or hear good writing. Tuning into styles is very common for language learners and decoders and I think it is our common pleasure, just as artists like to create a bit in the style of someone.
A long time ago I attended a photography talk at a camera club given by Paul Mitchell on woodland photography. I do remember being very much inspired by his work. To copy Paul Mitchell is impossible but to embrace his appreciation of the subject does not require much, especially if you happen to grow up next to a forest but were somehow dissuaded from heading that direction and then felt cheated when the adults went there themselves just before Christmas to find evergreens to decorate. ‘So is the forest safe or unsafe to visit?’
I know what answer The Woodland Trust would give, especially when it comes to visiting their trees, ferns and fungi..
I have been writing for a while now some poetry and fiction that features little bits or significant elements of the woodland and I am overcoming my fear of being eaten by the A.I. monster. I hope you will find it enjoyable and I hope you will visit your nearest woodland soon before all the leaves are hijacked by the wind and pathways turn to mud.
Apparently, it’s going to be misty tomorrow… time to get the cameras ready.
When children scream for sweets during the weekend, my husband occasionally makes them small biscuits (biscotti) without following any particular recipe except for obeying one rule and that is no white of egg as our son cannot tolerate it. When egg whites accumulate something needs to be done with them and when the sweet tooth screams the loudest, the temptation wins. We know that one day we will eliminate the sugar totally out of our family life, but last Sunday was not the day for it. I must admit I have a bit of a soft spot for meringues as they remind me of the time when the supermarkets were not common in Poland but hens on everyone’s yards were and instead of buying wrapped chocolate bars, mums and aunties would make meringues (bezy) as a treat. The Polish version was a bit smaller than those on the photos and more golden but I guess they were equally sweet and I must say I am a bit sentimental about this treat as much as I understand that it is most likely the last thing you should eat when you’re dealing with any sort of inflammation. But I am not here to preach but to teach and to share a few tips on how to make your life easy when photographing food while suffering from frozen shoulders or similarly painful conditions.
Last week I wrote about the use of the bottom drawer for set-ups to prevent having to lift your camera too high and to protect the set up from children running through the kitchen. This week I want to tackle a different obstacle, i.e. the weight of surfaces on which we photograph and their ease of moving and lifting.
Photographers are usually extremely grateful people. I have observed these creative minds for quite a while now and I learnt from them that sometimes the smallest tip changes the outcome of one’s practice for the better and for years and so I have learnt not to dismiss the value of the tiniest improvement I make for myself because small moves matter to our bones and joints as much as to our compositions and final images.
So the first simple tip today is: to avoid excessive weight lifting, appreciate flimsy things, the washing basket that you probably thought would not hold too much weight, the flower pot stand made of willow or the just delivered item in a box made of card. You can shuffle these around your kitchen with ease and you can then move them when the light changes during the day.
The second tip is: use light wood or light canvases as surfaces to photograph your food on. Canvases can be super thin and easy to lift but they are not as light as paper and so they hold food on them quite well. You can lift the canvas with your hand up and down easily to create the shadows that you want around your food. This is significant especially if as a maturing photographer you are already caring for your triangles in the composition. In the photos below I was purposefully creating triangles either with my arrangements or with the shadows. I was lifting the colourful canvas towards the light in such a way that the triangle was not only on the designed surface but also was dropped by the meringues giving the photos interesting look that created a bit of visual tension too – as what the drawn triangle on the surface was pointing to the right and the shadows dropped by the meringues to the left.
The additional benefits of using canvases are that you can leave them unpainted or you can create interesting patterns, textures or designs on top of them to give your photos extra interest and individuality. I used one of my paintings here that I textured with wax, a plain white canvas, and a different playful design piece that I did a couple of years ago after getting interested in abstract art and learning from Joy Fahey and Kasia Krecicka. Great abstract artists.
The last tip is: keep your strap around your neck. If you are in as much pain as I was last week, you are most likely not capable of holding your camera for too long. Let the strap take the weight and position your body against a cooker or a door to let those items support you if you photographing while standing.
My capacity in my hands is increasing but I learnt my lesson and I am not trying to take more than I can handle. I hope you are embracing creative life with all that you have.
Above are my photographic results. Enjoy your visual treats. :)
p.s. If you click on each individual photo, they will appear in full view. I dropped my ring light the other day and need to rearrange the diffusing cover. I have included the backstage photo as is so that you can see how close sometimes the food needs to be to the light source to drop the desired shadow.
I know that there is a handful of people here who like when I talk photography so I thought I will share with you how I resolved the problem of set ups and children in a small kitchen. I wish it occurred to me earlier but if it wasn’t for the frozen shoulders and my obtuse refusal to give up on taking photos, I would have not come up with it. If you have ever suffered from this condition, you know the pain and you know the catastrophising whisperer who is attached to it, i.e ‘I would never be able to do landscape photography. There is no way I can lift up my gear’ or ‘I would never be able to lift my elbows above my chest and get a decent photo.’ Well, it so happens that we do not always need to lift the camera above our chest to take a decent photo and we do not need kitchen surfaces to take them either.
It is ironic to some extent that it took me two frozen shoulders to see that I was quite limited in my thinking about food photography and my ability to do it in our circumstances. Limiting beliefs are good to discover for oneself simply to stay clear of too. This is what I used to think:
I thought that my kitchen was too small to take the photos of what we cook.
Obviously, I was mistaken.
I used to think that I need to make the surfaces empty to photograph the food we cook.
I was in the wrong about that.
I used to think that I would not be able to protect my set ups from my children’s hands.
I laboured with a false belief.
I used to think that having two frozen shoulders would mean I would not be able to handle my heavy camera.
I placed more trust in myself and my slow recovery.
I used to think that I must use the available daylight when I cook to have decent food photographs.
Where has this conviction originated?
To make your dream come true of taking photos of the food that you cook while you handle the kids and perhaps the partner that loves his cooking too, empty one drawer in your kitchen. If your situation is similar to mine, health-wise, use the lowest drawer available so that you can point the camera downwards. Create a set up in there. Choose your surfaces, clothes, trays, etc. Keep it all there and when the food is ready, plate it and rearrange it in your drawer to suit your taste. Take a photo.
I have chosen the lowest drawer in a shaded area in my kitchen where not much light gets in. I wanted to use a ring light to have full control over the brightness and the direction of light. I was bending the ring sideways to create artificial shadows for some photos. For brighter compositions I photographed directly from the top just through the ring light. Sometimes I squatted too and took photos from the side while the light was above the food.
In order to hold food in one place I use a wreath ring and I cover the wreath with a cloth. It is also useful for holding soup bowls or other dishes.
Happy with the results.
One step further to creative living with what we’ve got.
‘Just a second. I don’t want to throw them away yet.’ I remarked to my husband while we were cleaning the kitchen and reorganizing it to accommodate my functioning with two frozen shoulders. The plates and cups moved out of cupboards to lower surfaces and the pots now are within reach for hands that somehow it seems became shorter in the space of just few months. I had my grip measured today by the physiotherapist and while his grip was as strong as 56kg, mine was as much as a round 0 so I’m cooking in lighter pots now and I’m trying to surround myself with soft and delicate objects to touch, wrap myself in and sleep on too. I notice that soft fabrics ease the pain immensely as I suppose the nervous system is running this show as much as the joints, muscles and bones.
My camera work has taken a back seat for a moment. I am quite frightened of the camera’s weight and the repercussions of holding it for too long and too high but nothing is ever lost for the stubborn-hearted, right? I am using the time to make some sensible rearrangements that support creative with restricted hand movements. I’ll write a few posts on this soon. It is tough. I’ll be honest. Very tough at times and I’m cursing and crying sometimes at once and of course I fail not to mention the word ’embittered’ too many times to my friends while describing my moods. But then, I remind myself that I still have my index finger working quite well and, you know, photographers do not blame people, God or circumstances, they use this finger in different ways. So I remind myself to live by the standards of the profession and to search for the light. :)
Writing is taking me to various places at the moment. I have been trying to voice difficult thoughts to myself sensibly before I share them with others. Inner-dialogues have got this ability to get very complicated if left untreated, don’t you think?
My son has just started his secondary school and it pleases me to see him searching for his literary voice and that he is indeed enjoying his English homework. There is something about working with a dictionary that gives us rest and reassurance. All of a sudden everything has a meaning..
Wildlife photo of the day. Three cubs hid behind the parent in our little woodland patch. Only the adult decided to gracefully pose. They love the early morning sun here and the safety of the garden. No dogs to scare them here. I suspect the smell of the hens coming from the neighbour’s hen house has also something to do with their liking of our garden. What do you think?
That said, she looks vigilant and exhausted. It’s not easy to feed triplets.
Photo: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2024. All rights reserved.
The sea was unassumingly grey and boring as much as I would prefer to say otherwise. The tiny waves, however, were falling so abruptly. There must have been a sudden drop in depth close to the beach line. ‘This doesn’t look like a safe paddling pool for children’, I thought to myself but who was I to tell? And who was I to test the truth of my own assumptions or my swimming skills? Not with a frozen shoulder.
Camera felt quite cumbersome with my disability. I felt awkward lifting it up above my chest and photographing birds seemed inappropriate with a shoulder that was grieving its loss of capability but I was bored and actually I have been feeling bored for a while now, regularly experiencing a fed-up mama syndrome that simply manifests itself by wanting to reach for something and feeling that I shouldn’t be wanting to reach for anything besides my child’s hand, perhaps.
The wind was unpleasant, slicing through my jacket as if I was a window of opportunity rather than a human being made of fat and tissue. ‘No amount of fat can make up for a protective layer’ I reproach myself. Better to invest in a new jacket than an extra portion of food. I thought but I honestly did not see myself following on this wisdom too promptly.
I’ve been feeling quite removed from my children lately; partially because of my preoccupations and largely because of their speed. That I find so hard to match.
I’ve been dreaming of going somewhere where I cannot be reached, where I am not disturbed but where I can safely observe everything from afar – a spot difficult enough for the kids to reach – where they cannot disturb me and I do not need to interfere in their play. The place of non-interference.
I saw a lady sitting on the beach supported by the cliff’s wall, writing. And I felt such peace when I saw her as if she was where she was supposed to be. I exhaled. I was so happy for her. So glad. The feeling of peace overwhelmed me like a warm blanket and the sun arrived at the same time and I could do no more but to accept its non-scorching fire.
The children were the first ones to discover the pier. It was hiding below the horizon as if it was their prize for daring feet unphased by the discomfort of beach pebbles. And here it was – a spacious playground and a new viewpoint.
Two photographers came over. They were changing their lenses as if to remind me to change mine. So I did. The wide angle lens transformed the birds into small moving objects against which the cliffs majestically stood their ground.
The sea licked the cliffs like a small puppy its owner – unapologetically loving its face. Jealous of their interaction, I climbed down the ladder fastened to the pier and landed in water next to a chalky rock caressed by foamy waves. I climbed the rock covered with seaweed and positioned myself in a place that would somehow absorb it all. I had only felt half of my body on the descent. I was holding the steel staircase ladder with both hands but I do not have much grip in my left hand. It’s the unreliable hand. I got anxious. What would happen if I lose grip in my right hand – there would be nothing to support me then. ‘You still have it.’ I eased my brain and climbed down while my husband passed me the camera.
I was chuffed with the photos.
‘The ground made it to heaven’ I thought to myself. For He is risen.
While the Internet is flooding with messages of growth, renewal and resurrection, we are not there yet… really. We are still in darkness and we think that we will remain in it. Despite the promise, there is no certainty. Anticipation only, perhaps, on the shoulders of those who have never lost hope…
‘Why not to die on the cross for others?’ Jesus said not to Himself. But he did it. Because someone else said so.
Yesterday, I was privileged to contribute my post to Laudato Si blog that is full of great green tips and explores the Christian calling to care for our common home.
Here is an extract to the blog post. Link to the full text below.
A long time ago, inspired by a blogger from Australia, Sash Milne, I started a Nothing New Project, i.e. I tried not to buy anything new for a year, to decrease waste and increase living. While back then I felt quite virtuous about living that way, there was nothing too virtuous about the way I live now, as if back then I stretched myself too far and snapped like a bandana that children get for the Remembrance Day in the UK. When you do a project like that, that forces you to reduce your buying and question every moment when you open your wallet and reach for a coin not out of poverty but out of restraint, you either learn to love yourself as you are, without the gadgets and extra consumption and you learn to live differently or you feel somewhat destabilized because you locked yourself out of participation in the prevailing culture, i.e. the culture of consumerism. Oh, and one more thing, you can also develop the maturity to make yourself accountable for the trail of waste that falls behind you but, in all honesty, this wasn’t the learning outcome that I have satisfactorily reached and consolidated. To consistently swim against the current, you have to decide to consistently swim against the current and that is hard. What the Nothing New project showed me is that I by and large go through life inattentively, to the shouts of waste that brutally lurk in the shadows of my life or blatantly ‘shine’ on display in my house – as if the psyche couldn’t quite handle the tension between wanting more and needing less. I go through life with an ecological heart that is neither pure nor faithful to the principles of ecological teaching, but I still have hope for myself and the humanity – that we will make progress. Read more..
“Mum, I do not think that people lose talents. I think that they disconnect from them and then God gives them tasks that will help them come back to themselves and make them reconnect with their talents again” said A. the other day as if answering the question set to him by the universe while looking at the passing clouds through our orangery’s see-through roof . Kids, they just get it, don’t they? Often much earlier than we do.
When I started writing Postcards Without Stamps I was following Inked in Colour and I was very inspired by Sash’s letters to her daughter that create a beautiful and thoughtful dialogue with Bo. Some of Sash’s photographs also stick in my mind till this day, especially the one of her daughter holding a feather as if giving a challenge to her mum to write for her (link to her post here). Of course, this is most likely my own projection onto the photo and a reveal of my own sub-conscious need to express love through writing which wants to be met here.
The post below is not a letter as such but perhaps a poem or a lyric to a song and it is just one of those things that wanted to be written.
There I will be
There are moments in life when past and present collapse into one.
When the future is impossible to predict and days impossible to plan,
when tomorrow seems too distant to arrive – in those days, my Princess,
there I will be
your Trust.
When your life will seem too much to handle, there I will be, my Princess, your Trust.
When the pain of regrets will swallow your courage, there I will be, my Princess, your Trust.
When your joys will dissipate and where the hopes will turn into ash, there I will stay my Princess,
It was already very late into the evening when we navigated through the German town of Stendhal last summer. When the telephone collapsed and the printed map, as if on purpose, showed us only the major streets and nothing nearby. No navigation. Both mobiles off. Just the drizzle and two small kids at the back of the car who really wanted to be stretching their feet in the warm beds after a long drive from Antwerp. We had one scare already when we got stuck in the queues for miles and after an hour our gears refused to cooperate and we were lucky to steer over to the hard shoulder of the motorway. My husband, unable to engage any gear at all and without any working phone, started to panic. Then he bent down and moved the clutch with his hand. This worked, but we were still scared as we carried on driving – confident at that stage that we would find our destination.
Stendhal greeted us with almost empty roads. No human in site, shops put to rest for the night, and no petrol station to stop by or a taxi driver to talk to and a detour around the city because of roadworks that completely took us off course and messed up the organization of the town that I had in my head. There must be a way of figuring out where we we staying, I thought to myself, trying not to lose hope just yet even though I was increasingly getting agitated and restless. The children’s tension mounted and then it broke out with joy as a Burger King stood there lit like a lighthouse in the stormy sea. We parked the car and checked if there was anyone in. We saw people moving but they could not see us. The doors were shut. We were searching for alternatives in our head. We had none. If it was about petrol, we could walk there. No problem. If it was about distance, we could call a taxi, but it was primarily about our lack of direction and no one who we could communicate with. There was no one to whom we could have talked to, until of course there was.
We spotted two people who had just walked out through the back door of the Burger King in a joyful and chatty mood. Did we just miss them? Were we too late? We ran to them for rescue and we explained our predicament. They glanced at our kids and willingly typed the address of our accommodation into their smartphones. We still couldn’t navigate it as all the mobiles seemed to refuse to cooperate with us that evening. As if we meant to talk for a bit longer and learn where we were all from. And so we’ve learnt that they were from Syria and they’ve been settling down there slowly, and they asked for our origin and whereabouts and we prayed together for the phone to give us the direction that it refused to give. Nothing was changing, the postcodes were not accepted, the network circulated in a loop. We grew in frustration and we almost resigned to spend the night at the carpark when all of a sudden a third person came out of the Burger King, attentive and quick, just in a few seconds asked us what has happened and without hesitation took the postcode and typed it into his car’s navigation. ‘No problem. I will drive you there.’ – he said. We couldn’t believe it. He was so quick to help. What’s your name, I asked: ‘Hadi’. He said. Where are you from? Syria. I smiled. A long time ago I was dreaming of taking a Syrian family to safety and it was a person from Syria who took us to safety. Maybe God takes into account good intentions, too, I thought to myself, while we reached our destination being guided by Hadi.
'I cannot hear you anymore.'
'Is that a bad thing?'
'I think so.'
'What can you feel instead?'
'Stomach pain.'
'What does it say?'
'That I miss you.'
'You are so sweet.'
'No. Very bitter in fact.'
“Mum, I want to be a policeman,” she said with determination.
“Do you mean a policewoman?” I repeated.
“A police girl then. I am not a woman yet.”
“A police girl? Okey, but what happened to the pilot? You don’t want to be a pilot anymore?”
“No. One of the engines got broken.”
I hate when photographs flood my desktop. I would like them to belong somewhere as quickly as possible. I would like them to find their space, an owner or an accompaniment. They should know their space – just as a good student should know their sitting place in a classroom. Our daughter has just started school and she loves it partially because everything is so free-flowing at the moment for her and she can jump from station to station to explore the classroom. No one asks her to sit in one place. No one asks her to belong to a single location. She can honour her stage in development and explore. Trust and develop her instinct and intuition.
I suspect that my desktop files are at a different stage of development and they would benefit from more structure. I could arrange them better, arrange them according to their place of belonging, according to their chosen location. In the Beatrix Potter movie, there are many scenes in which Beatrix Potter talks to her illustrations as if she was trying to get to know them, to get a response from the work that she created. I suspect the same can be done with our photographic work. Which direction do you want to take? Where do you want to belong? Who do you think you belong to? Where does your gentleness reside? Where is your strength, your voice?
Sometimes we try so hard to protect our right to make our own choices that we stop making choices. The need to be untamed is stronger than reason or logic. It’s stronger than love at times.
After all we just want to be free but do we really? Perhaps not to the degree my files are on my desktop. I love watching the freedom of my kids. I love when they run and play and explore and scream. I love the safety that they they do it with under my watchful eye but at times my watchful eye gets tired with the different directions it has to take to keep them safe, to keep them unscathed and then I welcome the school routines, I welcome the quietness prompted and provoked by homework, I welcome the single-mindedness of the school uniforms. Life is a bit easier then, I think and my personal dilemma and internal conflict related to freedom for self-expression and the stifling aspects of routine life is somewhat resolved by the other ways in which liberation is afforded to me and them. A good degree of routine is necessary after all if one wants to become a police girl.
Aspirations require routines. I am terribly sad to admit this. In fact, I feel a degree of defeat almost as I write this, but it a joyful defeat. One that makes me and the kids smile.
There is a huge amount of bravery involved in deciphering the fires that consume our lives and senses; the fires that render each available minute joyful or that turn each minute into ash. Our passions. We know them for their powers to make us feel alive and for their powers to contradict and challenge our other priorities and values. Passions when untamed can turn things into meaningless speckles of dust, they can suffocate our existence to such an extent that we just want to bury our faces in our palms and weep with dismay. For passions are sometimes too much to handle.
They are sometimes too overpowering, too enthralling, too sneaky in the way they operate, to even notice and to ask oneself: What is it that I am trying to cope with here? What is that force that gives me wings in one moment and crash-lands in the next, most likely with hundreds of flashing warning lights that I systematically and stubbornly ignore? What is that force that simultaneously suppresses and expands my skills for self-expression and permeates the scars and sensitivities of my chest, unobtrusively, and just to give an indecent exposure of my longings, misunderstandings, yearnings, cravings and appreciations to the outside world?
When photography arrived in search of me, I felt as if I had a swollen eye from the grasshopper’s bite and I could not quite lift my eyelid – as if part of life was too hard to see. The camera forces you to see what you might omit with one swollen eyelid (although ironically you take a photo with one eye closed), i.e. the evidence for shoddy or meticulous existence. The evidence for fondness, self-care or neglect. See or die, it says. See and never ever go to sleep again. It shakes you, it shakes your perception for as long as it takes for you to awaken to reality.
When we learn to live with passion, we learn to touch the peripheries of our capacity to feel excitement. Sometimes we define and circumscribe our powers to explore things so narrowly that our results are quiet and timid, other times we learn to roar. Passion will always give you a pat on your shoulder though, for the quiet and timid efforts and for the louder ones too. But if you are listening carefully, it will also ask you the big question: Is this sincerely truly, fully and factually what caught your heart and attention in the first place?
When photography is a visual response of the heart and mind to the outside world then it also forces us to rebel against accommodating disappointments in our personal, social or political spheres. A passion doesn’t want us to be docile. It asks us to match its energy and to prove to ourselves that we can handle it. Passions have got dialogical aims; they don’t like when you lapse into silence. With ease or dis-ease, but we must respond to them. That’s the deal, the eternal deal that we sign off for the continued experience of aliveness. ‘Work on me.’ – says passion, ‘this is how you’ll make your way to joy.’ It woos you, entices you and it hopes that you will put it to shape, that you will give it a character and you know you will, on one condition, that you will put it in service of the higher values, the higher purpose. And you agree, of course, there is no other choice for you to make, but now you have to train on both hands, lift them up in unison, the passion and the values and then you calm down because it all makes sense for once. You feel safe because you get your head straight and you came to your senses to understand that it is not the spirit that lives in the body but the body that lives in the spirit and now the bait is taken off your heart, you are no longer on a rod, you are no longer pushed and pulled. And passion writes all about it. And it is safe.
*photograph taken by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini during a dance photography workshop with Paul Hill and Maria Falconer, Nottingham.
A father once gave his child a beautifully wrapped box. It was red and gold with a large ribbon. The father said to the child, ‘Before you can open it, let’s imagine what might be inside’.
To start with the box contained only simple objects, but as they stared and wondered, the child’s imagination grew and the box started filling up with various fantastical ideas: a troupe of dancing fairies, a musical box containing a full orchestra of mice, a pair of magic shoes that makes you walk on clouds, a toy train full of chattering teddy bears, a miniature garden full of tiny roses, trees and monkeys…The ideas kept flowing. Towards the end of the evening, the father suggested, ‘Now you can open your present’. The child responded ‘No Daddy, I don’t want to open it. I’m happy with the box’.
Would you open the box?
What would be in your box that you would find most satisfying?
Is it possible that someone’s gratitude for the gift of imagination is stronger than their curiosity and appetite for the real life? How does it feel?
First published: December 2013
Postcards Without Stamps 