Category: Lifestyle, Health, Environment

Released From The Clutter (image and article)

I attempted to do the impossible over Christmas – I set out to part with one-third of my belongings. When I announced it to my husband and our toddler my husband worryingly replied: ‘But that means that one of us needs to go.’ :)

Well.. not quite.

All that went was the evidence of overcommitment: unread books, unused items, not-yet-or-not-often-worn clothes, forgotten home decorations, disliked music, excessive stationery and other neglected bits and pieces. I was very happy to remove them from my sight and give us back the space where we could hear our thoughts without having our attention pulled in many disparate directions. We needed a home that will stop us from being preoccupied with what we haven’t done and instead allow us to do what we want to do. Do you have a space like that? Space where you can stay relaxed but focused? Space that calms you down but at the same time allows you to move forward?

I see some beautiful images online of vast and glorious terrains and I imagine how easy it is to breathe and think in those spaces. Uncluttered by our engineering and unwanted items. Those spaces are physical representations of the mind that we want to have. Is this why we so eagerly appreciate photographs of single items that just sit there caressed by light, privileged by the space? Or photographs of open spaces… territories where we are free to wander and explore? They awaken a craving in us… don’t they? They draw us in.

That is why I decided I want to defend the spaciousness of our house, protect it from the jumble, disorder and confusion… decolonize our province and reinstate its original beauty and order. It needs to be liberated from the clutter. And we need that too.

The Peak District, UK

Empty Kitchen But With Soul: Postcards from the Kitchen-On-The-Mend

Part of The Caring 2014 Project:

See also: I will not steal from the giving pot

Accepting old earth: a word about identity (read the postcard)

Identity is a big word. One that grows significantly in size the moment we leave our country – this is usually when we start feeling slightly uncomfortable wearing our own background. We notice the labels attached to nationalities, those that belittle and misrepresent them and we become afraid of being labeled too. We feel trapped or challenged or ashamed or just uncertain to the point that we are unwilling to admit who we are, where we are from and what we did in the past. Because we don’t want to be categorized. Because we don’t want to be judged. Because we don’t want to feel ashamed.

I used to feel like this and then I seriously questioned myself: ‘Why do I feel this discomfort? Why am I so stressed? Do I need to be so stressed?’ At the time I did not find a thought that would comfort me. Until I did a very sensible thing and signed up to a literature module called European Encounters, European Lives (led by Dr Christine Berberich) which successfully pushed my boundaries of (self)understanding. There we read texts about trauma, memory, displacement and lost or denied identity. We felt the anguish of those who experienced the First and Second World Wars and were by circumstances forced to live elsewhere and that sometimes this elsewhere was not much more accepting of who they were than the place where they came from. We talked about surnames being changed or appropriated to the new location and we read of the often tragically damaging and irreversible consequences such identity change had for their owners. Withdrawal. Depression. Worse.

This is when I learnt that one of the nicest gifts you can give to yourself and everyone else is the gift of acceptance. Acceptance of where you and they come from, of the values that you cherish and the languages you speak. It’s the only right thing to do: to embrace identity for what it is. If your identity is monocultural, embrace it, don’t try to make it fit in, it will fit in anyway; if your identity is multicultural, embrace it too, don’t deny yourself your multicultural roots, cherish them for what they are and don’t worry, it will fit in anyway. There is no need to be selective about identity, there is no need to choose one. There is no need to reject yourself and there is no need to reject others. The world is superdiverse. Our communities are superdiverse…

We have extensive root systems and like plants we need a bit of old earth to settle well in a new environment. We need to be accepting of that old earth. On that earth we grow and blossom, our children grow and blossom and our neighbourhoods too. Towards the new and towards each other…

 

Yorkshire, UK
Lombardy, Italy
Wielkopolska, Poland