Category: To Big To Be Eaten Alone

I will not steal from the giving pot

Postcard 3

Every January while budgeting for the year I remind myself of what my mother taught me: Don’t save on giving. The giving pot should stay full. The truth is one: there would be no justice in the world if we didn’t give.

We are lucky in the west… we are wealthy… although with all the temptations available it’s so easy to see ourselves as struggling, to wish for more, and to fear of not having, of being worse-off, of living in smaller houses, the fears of x, y, z. The list is long. This fear has been injected in us with a thick syringe and has been fed and fueled… so that we look up and dream of what others have and what others do.

They don’t make you feel rich, these dreams. They don’t make you feel lucky but I am telling you here: You are rolling in it.

If a few days, weeks, months of saving mean that you can afford a luxury (a new phone, branded items, a computer, travel etc.), you are rich. If you feed your family, pay your bills, and maintain your car or travel round with minimal budgeting effort, you are rich. If that’s your situation, there is no need to cut on the giving budget, there is no need to cut on sharing the wealth.

The reality is that despite the inflation, in spite of rises in regular expenses, regardless of our dreams to live bigger and better, we can still give and if this year is a bit harder than the last one we can save to give!

This is not a new concept. It has been happening in the past. It has been exercised. There are families in the world who save the best of their foods over months for their visitors. There are children in the world who are saving every coin they get so that they can give their mothers’ presents for their birthdays. There are single parents and pensioners who limit their purchases so that they can support a cause that they believe in. There are people who just watch their daily expenses so that they can donate, so that they can contribute, so that they can do their part. Some of these people have to be strict about how much electricity they use, how much milk they buy, how many showers they take, how many pairs of shoes they buy. They go to great lengths so that they can take part in this great giving scheme while for so many of us saving to give is just a purchasing delay. If giving means as much as waiting for longer, it’s not a sacrifice. It’s justice.

Let’s stay generous in 2014. It’s a good rule to live by.

giving pot

Christmas, deadlines and a crocodile’s tail (a very special postcard for you)

Chrismas Flowers

Here we are. It’s almost Christmas. Almost New Year. Have you been counting the days? I have. Terrified how little time is left to January and the deadline that it brings for me. My list of want-to-dos and to-dos is as long as the tail of my son’s crocodile and the time space available to do them smaller than its nostril. And you know, normally, a small nostril and a long tail equal a lot of stress, but should it really? At this time?

The end of the year has always been like that. Never free from deadlines, objectives and rushing. They are either self-inflicted or given to us by others. The world goes crazy before Christmas. It’s as if there was nothing after 31 December. As if our objectives, work and dreams had no value next year. Somehow we have persuaded ourselves that things need to be finished by Christmas. The thing is… Christmas is not a deadline and it should not be a deadline. Christmas is about allowing joy and hope to have its moment. Our depleted and battered-by-targets souls need their so rarely administered nutrients… they need tranquility and they need congratulations. Yes, congratulations. Pause this Christmas and congratulate yourself on being who you are, on having what you’ve got, on being able to do what you have done. Let me congratulate you too: on this amazing work that you’ve done this year, on finding strength to carry on when all that you really want is rest, on the willingness to extend yourself, on making small and big steps towards bettering yourself and others, and on ticking some boxes and on choosing not to tick others.

And what to do with those boxes that remain pristine? We’ll use them later. Now it’s Christmas! Congratulations are due!

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

Fleeting Visits

It’s just a short visit. You catch the aroma of coffee and cake. Everything is so well-prepared and inviting that a mixture of both guilt and regret stirs inside you. “I’m just popping round – I won’t be able to stay for too long.” The instinct tells you that the generosity with which you are treated deserves much more of your time. You’d like to stay for longer but it’s not possible. The schedule, commitments, busy life. You feel embarrassed about how little time you can offer to your host so next time when invited you don’t come at all or you keep on rescheduling the visit.

Here’s the alternative. Brief visits serve their purpose. They are needed. They are meaningful. Bonds are built through them. Caring for each other is established. Just through asking a few questions. “How’s your new orchid growing?” “How are the kids doing?” These visits strengthen friendship, give rhythm to our relationships. Short duration pulses. Lifebeats.

So you didn’t stay for long? That’s okay. It’s important that you came.

“The Bride Is My Best Friend” (read the postcard)

You got yourself ready for this beautiful event and you perched quietly in a pew awaiting the bride. She is so glamorous, wonderful, wearing a glorious dress. She appears so mature and ready to take the plunge into her new life and confidently waves to her guests and sends them cheeky smiles and winks. You are smiling too, broadly, sincerely, happily… but then all of a sudden you feel this massive uncontrollable trail of tears going down your face… because you remember. … You remember her as a teenager, you remember her being strong and fragile, decisive and doubtful, sad and over the moon. In your head you go through those long private chats, the jokes that you shared, the little notes exchanged in a classroom under the table… secretly … away from the sight of the teacher. You recall the moments when things were super rough, either for you or for her and you are so grateful that in those moments you were the ‘bestest’ of friends. So you look at the bride and wipe your nose and respond to the curious look of one of the guests in a single phrase: ”The bride is my best friend” and in truth you are really the only one who understands what that signifies. The bond. The laughs. The sharing.

So your best friend is getting married. You see her blooming next to her chosen sweetheart and your heart fills up with joy and jubilation. Again, you remember what those secretly exchanged notes were about and you smile knowingly… because you realize… that a dream has just come true.

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