Beauty equals…

lily

“The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one’s own – even more one’s own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.” Katherine Anne Porter, journalist and author

I’ve been trying to position myself towards the topic of beauty for a long time now. I have been brought up in a home that did not celebrate beauty. “Beauty is only skin-deep” was probably the most often used statement about beauty that I heard as a child. It was of course used in order to show that assigning importance to looks is superficial but I think that more often than not we were quite confused about the statement. Because if it was superficial and we generally should not care about it, why did we have to look good when we were visiting relatives?

Anyhow, ‘Beauty is only skin-deep’ was a saying that many liked to sing when we were growing up and, to be honest, I see it now as more damaging to children’s understanding and appreciation of beauty than helpful in building their characters. What I do not like about this saying is that it discredits beauty per se, it discredits the need for looking after it, it discredits the need for creating it and if said too often, it basically stops us from looking after the beauty that we are surrounded with and the beautiful people that we are.

Beauty requires effort. It takes work and purposeful, regular practice to create it. It also takes knowledge and dedication. I only truly understood this through my life experiences over the last few years: growing a child, making things for our house and garden, writing and photographing. What I have learnt is that beauty thrives with care and creativity and care and creativity entail effort. Creativity is effort, it’s seeing details, it’s being able to mould materials until they take the shape that we want them to take, it’s also about learning how beauty is made and about practice. It’s about spending time and often exerting ourselves to reach the outcome that we want to have, and finally it’s about tending to it regularly, taming it’s wildness. Beauty can be shallow but usually it is not. Usually beauty is work. It’s a lot of work nurtured with love and affection.

Shouldn’t we therefore teach our children that beauty should be respected rather than disparaged?

The more affection we have towards who we are, what is within us and what is around us, the more beautiful…

everything becomes.

Losing sleep and buying presents for new-to-parenthood adults

Derby Museum
At Derby Museum and Art Gallery

 

A new era has started in our house – an era of no afternoon sleep for our toddler (and no cat naps for me by the same token). It’s been on and off for the last three months but it looks like he has decided to drop it for good now. Every transition phase in a family life, even as small as this one, is challenging and tiring at the same time. A lot of miscommunication happens in transition phases – what I once understood as a sign of tiredness on the part of our little boy, now becomes a request for extra entertainment and I must admit it took me a while to grasp it, perhaps a tinge of denial clouded my parental perception, but it looks like I am now a mum of a small boy rather than a toddler. Could this be the case? So soon?

I suspect that our son is also confused by this new wave of energy that embraces him in the middle of each day. So when today, just after midday, my little companion turned into a roaring dinosaur and then into a savage shark that ferociously dived into the tormented sea of our duvet with no intention of reverting into a sweet and sleepy baby-boy the shark once was, I thought to myself that it’s probably a sign that we’re done with afternoon naps and it’s time for something else now…

More serious mothering… maybe? I noticed that there are many no’s to exchange now, more boundaries to set, new negotiations to engage in and I am slowly finding myself within this new parental landscape. But ‘slowly’ is not a word that goes well with being a mum of a 3 year-old. I have a very curious and a very fast son and I love this about him but recently I just find it really hard to keep his pace and you know, as a parent, it’s actually better if you’re a bit quicker than your child, a millisecond will suffice as long as that millisecond is there… And if you are as big a dreamer as I am, you are probably more than one zillion milliseconds behind.

There are two books that mainly helped me (and are still helping) with developing good communication habits with my son. I would not have any qualms in presenting these books as Christmas presents to new-to-parenthood adults. So if you have anyone around you with small children, do not hesitate investing in these two sources as they are really helpful and enlightening.

The first book is by Jesper Juul (2011) entitled Your Competent Child.

The second is by Janet Lansbury (2014) and is called No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline without Shame.

Two wonderful and helpful guides. They are really kind and understanding in tone and message and I cannot help but love what they recommend and how they explain the role of  parenting and honest communication between children and parents. Of course, I do not necessarily read them as gospel, but I feel that they came to my life just at the right time.

Let me know if they do the trick for you and your loved-ones too. x

The hardest type of guidance

leading oneself

This PhD that I am doing right now is one of the most difficult things I’ve selected to do in my life. I keep on questioning myself over it all the time. I’ve never done work as big as this and have never had to manage as much on my own in my entire life. Being totally responsible for your own creativity and thinking and your subsequent steps can be quite scary. I have always had very strong teachers in my life – now I am the teacher and the leader and often I feel quite overwhelmed by this responsibility… just for myself and for the outcome of my work. Although the freedom to do what I love doing is wonderful, is tasty, delicious even, I think that self-guidance is the hardest type of guidance out there.

I am learning to trust myself. To trust my own judgment and my own ideas, but often I shake with self-doubt.

I know that when we do not have enough strength in our muscles, we tremble. I know that it is only with practice and regular exercise that the tremble subsides to the point that we even forget later that we had that shaky muscle. The longer I work on this muscle, the more I am convinced that tasks such as the one that I am facing are mainly about conquering myself. No one else. Nothing else. Just myself.

The universe got it right by giving us the seasons

homeThe wind has started blowing a bit harder and the sun escapes from view much earlier these days. But home feels so cosy and just right for staying in. I like our home. I love the books scattered around the house, the remains of our toddlers’ adventures that need scooping up towards the end of each day, the fruit and vegetables in the baskets in our kitchen, even the sink still filled with pots from today’s cooking episodes. I think the universe got it right by giving us the seasons. The late autumn and winter and the cosiness that we experience of our own homes – doesn’t it support one view? That where we are is home. That where we are now we should be now, at this given moment in time. That everything is as it should be.

I will be using this winter to grow the same level of cosiness in my heart and look for every feeling in me that sends this warmth to the world and back to myself and my family.

What do you do to cultivate warm feelings?

Giving yourself permission to create

pomidorki2

It was mid-October and my tomato vine was still producing its pearls. My toddler loved to grab this little coconut shell and move from one tomato pot to another to see if something was still lurking on the slowly drying vines. He was usually lucky.

I’ve been thinking a lot about talents and creativity lately. About how little I understand how creativity works but equally about how limited our lives are when we do not find time and courage to answer inspiration and to hear our enthusiasm speaking to us.

I once read an interview with a famous Polish singer in which she admitted that she relies on her audience to cheer her before she appears on the stage, that she almost needs their permission to sing although she’s been singing for over thirty years and has been having a very successful and fulfilling career. I think this feeling is quite a common one – we all need a cheer every so often, but the ironic thing is that until we don’t show what we can and want to do, those around us would not know what to cheer for. That is why having a go (or multiple goes) at doing something and then sharing it with others is important. Trepidation never disappears but it subsides and turns into a strong feeling of joy related to having something completed.

Maybe ideas are a bit like children, we need to help them grow, help them mature but then we need to let them go so that they meet suitable partners for themselves.

I am happy that I did not need a cheer to plant the cherry tomatoes.