Tag: Life

Holidaying in this space

petals are dropping

Not many people read blogs during the summer so it feels like I’m going against the grain here by coming back from my break in writing. A lot has been happening over the past few months and part of me wants to take a good stock of it. So I’ll be holidaying in this space and a few posts will appear here this summer.

This is a simple list of thoughts and experiences that I just wanted to log that are not only about today but also about the last few months.

Making: sense of my multicultural experiences on the pages of my thesis
Cooking: simple chicken dishes with olive oil, fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil
Drinking: jugs of water
Reading: once again The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck; Masterpieces of literary reportage by Ryszard Kapuscinski, Last Child in The Woods by Richard Louv
Wanting: what I have
Looking: at the growing man on my side
Playing: shake, shake, shake – it’s just about shaking pretty much everything these days
Wasting: perhaps a bit too much money on books these months
Sewing: is about to be outsourced to a tailor – winter coats need mending
Wishing: well to people nearby and afar
Enjoying: gluten-free diet
Waiting: no more, there is no time to waste
Liking: this video about self-compassion being even more important than self-esteem, Jesper Juul, Hozier and Gipsy Kings
Wondering: what to write in this space
Loving: English charity shops
Hoping: to complete this list
Marvelling: at my son’s strength
Needing: stronger backbone to lift the pre-school attendee
Smelling: blackcurrants
Wearing: summer
Following: you ;)
Noticing: how much can be gained through a face-to-face dialogue
Knowing: myself much better than 4 years ago
Thinking: a lot about languages, cultures, modern families, nutrition and growing broad beans
Feeling: optimistic
Bookmarking: quotes on patience and perseverance
Opening: many packs of raisins for my little boy
Giggling: every evening when the summer heat subsides and the air cools down

and one addition:

Missing: I was missing writing for this space. I think I have grown quite a lot through my previous blogging experiences and it has always felt like a privilege to be part of this creative community. It’s great to pop in for a while.

The taking stock list and a template was made by Pip at Meet Me at Mike‘s. Go and visit her lovely space.

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Natural dreams

walking

Where do you go to escape from the turmoil of the world? I go home. Childhood home. Of course it boils there too. But it boils in a different language, about different matters although with familiarity from the past. We know our childhood homes so well. We know what to expect of them and, who knows, maybe it is this predictability of the place and language that makes it easier for us to truly rest and listen.

I tend to find myself when I’m in the unchanging landscape of my little village, in its stability. The fields, the trees, the meadows, the orchards, the forest nearby – they are always there ready to embrace me as I am. Ready to welcome me as me.

It’s a powerful sensation. Me as me.

In a world that demands constant change. In a world that asks for continuous development and seduces us with better versions of ourselves it is really difficult to appreciate the people we are and have always been – with our personal dreams, perspectives, and qualities.

In fact, it is even difficult to love our own core dreams when so many things around tell us that there are other, better dreams to dream.

When you feel like this think of the time when you last were dreaming with confidence. Big dreams, small dreams but with ease, no noise in the background. I have realised recently that I was at my dreaming-best when I was 14. I don’t know what I was doing ever since, but it was the time when my map of dreams was the most personal to me, no fears, fads and fashion. In my little childhood village there are cereal fields next to my dad’s cherry orchard. Walking along the fields, I meet the 14-year old. She’s cheerful, hopeful and determined. Where were you when your dreams were unfolding? Maybe you can visit this place? Or create a semblance of it where you are now? To allow yourself to be you, maybe with fears but without disabling judgements.

Complaints and Gratitude

mint

People who complain are not necessarily unhappy. Often, they just try to strike a relationship with others through complaining. Sharing suffering, even about the little things, can be bond-creating and frequently functions as a conversation starter, an icebreaker.

– The bus is late again…
– Oh yes, it was delayed yesterday too… They even wrote about it in the local newspaper how unreliable the buses are these days….Do you read XYZ?
– XYZ, oh yes , I do. Would you believe it if I tell you that I have its very first issue.

And here… the connection is triggered, the conversation unfolds, the stranger at the bus stop is no longer a stranger but someone who we share suffering with and the discomfort of our day-to-day experiences. In that sense the complaint is an invitation to a longer dialogue. It is not its conclusion. It’s just a start…

I do a fair deal of complaining in my life. Recently perhaps a bit too much. (You see… I even complain about my habit of complaining :) ))))))) But I think that disappointments are part of life and it’s good to notice them and share them too. There is something quite artificial in noticing only the bright side. March is the time when we complain a lot in our northern hemisphere. Because our days are not quite long yet, our flowers our not entirely out, and to be honest our strength and resilience to cope with challenges ahead has probably only just started building up. In March, we only manage to lift our smiles up from our heavy woolly scarves, and it takes another month or two for this smile to establish itself and for more cheery conversations to emerge.

Complaints are not always a sign of unhappiness, but are often a sign of a struggle of sorts. These struggles are part of our human stories and they are bound to happen somewhere in the process of realizing our new ventures. This is usually when most complaining goes on. When we are at the beginning of those journeys. Gratitude comes later…

…and it’s great that it does.

This is my Easter Egg for you Lovely Readers. Thank you for your messages, conversations and kind words. My doctoral research is developing very very slowly (but surely) so I still cannot offer regular postings in this space. I hope you are all well and that you’ll have lovely Easter. Best wishes and feel free to leave a complaint ;) x Alicja

fruit present

This Blog is Taking a Break in 2015

multicultural life_SundayI’ve gone a bit mad on measuring over the last few weeks. Measuring time, to be precise. The findings of my experiment did not surprise me but confirmed my assumption that at this particular moment in time I cannot do everything that ideally I would like to do.

Of course, I have again questioned the existence of this blog and the time that I spent recording and documenting my thoughts and experiences and I have realised that I am not documenting what I want to document and I am not writing the blog that I would like to write. Mainly because I haven’t developed an angle yet and because the things that I want to do just take much more time than I can realistically offer now. So I have decided I will be taking a longer break from writing and photographing this year so that I can invest my time and efforts into other things and develop a stronger understanding of what I want this blog to represent and how I want to run it.

Samuel Johnson declared once: “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”
This is year I am hoping to make a lot of effort offline so that you can find my writing pleasurable next year.

To a good year Friends!

Alicja

Bake a piece of love

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand”. ~Mother Teresa

I hope you’re having a lovely day Lovely People!