I’ve told you. You should have listened to mummy!
I’ve told you. You should have listened to mummy!
I’ve told you. You should have listened to mummy!
Tag: Life
A house and a home
I used to like a bit of chaos. Chaos was my state of choice. Chaos on my desk, in my bag, in my drawers and in my notebook. I found chaos conducive to work, especially for creative and innovative work… in a way I still do… the chaotic medley of thoughts… I trust them to organise themselves eventually… I trust them to come together… to create a coherent text.
The opposite is true of my house. I notice that I become less and less tolerant of a messy house. Perhaps it’s because since my son was born I spend more time at home than in the past and being, working and playing in the space that’s cluttered and covered with dust is just not fun and so I notice that the subject of a clean space appears more and more often in my conversations and my body starts leaning forward with interest when my friends and acquaintances report on their house cleaning adventures.
With the spring in its full strength, myriads of sun spells hit the surfaces in our house and all the negligence in house caring is exposed. This week therefore I am trying to use every possible minute to turn our house round and make it pleasant to be in. The windows and curtains have been washed, the surfaces, furniture, lamp shades and even ceilings have been freed from dust. The garden has also received its fair share of time and slowly space is being made for summer shrubs, herbs and flowers. This appearing neatness is making me quite happy and I hope that we’ll be able to do much more in the coming week. Our kitchen renovation project has made us slightly antisocial over the last few months and now when a significant part of it is done and many pieces of wood, screws, tools and boxes have disappeared I feel that our house can safely re-open to visitors. To me one of the main attractions of having your own space is that you can invite others to share it with you, to laugh, to talk, to eat there together. Guests play their part in turning our houses into homes, don’t they?
Dear Parents, this coming Sunday do not take me to a shopping mall.
Dear Parents,
This coming Sunday do not take me to a shopping mall. There’s more I want to see. There’s more I want to be…
… than just a consumer.
*Photographs 4 and 5 taken at Derby Museum and Art Gallery
*Photograph 8 at Kedleston Hall, Derby.
Spring in my heart and in my kitchen…
Why do I blog?
I am still slightly insecure about this blogging world. It scares me at times but I love writing and love connecting with people and I guess this blog is my method for reaching out… reaching beyond borders, beyond social grouping and time constraints.
My professional life restricts my publishing rights so I write about daily matters, values and challenges and I find that it’s enough to build bonds with people.
I had different reactions to this blog, words of encouragement and congratulations, surprise and polite or impolite critiques. Some words gave me wings, others tried to snip them. That’s life…
And it’s this life which is worth writing about… because a lot of learning happens during it that we often don’t take any notice of… because daily life is a lot to deal with and a lot to be grateful for… and to me this is fascinating… to me this is worth capturing and documenting… because we are made of small moments… we are made of everyday conversations and exchanges of smiles, winks and grimaces… we are the reflections of it all… so why not to write about it? Why not give it its due status? The daily life that’s made so infamous… because it sometimes overwhelms us with its chores, choices and charades.
I hope that with time you see more stories of people here… of the quiet celebrities of our daily lives… the people that deserve the space because they just simply are there for us and they are doing their jobs with passion… like the greengrocer that I wrote about and the glass decorator that I encountered while travelling through Wales… There are more people that I admire… a young Sardenian man that I knew as a waiter that decided to open his own little restaurant, a Cypriot mum that has been forever dedicated to bring up her sons and daughter, a picture frame maker that I meet in my local park, a professor who’s turning his knowledge into jazz music, and a young and beautiful woman who’s fighting with the not-so-uncommon mentality among young people that it’s not worth to do things for free… this woman is all about volunteering… about being society-oriented about not forgetting, about others that are less fortunate than we are. These are people that I admire. These are my celebrities and I want to write about them.
All too often the stories in the media tear people up. The Roman Colosseum in print. We are forced to be spectators of those cruel games. I refuse to sit there and watch. I had enough. Because humanity is precious and the human spirit should not be slain. We are too good for that. You are too good for that.
The truth is that on a daily basis we are also charmed and inspired… we are challenged and made curious… by events and occurrences, by our friends, family members and acquaintances, why not to pass these feelings forward… why not to write about them?
What are your reasons to write, photograph and share? How do you feel about blogging?
Postcards Without Stamps 