Chi si perde nella nostalgia gratuita e spesso continua è chi non ha capito il presente e non lo sta vivendo al meglio, ovvero lottando per essere migliore.
Chi si perde troppo spesso nella nostalgia è già vecchio.
Odio i nostalgici, quelli che invadono Facebook di post si quanto eravamo belli e ingenui noi che siamo cresciuti negli anni 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. Quelli che guardavano Mazinga Z e non avevano il cellulare.
Chi si perde nella nostalgia gratuita e spesso continua è chi non ha capito il presente e non lo sta vivendo al meglio, ovvero lottando per essere migliore. Chi si perde troppo spesso nella nostalgia è già vecchio.
0 Comments
A month has passed since I gave birth to my second child. I officially allowed my self some rest from my one year project since my routines were completely destroyed by my newborn. Of course the project hasn't been abandoned and it made some evolutions. What I did in this month:
How my project slightly changed: Inoticed that I spend more and more time walking or exercising or cooking healthy food and this is something I want to do more in the future. So I decided that Moving to a healthier life should be in my map (that will be updated soon) and I should do something every day to fulfill the plan. Last question: am I happy? or am I happier? I can say that raising a small child is not easy in the first month, but I am satisfied with how I am doing it and with all the things I am managing to do in this period, for me and for my family. In the last years I realized that to really learn something, actually anything, you need to surround yourself with people who know how to do it, be with them, be inspired, and why not, copythem. For this reason, in late May I decided to enroll in a sketchbooking workshop held by a famous Italian urban sketcher in Volterra, a wonderful small town in Tuscany. I have to say that I am an amateur sketcher and my husband, who's had this experience with me, is even more a beginner, but sketching is a passion that has lasted for some time now and we want to bring it to a slightly higher level. The idea of spending four days drawing in public, with people that draw much better than us frightened us and we got scared even more by reading the presentation letters of the various participants: graphic designers, art teachers, art academy graduates and so on. But it was exactly what we were looking for according to our principle: "You can get as smart as the smartest guy in the room." From the moment of our arrival we realized it would be a unique experience: the accommodation was a Tuscan '800 villa "Villa le Guadalupe", whose owners, Wofgang and Klaudia, wonderful hosts, have contributed to make our stay unforgettable. The villa is a delight, with breathtaking views of the Tuscan countryside. In the villa almost everything has been maintained in its original state: the frescoes, the floors, the furniture, the carpets. Everything has a story here and you can feel it from every small detail. You smeel art, and music and theater, all the passions of its owners. Klaudia and Wolfgang cook all the meals for us and make us feel at home, in this mix between a Fellini movie and "A room with a view". The house is full of books by Wolfgang, German dramaturge, scholar and expert in art and theater. The couple came to live at the Villa in the 80s, and, without internet, and no major libraries in the surroundings, they had to build their personal library to pursue their studies. The atmosphere became even more magical during the dinners in the garden. In those unusually fresh Tuscan summer nights, candles were the only lights. From the windows of the first floor, Wolfgang delighted us with his record collection that ranges from classical to tango, to old Neapolitan songs that I would never listen to anywhere else but were so magical here. And the company was so good. we immediately felt a connection and talking to complete strangers for four days and three nights in a row was very easy and natural. The workshop was equally extraordinary. The idea was to divide the four days in three themes: Villa Guadalupe and its history, the Tuscan countryside and the city of Volterra, and the sketch of live figures, in particular, theater actors on stage, since the workshop held in conjunction with the famous theater festival in Volterra. The sketch products were so many and also we improved our techniques so much, thanks to the expert help of Simonetta, our teacher. We have seen different styles, learned techniques, copied, edited, and we brought home countless suggestions to continue practicing. One of the most interesting and challenging experiences for us was surely the live sketch of a theater performance, the tableau vivent representing paintings of Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino by Teatri 35. The actors remained in place for about 30 seconds then they ran away for a change of clothes for the next framework. The results were impressive, we sketched in a few seconds and it was so dark you could barely see the sketchbook. Below, one of the sketches by the talented Joe Bean who has been a continuous source of inspiration for us. I will never forget those four days, full of interesting people, great advances in our sketching, atmosphere, scenery and beauty. An experience that I really hope to do again and I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn how to sketch and to discover more about our Italian beauties. I remember going home from the hospital iafter giving birth to my first child as a traumatic experience: the transition from an atmosphere of peace, tranquility and a controlled by doctors and nurses to the routine without a routine. After the homecoming in fact, you expect to be able to resume a regular life, with your habits and instead you realize that the habits are hopelessly compromised and they must adapt and make space to new ones other, led by a tiny creature that imposed herself in the rhythms of the family with the stubbornness of a dictator. Sometimes you spend days without seeing anyone and it can happen that you don't want to dress up or to care about yourself as you should. The day is marked by the meals of the newborn and you still don't feel perfectly good after the childbirth. Moreover, when leaving hospital, you do not lose all the pounds of the pregnancy and your belly may look like the one of a six month pregnant woman. You can imagine the frustration. But it is much better for the second child because at least you are prepared. So, it is a very peculiar moment in which, some mothers can get to suffer from postpartum depression, others, like me the first time, just a bit 'of melancholy. This time it went much better since I was much more confident in the baby care and this prevents a lot of frustration; I already knew that my body was not 100% fit, so I properly calibrated expectations. Moreover, for the second childbirth, everything is usually easier and less painful. I have also tried to avoid being locked in the house, and so, by the fifth day, we started hanging out and doing business as usual. Finally, the big sister was waiting for us at home, with her warm welcome. And this makes it all different! 1) I almost finished the embroidered hospital bag It's not time to show it yet, but I am quite proud of it, especially because my daughter loves it so much. 2) I colored my sketch Sketching is a passion I have since a couple of years, and I am so sorry that I have had almost no time to practice in the last months. So now I would like to catch up but I find difficult to start. I had a quick one in the weekend and I finished it today just with a very little touch of color. Sketching should be part of my daily routine! 3) Quality time with my daughter: Star Wars! I know it may sound incredible but I have never seen any episode of Star Wars. I have tried, I can tell you, but it's not my kind of movie. Of course I know it's a masterwork and everybody should see it and this is why I have been talking about it to my daughter in the past few weeks. And finally, she asked me to watch it together. We saw half of it (as we always do) yesterday night in bed and we are going to see the rest tonight. And the nice thing is that I am liking it! Third day of my project. I feel like I am losing the rhythm a little bit, but I have to consider that I am nine months pregnant, and so I get tired whatever I do and I have to take a nap in the afternoon. So: 1) I made super healthy popsicle with Sofia Which makes me very happy because it goes in the direction of doing something fun with my daughter and of eating very healthy. It is so easy that I think I will go on doing them until the weather stays good. I just mixed half yogurt, half apricot juice and a couple of spoons of sugar. Then we sliced a banana and put the small pieces in the mix. We poured everything in the IKEA stamps for the popsicles and voilà. 2) I began to prepare a bag for the newborn dresses I know this may sound quite boring, but I am very close to my due date, so I will bother you with some stuff regarding newborn and things to do. So, I remembered that for my first daughter the hospital required a bag for the dresses with a name stamped on it. My mother sewed and embroidered a beautiful one for her. Of course I could have simply bought one for my second daughter, but then i thought about all the people telling me that the second child gets less attention compared to the first and I felt guilty. So yesterday I made the project, bought the material and started building the bag 3) Finally, I went on reading my weekly book
I planned to read one book per week, and this book has to be related to my other plans. I can read whatever I want of course, but it should go on top of my weekly book. My choice for this week is "The power of habit" by Charles Duhigg I think the moment has arrived to talk about the content of my project. As I said, I have a year (or almost a year) in front of me because of my maternity leave, and I thought that I needed to plan it well to avoid loosing any time. The idea first occurred to me when I realized that I can barely remember what I did in my last (and only) maternity leave, and this time I want to do something different: I want to use all the time I will have to become happier, changing some habits and adding (and removing) something from my life. So I decided that my year had to become a project. This means that I have a goal and a set of topics I want to focus on. Clearly defining the content of a yearly project is not an easy task, but I think this mind map summarizes my project quite well. The most important thing was defining the key areas to work on. I chose: Work, Home, Kids, Personal, Other (which includes what for me can be considered fun). Of course, tons of topics necessarily remained outside the map, but I think it's obvious that I cannot cover everything. I tried to focus on simple things that I want to improve and that I believe will make me happier at the end of the day. On many of these topics, I already started a journey and they were therefore automatically included. Some of them are goals that I have never been able to include completely and were included because "i's now or never"... One of the topic, the Personal one, is very much related to self improvement. I decided to focus on three key points: Focus and perseverance, Going minimal, and relationships. And while preparing the mind map, I realized that these three personal improvement areas are deeply linked to many other topics I included in the project (see the arrows). I think work, kids and home are pretty obvious areas where I really want to improve, and I included in Other the main things that make me feel well in this period. I think this area can change in time, but since one of my key topic of self improvement is the capability to keep the focus, I decided to write them down too, in order not to change them too often. I have had many versions of this sheet, but I decided to freeze it because, as a very good procrastinator, I could have go on changing it forever and never started to do anything. So, now that my satellite mind map is clear, I can proceed working towards my goal. I decided that I won't have a very structured approach, at least for the first period, especially because I have to give birth in 15 days and I know that all my resolutions could break in a minute. I went instead for a lighter approach: I decided that I have to do at least 3 things every day that go in the right direction, that help me fulfill one of the goals in the chart. I'll start with this and publish my three things every day. As I said in my previous post, my main goal for my maternity leave is to use my time in the best way. Time, in fact, is what I missed more in the past few years and I will not waste this opportunity.
The first question that would occur to anyone is: "Use your time in the best way to do what?". This time, however, I decided to start from another point of view instead of diving immediately in the content. And so I tried to answer to three simple questions:
Inevitably, after a lot of effort to stay focused in carrying out the goals, I found myself facing the same questions: "Why am I doing this?". What is my goal?: I am a person who lives by good intentions and trying to pursue them. I've always been thinking that my ultimate goal was my self improvement, until this ultimate goal was no longer enough for me. I began to wonder why should I continue to live to improve myself. When will I finally decide to be what I am and to stop trying to change myself? Then, by chance, I came across the book "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, or maybe it wasn't a chance and I just thought it might be an interesting starting point given that I find have a year to plan ahead to me. I found some interesting ideas, but one struck me most of all and helped me to come out from my long-standing issue related to why I am choosing to change. Gretchen Rubin' book is about a project the author decides to complete in a year with the goal of being happier than she was in the beginning. Nothing more that that. And an essential component of this happiness is what she calls growth, and I call self improvement. Everything is clearer now: the ultimate goal of my project is to be happier. This path passes through a range of activities that do not give immediate happiness, but lead to personal growth that is an essential component of happiness. I can live with this and embark full speed in a new project! What makes sense to enter into an annual project? And then, like magic, everything is clear. I do not have big doubts about what should be part of my project. Don't get me wrong, it was a hard choice, but the criteria were quite simple: I chose a series of activities related to different areas of my life where I believe I need to improve not with the aim of improving, but to be happier and to make those around me happier. I will dive into this topic in my next posts. What is the best method to carry out an annual project? The answer is: "I do not know!" I made countless attempts to carry out a voluntary project (nobody asked me to do it) and I succeeded rarely. But I kept trying, and I found a lot of methods that helped me a lot in the past and that I want to share here in a structured way. I'll talk about this too in a future post. This is my first day of maternity leave at home, after some days of holidays.
It feels strange to stay at home all day, even if it's the 4th of August and so most of my colleagues and friends are on holiday anyway. I will keep a diary of these months because I don't want to loose any moment of it an I think that writing down a few sentences every night, will help me to stay on track with my plans and activities. Today I still had to tidy up after the holidays so I don't consider it as a normal day, but I was able any way to attack one of the longest waiting points in my to do list:
I'm not over yet, but I am happy I was able to use my day one too! This weekend I spent three days in Venice. For me it was the first time after twenty years, if we don't take into consideration one or two work dinners in the meantime.
I had only been there once when I was fourteen for a summer camp. I remember it was crowded and hot and the smell of the sea was so strong to be disturbing. This time the view was completely different, cold and foggy, and the laguna looked sleepy and dreamy. |