Feelings and flowers ...

It's a strange and weird period for me. I have so many mixed feelings everyday and sometime it's quite hard to cope with them. So many horrible things are happening in this world. Anger and violence and carelessness. My growing children ( how long will i dare to call them still children ? ) noticing and asking why and pondering and becoming the grown ups of tomorrow and i'm so afraid for the terrible example we are giving them. I try to pass them a message of peace, of love, of faith and joy, but it gets harder and harder and i feel so lonley in the task. I feel like everywhere anger has become the 'new joy'. Like everybody is looking for the right reason to let it all out ... but where 'all' comes from ? Are my own children growing such a 'all' themselves and one day they will let it out ? And in the middle of these thoughts my own lonliness stabs me with its sharp pain. It has been almost four year since we moved here and I don't have not even a friend. Nobody to talk with. No number in my phone ( beside close family ) to call. I keep telling me that if we've been lead here there must be a reason, but .... if there was a reason not to move here and we simply weren't listening ? What a hard moment. Yesterday as every sunday evening I was listening to my doughter radio program and when it finished my husband started playing italian music. I started to sing along and all of a sudden I remembered of so many nights spent chatting and laughing and singing old songs with friends... and the pain was back ... where is my village ? Where is my tribe ? .... Ah sorry for this rant, but it has been sitting heavily on my heart for a long time now ... but still I try to focus on good, and do good and be good and set a good example for my younger loved ones ... so here I am facing the sun and smiling at it and snapping few shots in the garden, finally showing us that spring is coming. Hopefully spring will come in my heart too...

In the garden

Today it was a wonderful day, tamps were a bit lower than yesterday (-2 in the early morning, then probably around 3 or 4 ) but the sky was clean and the sun was shining and we just decided to have new family routines which include working in the garden together for at least one hour every nice day. So after breakfast and some family creative writing we all headed outside to enjoy the day, the company and work ....

Seba and Milla are pruning a bush

 

James is checking everybody's work ...

 

Leo is breaking the ice

Again Leo and Gaia are breaking the ice

 

Working together is a gift

 

Seba's antennas .... ( the ant-boy )

 

New roof for the neighbours ! Incredible how they took it away with the crane all together !

 

James painted this spring flower once back in.

Green is his favourite colour at the moment.

Such a good blessed day. Hopefully just the first of a lot of them !

Many hands make the work lighter

A couple of days ago we've been delivered 4 cubics of wood. Yesterday there was a terrible wind so my husband was the only one brave enough to venture outside and put some of it in the old barn outside ( not a barn anymore nowadays-unfortunately-just a huge multi-purpose storage room ). But today we woke up with a blue sky, shining sun and +5 degree !!! So when my husband said he was going out to put inside some of the wood we happily decided to skip any attempt to academic work or read aloud and headed out with him. It was 4 of us at beginning, me. hubby, Gaia and Jimmy. Later also Leo joined us. It was a pure pleasure. Working in the sun, the noise of the drops falling from the roofs as the snow was melting, some chit-chatting among us and the sight of the youngest of the family catching up with the meaning of 'family' itself, living together, working together, sharing and caring with and for each other. What an incredible joy for this mama heart to see her children helping with the task of daily living in this old house all together, including the little one and showing him the right direction, either metaphorically and in the reality. A truly joyful morning.

 

p.s. There's no picture of Leo because he doesn't like to be photographed ( unfortunately )

Let the sunshine in

'Let the sunshine in' has been 'my quote' for many years on the web, way before I was aware of blogs, way before facebook was even invented. I stole it from my favourite musical 'Hair'. I love the musical and the song is incredible, but I think that my love for the quote reside in the fact that this older lady in my childhood used to call me Sunshine, Raggio di sole. I used to love her so, and now I realize how much she loved me. I think not even my husband in 23 years together ever called me in such loving way, not even my own mother. I think she could see beyond me and understand how bound to the natural world I am, and how important the light and sun is for me. I am litterally drawn to the light. I can spend hours just looking the sky trying to record all the colours and shadows that the light creates. But back to the point. Yesterday and tonight we had heavy snowfalls, but this morning the sky was blue and the sun was shining and the temperature incredibly rised above 0 ( we reached +4 in the sun ). So the ice and the snow started melting from the trees and bushes and the sunlight, which is still quite low on the horizon in this month, was hitting the drops directly. Well I had to take the camera and go outside to capture some of that beauty. It has been breathtaking. Outside the sound of the drops falling in the snow and the birds singing were the only sounds, along with the click of my camera. The wonders of the north. I thank God for such gifts. Here some pics I took in those magical moments.

... Let the sunshine in...