via veneto, roma
It’s been a long time since I’ve driven a car. I prefer walking or taking the tram. Or having my Mr. Big chauffeur me around on his mega scooter. I can hold on tight as he zig zags around the traffic. It’s nice not having to watch the road looking, instead, at the world that wraps itself around me.
What a wonderful bright sun shiny day!
Many thanks plus many more for all the birthday wishes that were like candles on my cake!
Parisian Perfumes 1988
Amarcord*: One summer evening while walking on Amorgos, my nose was unexpectedly bombarded by the smell of honeysuckle and, zap, suddenly I was in San Antonio, Texas where I grew up. My childhood neighborhood was full of honeysuckle vines. During middle school, I even wore a honeysuckle scented perfume. So honeysuckle, for me, represents my distant past.
Smell has the power to instantly transport you from here to there. The first time you smell a new scent, the brain automatically creates a bond between the smell and its place. It’s an indelible interrelationship that provokes memory.
I’ve just finished reading Kathleen Tessaro’s “The Perfume Collector”, a perfect bedtime novel. It’s about a young woman, Grace, who receives an unexpected inheritance that takes her to Paris. Here she learns about the magic of perfume.
In the language of a perfumer, an “accord” is the blending of various ingredients. A perfume, then, is the result of the interrelationship between many to make one. Something like a musical chord…it take more than one note to make a song.
Our senses are invisible threads that connect us to our environment. The more we use our senses, the more we are connected to our environment. And the more our life has harmony.
*Amarcord is Italian for “I remember” and indicates a nostalgic memory. Although not a word commonly used, Fellini made it famous when he used it as a title for one of his films.
Pincushion at my studio
Years ago, on a visit to my mom, I was full of back pain (probably a result of the crammed seating on the plane). My mom insisted that I go to Dr. Dung, her acupuncturist of many years. Unfortunately, I have a terrible fear of needles and past out during the treatment. But I woke up feeling great. Now I’m a believer and often rely on acupuncture when physically in need .
Recently I read about Tong Ren energy therapy that uses dolls mapping acupuncture meridians. Meridians on a doll are manipulated instead of those of a person. It made me think of voodoo dolls. So, in terms of tong ren, what is the difference between acupuncture and voodoo? Intention.
Intention is powerful. Many self-help gurus have made much money writing about intention as an energy field that can change your life. Most of these gurus are a bit too New Age and gimmicky for my tastes. However, they are good at making the obvious seem magical. And that’s what’s incredible—we are so distracted and bombarded by insignificant choices that we are oblivious to the obvious.
Intention helps us focus on where we want to go. It is a compass that keeps us on the path. It’s a needle provoking the actualization of a desire.
On the 2015 Resolutions List: live with intention!
related links: Origin of the Voodoo Doll + A Brief History of Voodoo Dolls + Voodoo Dolls + The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World + The Power of Intention
photo by Chiara Pilar
Wallflowers
Like a wallflower, sometimes we cling and only passively participate. We observe without being seen until the stillness is so loud it’s deafening. But I don’t want to be a still-life—I want to be a motion picture.
2015…year of the protagonist.
Photo by Chiara Pilar
Daddy’s dog
My dad and I didn’t spend much time together when I was a little girl. One Christmas he showed up with a box full of gifts maybe as a way to compensate for those long absences. Inside that box was a little battery powered dog that would bark on command. I let it bark for a few days but then shoved it on a shelf where it collected dust for the next several years. There was nothing special about the dog until I moved to Italy.
When you move to a foreign country, there is an initial euphoria that, often, gradually transforms itself into a kind of hostility towards the new environment—the you you’ve always been is not compatible with the changed surroundings. Your way of dressing, eating, drying your clothes or decorating your home suddenly becomes “out of place”. Defense mechanisms are activated and nostalgia for the old competes with desire for the new. It was during one of these periods of Nostalgia for What Never Existed that I brought Daddy’s Dog to Italy.
The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek νόστος (which means homecoming) and ἄλγος (which means pain). In other words, nostalgia is simply a yearning for home that surfaces when we feel needy or insecure. But home is not always a place. Sometimes it’s a state of mind. And the feeling that it’s okay for you to be you.
Luckily, I am no longer burdened by nostalgia. Having Daddy’s Dog in my studio reminds me that memories are, in part, fiction since we have a tendency to romanticize the past. So it’s best to focus on today. You know, Be Here Now.
related links: Being “in the moment” + Be Here Now book
Photo by Chiara Pilar
The Narrative Within 