A fun post for some Friday fun. Suby and I spent Monday in London. We set out for business meeting which was scheduled for 11.00 am and decided to walk around the West End afterwards in search of some street photography opportunities. Alas, no such luck due to the miserable weather which has come to be a consistent fixture of our lives this summer.
We met up with our friend Jide Alakija in Leicester Square and spent a good hour shooting in Soho as Jide was desperately fighting with a cash machine in HSBC that had swallowed up his cheque without giving back a receipt. It was not to last, however, as rain started pouring down without relent and we had to pack up and make our way first to the National Gallery to wonder at those who had had the good fortune of getting their images displayed in the portrait gallery and dreaming of a time in the future where we have the same good fortune. Then we met up with a lovely friend of Jide's, Zsofia and made our way to Burger King to take shelter from the foul weather and feed Jide what Zsofia calls 'processed rubbish', where Jide had a quick meeting with his PA, Kaffy as Suby, Zsofia and I were fooling around with the camera. As you may have guessed, three SLR cameras to five people is quite a good cameras to people ratio hence most eyes were upon us. Before long some of the BK waiters were asking me to take a couple of shots and having voluntary victims to 'shoot' I gladly obliged with a few shots until Jide butted into the least shot, hence you've got this shot a a cuckoo man posing with a cup of drink and two traumatised BK workers trying to keep straight faces. A great day was had by all, except maybe the two guys in the shot who may have regretted ever having asked for a picture together. Hanging out with Jide, in Suby's loving words, the Alakija fellow, is always fun and eventful. Meeting Zsofia and Kaffy, such lovely, beautiful, soulful people with such great positive energy was definitely a pleasure.
Coming home on Monday, I realised, in the last two years, through photography and blogging I have met such lovely people and still continue to meet many more. It is wonderful to meet and get to surround myself with such positive people determined to succeed in the world in their own way, be it through photography, writing or simple sharing stories, memories and inspiration, so today's Friday fun picture is for all those new friends out there I have met and am yet to meet on my journey in cyberspace. Enjoy your Friday and have a great weekend, folks! x Sin
Thursday evening… Leicester Square… As I walk through the early evening crowd in London, under the dusky azure skies of my spiritual hometown, there is only one word to describe the feeling deep inside of me, scattering in a million shades of firecrackers and light as a butterfly’s wings: Contentment.
I don’t know how many times I have walked down the same trail from King’s College at Strand down to Charing Cross then up towards Leicester Square. There was the very first time as a fresh PhD candidate, full of hopes and dreams, having stepped off the train from Egham, armed only with her ideas for a research which she didn’t know would take her a good part of early twenties. Then there was the disengaged girl who would have much rather scampered in her heels down to Oxford Street for a spell of shopping than go over the same chapters of tedious writing with her supervisor. Then there was the teary-eyed girl who trod the same walk with feet of lead and a sunken heart, determined to prove them wrong yet too exhausted to go on. Now a twenty-eight year old woman, willing to take criticism she does not necessarily agree with, determined to give her writing her best shot, resolute to complete what she has set her heart on doing a long time ago.
In the recent years I have suffered every single thing you would expect a PhD student to suffer: hours of isolation cooped up amidst the dusty shelves of a dingy library, threads that promise heaps of information ending in dead ends, writer’s block, frustration, reluctance or inability to constantly revise and redraft, midnight shifts spent reading, taking notes and writing away into the small hours of the morning, low cash flow, exhaustion… You name it, I’ve been through it, which resulted in two years spent fooling myself into thinking I was getting on with things when in reality I wasn’t, and another two years of interruption after I realised my subconscious reluctance to do any work on my dissertation and decided to take time out to focus on my career without the pressure of a PhD dissertation that needed consistent work, effort and drive without any distractions.
Now with renewed vigour, I am ready to throw myself back into it. I walk down the same trail I have walked down so many times, filled with so many different emotions and realise I have so much to be thankful for. I have spent a good part of the last four years berating myself for not pushing myself hard enough. At times I have felt like a failure. On a mild, languorous Thursday evening under the azure skies of London, I look back, take stock and realise I am anything but.
I arrived in the UK at the age of twenty one, fresh and green. In London, I found my feet, friends, and my identity. Over the course of the last eight years, I completed an MA, survived in a metropolitan on my own two feet, on a £600 per month budget, on a wing and a prayer. I made my way through a range of crappy house shares and a range of crappier men. Within seven months of each other, my dad and my grandma passed away.
Then I moved to MK and got my first full-time job: teaching, with no formal teacher training and no teaching experience. With next to no support at work, a bully of a department head, a syllabus I couldn’t get my head around, I would come home and cry my eyes out every evening, then get back up, wipe away the tears and stay up well beyond midnight planning my lessons. Two years later, I took up another job; half-way through my formal teacher training year, I had to take three whole months off work due to a range of illnesses which later delayed my training and caused adversities at work with some students and colleagues. At one point, I was on the verge of serious depression.
Now I am a qualified teacher, respected by my colleagues and appreciated by many of my students. I have recently started writing for a fashion magazine and am now pushing myself more in freelancing. People tell me I have a way with words, and for once, I actually almost believe them. It has been just over a year since I picked up an SLR camera for the first time to go out shooting on a beautiful April day. A year on, people say I take amazing photographs and I am a part of Team Suby and Sin What is more, for the first time in my life, I actually have the confidence to almost believe I do indeed take amazing photographs.
Walking under the calm azure skies on a Thursday evening, my heart light like a butterfly’s wings, my steps matching the easy summer rhythms of languorous London, I look back and take stock, I look back and realise just how far I have walked, I look back and realise just how little credit I sometimes give myself.
For as long as I have known myself, self-doubt and low self esteem have always been inherent parts of my personality. Most days I still wake up thinking I suck or I am a failure, especially when things are not going my way. Most days, I need my other half, frustrated by just how blind I can be to my own talents, to remind me of how much I have achieved and how much I am set to achieve. For today though, as I walk down on my path, I don’t need reminding. I know there’ll be harder days when the dusky azure skies will turn dark and gray, and I know there will be dips on the path and steep hills, I know there is a huge possibility something may go wrong tomorrow and knock the wind from my sail; but for today, I will enjoy my accomplishments, my talents, my life.
For today, I will celebrate myself and the journey I have made so far.
I have spent a good part of the last few hours effing and blinding and cussing like a sailor. And the reason for all the foul language? The very word itself: Language.
Mid last week I realised, halfway through my early evening snooze I had completely forgotten to renew my Turkish passport. It was a matter of urgency, considering I had already booked my ticket for 29 July. Hence, I jumped off the couch to run around the house like a headless chicken to gather all the required bits to send off to the Turkish Consulate in London and sat down to write a letter, which was not one of the requirements. I just thought it was courtesy you see rather than just sending the postal order and the passport. The letter printed, documents ready, I made my way to the post office the next day to send my passport off via special delivery. I was not worried about time constraint as I had been through the procedure about three years ago and it had taken them only a few days to stamp my passport and post it back to me.
When I got home today and found the special delivery envelope that the other half signed for, I was much pleased with the fast service on the part of an office of the Turkish government whose generous application of the red tape would make a civilian want to tear their hair out at the best of times and want to jump off the tallest building in town in an exasperated desperate bid to end all the suffering and waiting. Then I opened the envelope. It didn’t even cross my mind to check the passport until the other half picked it up, found a letter from the Turkish Consulate folded inside passport and announced that my passport had not been renewed. Not a speaker of the beautiful Turkish language, he handed the letter to me to read the lame excuse of their refusal to renew: On the proforma letter, they had actually inserted a hand-written condition stating they did not accept letters written in English. You can imagine the amount of ‘French’ that came out of my mouth, let alone the English…
Now these people are employed by the Turkish government as a select few who are well-educated and well-spoken, able to communicate in at least one language other than their native one. They are extremely able to decode any form of written or spoken English. Believe me, I know, I applied with a letter written English three years ago and my request was promptly resolved. Three years on, the employees of the Turkish Consulate in London must either have regressed in their language skills or must have lost a huge number of grey matter in their heads. I have sent my passport, my Turkish I.D. and a postal order which is written to the amount quoted for a two year passport extension. Whether my letter, which I remind you was only an act of courtesy on my part (Woe be me for actually showing manners and courtesy!), is written in English or Turkish, is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. For someone who lives in the U.K. and works at one of the most coveted posts available only to a select well-educated few, they are equipped with the skills to decipher the nature of my request, regardless of whether my letter was written in Urdu, Sanskrit or Yoruba… It is the act of extreme pro-nationalism that makes their own nationals suffer which frustrates me…
I have since voiced the very same request in Turkish in a letter that surprisingly contains no expletives which I think is a generous courtesy on my part. I will need to retrace my steps back to the post office and post the same documents once again and hope that this time they renew my passport before the 29th. Mind, I did include the words ‘Royal Mail’ in stating that I was enclosing a self-addressed Royal Mail envelope. If they send my passport back with another lame excuse, they will be hearing from me. And this time it’ll be all ‘French’.
Where does love begin, where does it end? Is it at first sight, first kiss or the very first time after weeks, months, years, you look at a special someone and realise they are the very person you want to wake up next to every morning and want to say good night to before you turn off the light at night? Where does love end? At what point do you go from the dress, the cake, the tender kiss on the forehead, the passionate gaze across the room, to fighting over who gets to keep the house, the car, the kitchen sink and the family dog? Most importantly, maybe, how do we let love mature through the weeks, the months and the years without turning sour? As reiterated time and time again, in poetry, music and wedding speeches; the formula to the elixir of long-lasting love seems to be mutual trust, respect and honesty, maybe most important of all, compromise – 'Give a little, take a little,' as the father of the bride declared three weeks ago on Saturday, advising the newly wed couple on the journey that lies ahead. I have been to three weddings in the last month and seen photographs from a fourth. Every single one of these weddings have made me experience a range of different emotions, from joyful exuberance at the newly wed couples' union to misty-eyed reminiscence about my own wedding a year ago; from admiration of the unprecedented acceptance of families to welcome another as their own to curious queries on the very nature of the union called marriage. Marriage is a union of two different, however compatible, individuals from two different families, backgrounds, at times different cultures or even continents; such a union has its challenges as well as the enrichment and joy it gives. Most of all, it provides a couple the opportunity to grow in unison, working through their differences, embracing those very differences that make them unique, nurturing the similarities that draw them closer and at times of crisis, finding common ground in similarities. Marriage is a game of understanding. In fact, maybe my analogy is completely incongruous; marriage is not a game. It is work. Hard work, at times. Marriage is a pact between two people, which requires just more than a careless stumble with eyes closed. There is no point thinking that there won't be days where dinner plates won't be flying in the air, alongside threats and hurtful words; where doors will be slammed shut, alongside hearts, banning entry to the other party; that there will not be tears, tantrums, fights, misunderstandings. When you do manage to come out at the other end though, that pact will be much stronger for every tear shed or every dinner plate broken. 'Marriages don't fail, people do,' said a reading in one of the weddings I attended in the last month. My conviction is marriages fail when people fail. When people fail to listen, or to understand or even fail to work through issues that turn bright-eyed, 'butterflied' love turn sour and miserable. That is when marriage packs up and fails even before one gets to consider packing up their suitcase and starting the bitter battle over the house and dinner plates, cracked, chipped and broken. 'Give a little, take a little,' I have learnt, should be the motto of every couple, whether they have shared just five weeks or twenty five years together. 'Give a little' teaches one to let go of their ego and self-interest, 'take a little' allows us to appreciate all the times that special someone stands by us to love, cherish and honour. 'Give a little, take a little' helps a couple grow in a marriage where hopefully all that is chipped, broken or cracked is the dinner plates, not our fragile hearts or fine china marriages.
NO OBSTACLES… SEEING POSSIBILITIES NOT DISABILITIES
I have decided that – as long as I can commit myself to regular daily posts on my blog – Mondays will be ‘Monday Muse’ day to kick-start the working week in an upbeat fashion. In the light of this, my first muse comes straight from the pages of a Sunday supplement that came with one of yesterday’s papers. I enjoyed reading the feature on Natasha Wood, a thirty six year old writer-performer from Nottingham whose drive and determination has taken her as far as Los Angeles on the road to stardom and success despite her ongoing battle with spinal muscular atrophy, a incurable genetic muscle-wasting disease. Natasha’s story also made me realise just how much we need to hear inspiring stories of people who refuse to give up and turn negatives into positives and disabilities into possibilities.
Natasha has been bound to a wheelchair all her life, undergone painful operations as a teenager to straighten her back and has been called names by some kids at school. Yet her strength of spirit and independence shines through the mere assertion that she ‘gave as good as [she] got’, a school bully got his just deserts when he punched her once and broke his fist on the body brace Natasha used to wear from her groin up to her chest to keep her back straight. ‘From then on no one bothered me,’ she says laughing.
After leaving school with five O-levels, Natasha auditioned Graeae in London, a disabled-led theatre company and got a part in a play called Why. On her return to Nottingham, she studied drama A level. It was around this time she met and fell in love with Duncan Wood, her former husband; they had an amicable divorce in 2004 after fourteen years of what she calls ‘the happiest marriage’. The same year saw Natasha promoted to the position of production manager with the BBC. Her divorce followed months later with her brother’s – also a spinal muscular atrophy sufferer – death, led Natasha to re-assess her life and apply for a nine-month position as a production manager for the BBC in New York. Since her move in 2005 to a luxury apartment in Manhattan, Natasha Wood has not taken a break from her journey to success in her chosen field.
Her 90-minute one-woman show Rolling with Laughter, which is based on her life, is booked out for months ahead in Los Angeles. She is due to appear in London and the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. She has also been offered several acting opportunities including a pilot for a sitcom she will be starring in.
From her teenage years to her journey Stateside, Natasha Wood has demonstrated strength of body and spirit in the face of adversity. As she is quoted in the feature, she seems to be a strong, resilient, independent woman who is at peace with herself and her life. By any standard, she has led a much more colourful and rewarding life in the whole of thirty six years than some can manage in a lifetime. Isn’t she inspiration enough for many us able-bodies folk out there who are crushed in the face of a single blow?
Now, people who know me also know I am no Miss Polyanna. In fact, I am quite at ease with my pessimism. Nine times out of ten, bar the occasional light-hearted, caution-to-the-wind exception, my glass is ‘half empty’ or even when I can see it ‘half- full’ I spend so much time focussing on the half-empty part that I forget to count my blessings.
For people like me, there are so many lessons to learn form Natasha Wood’s story, from the stories of many others like her, who refuse to give up. As they say, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.’ For people like Natasha, the going hasn’t just got tough overnight; it has always been tough. The secret of keeping on keeping on is a positive outlook on life, the strength of character to refuse to admit defeat, the adaptability of mind that sees opportunities, not handicaps – or rather opportunities in handicaps, possibilities in disabling, debilitating circumstances, the will to take negatives and turn them into positives.
This is my tribute to such people, my Monday muses…
Since I have mused at length about death in my last post, I thought I'd post something a little more light-hearted today. Enjoy!
50 Ways to Tell You’re Turkish
1. You can sing at least one Sezen Aksu song, in tune, from beginning to end, backwards and sideway, and inside and out.
2. You go to football games armed with a range of weaponry ranging from kitchen knives to katanas. 3. You treat any form of international sports event as a matter of life or death. 4. You drink your tea from an hourglass-shaped glass… Without milk.
5. You scorn Nescafe in favour of a tiny cup of coffee with huge granules at the bottom. 6. And you flip the cup over on the saucer when you’re done, let it cool down and read your fortune from the cup. 7. You consider Eurovision as some form of patriotic excursion. And you’re proud that you no longer end up with ‘no point’. 8. You end a boozy night out having a soup made of cow intestines. 9. And no night out is a night out without booze. Preferably good ole raki.
10. And no night out starts before 11 o’clock. 11. You find yourself debating the possibility of a massive earthquake which will supposedly hit Istanbul in the next thirty years. 12. The news show on your TV features half an hour footage on carnage on motorways. Dead bodies covered with newspapers. Cue sad music in the background. 13. The entertainment shows on your TV last at least three hours. 14. Sunflower seeds are the snack of choice for a night in watching TV. 15. Every other program on your TV seems to feature a dozen of long-legged women dancing around in skimpy outfits. 16. You would get groped by some ‘maganda’ the moment you step out on the street in a skimpy outfit. 17. You’ve been on the minibus – a form of public transport consisting of a psychotic driver whose got delusions of being on a Formula 1 track, his assistant that hangs out the side door, shouting out the destination (‘Aksaray, Aksaray!) and a dozen passengers huddled together like sardines in a tin.
18. You know at least one person who thinks yoghurt is the magical cure for every disease. 19. And another person who thinks going around barefoot is the cause of all major ailments. 20. You pull your earlobe, make a kissing sound with your lips and touch wood to ward off evil. 21. Any ill that might come your way is a sign of the much-feared ‘evil eye’.
22. You have at least once carried sugar cubes, blessed with prayers at a mosque, as a lucky charm to an exam. 23. You’ve spent a good deal of your life taking off your shoes as you walk into a house and putting on a pair of slippers. 24. And you’ve been to houses where they keep slippers of all shapes, sizes and colours for guests. 25. You’ve been chased around the house, at least once, by your mom brandishing that fatal weapon: her slipper. 26. Your family would probably disown you if you became a vegetarian. No meat? What nonsense? 27. You get charged four times more than Russian tourists to holiday in the same Turkish resort. 28. You require a visa to travel to half the world’s countries. 29. You get offended by food labels in other countries labelling your own food ‘Greek feta’, ‘Greek yoghurt’ or ‘Greek humus’… 30. You dislike the Greeks because they are competition but you like them because they’re ‘our neighbour’. 31. You are inclined to dance to any tune, including the banging and clunking of kitchen crockery. 32. People pretty much take it for granted that you can belly-dance simply because you’re Turkish and ‘it's your traditional dance, right?’ 33. You live in a country where two guys going out for a meal is not considered ‘gay’. 34. And where people actually pay to go to clubs where the entertainer’s biggest selling point is his sexual orientation or recent sex change. 35. When you don your latest Nike trainers or your Gucci bag, it is highly likely that someone will ask you whether they are real or fake. 36. You probably know the hairiest man in the world, or better yet, are related to him. 37. ‘Spawn of donkey’ or ‘bear’ are words that are considered to be pretty offensive insults in your native language. 38. You wouldn’t be able to talk if your hands were amputated. 39. You greet friends with a kiss on each cheek and a hug. Even if you are both male, yes. 40. You greet your elders by kissing their hand. 41. You call people who are older than you ‘aunt’, ‘uncle’ or ‘brother’ even if you are not related by blood. 42. You are not offended when the guy behind the market stall or the street vendor greets you as ‘auntie’. 43. You are not reaching for your camera to quickly snap a shot when you see a street vendor shouting out ‘Vegetable seller is here, ladies!’ 44. Nor do you reach out to call the police when you see a kid walking on the motorway selling handkerchiefs or bottled water or ‘simit’ or music tapes for your car.
45. In fact you slow down, wind down, buy a ‘simit’ and a tape; nibble on your ‘simit’ in the heavy traffic whilst listening to your tape.
46. Any slow song has the power to make you cry. 47. Any slow song after a broken heart and one too many drinks has the power to push you to depression and suicidal thoughts. 48. Not only do you have water surrounding your corner of the world on three sides, you tend to enjoy sitting at the water’s edge contemplating your life when you’re depressed. 49. You spend half your lifetime complaining about your country and your people, and the other half proudly announcing to the world you are Turkish and you are proud of it. 50. You read this list and go, ‘Yeah, I do that!’
Take a glimpse at the photograph. And then close your eyes for a minute. Meditate. What is your first thought, first association with the photograph?
THE VERY ESSENCE OF LIFE
Everyone has a few dates in their lives, certain milestones, associated with love, birth, celebration, loss, death, life… For me that date is 11 July. On 11 July 2001 my dad passed away. For weeks, months and years that followed, that date for me was associated with pain, heartache and mourning of the deepest kind. It was a milestone, a rite of passage, my first experience of death in the immediate family, at an age where it was no longer a vague idea shrouded by safe distance and childish apathy. Waking up to panic attacks in the middle of the night, dreading every single Father’s Day, secretly envying daughters all over the world who were lucky enough to have a father to send a card to, or take out for dinner, or to simply sit down and enjoy quiet companionship with.
Yet time is the kindest nurse – before you realise, you find that time has gently mended your deepest scars, nursed you through the darkest hours of grief and nourished you back to strength and renewed resolve to carry on. In time, I realised that any date associated strongly in my mind with my father, especially 11 July, became a day of celebration of his life – and a celebration of life.
One regret I have every year on 11 July is that, is that because of work commitments I cannot be there to visit my dad’s grave, to lay down flowers, to whisper a prayer, to sit quietly on the edge of his tomb in the sombre silence of the graveyard, just to feel his presence around me. I still do visit him though each time I go to Istanbul.
Today’s photograph was captured on one such visit. Like in any major city around world, visiting a cemetery in Istanbul is a bizarre experience, finding yourself in the sombre solitary silence, disquieting quiet of intricately designed avenues, streets, alleyways of marble tombstones, dappled in the afternoon sun streaming through the dense leaves of ancient trees in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a buzzing metropolitan alive with vigour, energy and aggression; aged willow trees towered by glitzy skyscrapers, urban high rises proudly standing tall.
Looking through the leaves shading the last resting place of another loved one, it is easy to see the twin towers and their morbid connotations. Twin Towers of Istanbul in which hundreds of office workers are going about their lives, without a shadowy thought of death, below on the streets the cars whiz past, the pedestrians purposefully pace in all directions towards their destinations. In the hurried hustle and bustle of life and the haze that clouds our minds with a daily list of things to do – urgent, important, asap – no one has the time to stop and ponder the meaning of life.
‘Life is a journey, not a destination’ flashes the magnetic picture frame on my fridge, holding a picture of my parents and a ten year old me; indeed it is. ‘Death is the best advice in life’ says a sign the cemetery across the Twin Towers of Istanbul. Life is a journey, with one single destination. All ‘gilded monuments’ and ‘lofty towers’, all inventions of mankind, and mankind too, will one day turn to ashes and dust; all life as Shakespeare says ‘is rounded with a sleep’. It is only at such milestones of life, we have a glimpse of the bigger picture, the final destination but once the moment has passed, we forget and drift along life, purposefully yet aimlessly. ‘Life is a journey’ and ‘death is the best advice’ to remind us to truly live, cherish, capture, enjoy every single moment of that journey.
Two months after my personal tragedy, the world shook with a global tragedy of two planes searing across the New York skyline, slicing through the Twin Towers of Manhattan. On the very same day, one of my father’s best friends passed away. As the people of New York City united in the face of tragedy, as people all over the world felt the overwhelming need like they had in that moment of impact, to reach for the phone and hear the soothing tone of a loved one’s voice, just to say ‘I love you’; personal tragedy united my mum and her now best friend, the widow of my father’s friend. Two women tenuously linked through their husbands’ friendship that spanned a good part of thirty years, two widows united through kindred pain, two women who built a friendship through the ruins of their hearts battered by the loss of a spouse.
These two pillars of strength are mere proof that despite the frozen moment of stunned shock and the sombre grieving that follows, life goes on. As they laugh and cry through the reminiscences of old times, travel through the ups and downs life has to offer, taking strength in their friendship; they truly live, cherish, capture, enjoy every single moment of the journey. What they have lost with their husbands’ passing, they have found in their friendship: the will to go on, the wisdom to know all that comes shall indeed pass, and a hand to hold on to in sadness, and a hand to high-five in celebration.
Towers will tumble, castles will crumble, fortresses will one day fall to ashes and dust; one day each journey will reach its ultimate destination. 11 July reminds me to make the most of the journey, to tell loved ones they are indeed loved as much and as often as I can, to truly live, cherish, capture, enjoy every single moment. On 11 July every year, as I celebrate my father’s life, I resolve to lead such a life that would make him proud, a life as much worth celebrating as his own.
My first post... I've known about blogspot for ages, but it wasn't until I stumbled upon my cousin Vickii's spot a couple of months ago http://im-not-most-girls.blogspot.com/ and my other half Subster decided to set up his own blog a few weeks back http://substershouse.blogspot.com/ that I considered setting up my own account. And here we are - in my little world.
Who am I?
People call me Sin, Sinem, Sinami, Cinnamon, Xena, Sinnie... At the ripe age of twenty nine, teacher by profession, writer by hobby, moonlighting as a photographer when the opportunity presents itself or the fancy takes me.
Crazysexycool woman of class and elegance... perfectionist to a fault, empathetic, sensitive, gentle, complicated, multi-layered, multi-tasking, over-analytical, borderline obsessive compulsive, genuine, brutally honest, laid-back, easygoing, introverted, reflective, introspective, stubborn, pessimistic, self-deprecating, born-worrier, sarcastic, sassy, crazy, cool, kooky. I'm just me.
I love chocolate, and writing, and photography.I love summer, the beach and swimming in the sapphire seas. I love ice cream, Haagen Dazs cookies & cream, Baileys on a hot summer's eve, sunshine on my skin and sea salt in my hair, true child of the Mediterranean.
I love romantic comedies and duvet days, good reads, my morning latte. Making scrap-books, travelling places, catching the journey of the sun from the east to the west, taking snapshots in the blink of an eye. Street photography - capturing a single second in a stranger's life. Black&white... Or landscapes. My camera and I, alone in the wilderness, in search of that picture perfect scenery.
Writing... poetry, short stories, novels. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd give up the day job, buy a house by the ocean, and write from dawn till dusk. Writing makes me happy. That one thing in life I can get so wrapped up in I forget the passing of time.
I love music. Singing in my car at the top of my voice! Feeling the lyrics to the bone. I love songs that make me smile (Smile, She moves in her own way...) I love songs that make me cry (Dance with my father, Hello...).
I love poetry. I love the neat sequence of words telling the stories of the soul. A bit of Browning, a bit of Frost, a bit of Shakespeare is good for the soul.I love each single moment spent enjoying myself, with friends, family, loved ones. Good times, good food, good wine.
Life is too short to spend any moment in pain or sadness. I have had my fair share in the past to know that. In the end, life is what you make of it. Make it worthwhile.
