Monday, January 30, 2012

Scusami se sono felice...


Here I am, January 28th, 2012. Laid down on kite surf beach in Dubai. Perfect weather. Not too cold, not too hot, a little windy and a flat calm turquoise immense sea a few steps from me. Thomas is taking a nap next to me, his hand keeps a contact with me touching my leg gently. I look at him and I feel complete. He's so close to me that I can still smell what remains of the perfume he wore last night. It's dissolving, I can tell, but I can still perceive it, delicate, mixed to the natural fragrance of his body. A body that I know well and love in all its perfections and imperfections. We are now "man and wife" and it feels good, but it didn't come easily. 6 years together, learning how to be together, how to understand and compensate each other. We've been married 6 months now and you might think there is nothing extraordinary in the enthusiasm I express here. It may be true, but I still believe it's worth putting it down in words. Words that will somehow remain as the years go by.
I feel the obligation to etch these thoughts, since I've learned that everything can easily be forgotten and, even worst, be replaced by intolerance and hatred.
I'm thinking about my parents.
I cannot distinguish their 30 year- marriage to the idea that what brought them together, at first, was founded on love, passion, enthusiasm and mutual trust. How did they forget about this? How can two people grow apart so much and become strangers...become "Somebody that I used to know"?




If I think about the "good" I want to incise in my memory, it might seem weird, but I look at our bathroom as the mysterious symbol of the intimacy existing between Thomas and I as a couple. Yes, I think the bathroom is the room of a house that better reflects a couple's dynamic.
I look at our matching electric toothbrushes. They have a story behind that we, only, know. And again, I can't help but comparing, thinking of my family house in Florence where, many years ago, even my mom and dad used to share an electric toothbrush. A last generation one, maybe brought from my dad from one of his business trips abroad. I still can see it. It was a kit with 5 different toothbrush pics...one for each of us. A family kit and although it was getting obsolete, I was attached to it. Weren't they?
I look at everything Thomas and I have and I feel the instinct to protect it. Each photo we took together, each piece of furniture we bought, music we've taught each other or book we've read... is an important component of the puzzle of our life together. How can one give up on all this? I don't know and maybe I cannot even understand certain dynamics right now. I'm sure my parents had good reasons to take different paths and I'm not judging them. I'm just saying that it takes so much work and effort to build a life together that one should defend it against everything. Miscommunication and misunderstandings... at one point my mom felt she was the only one trying to save the relationship, while my dad constantly felt under accusation with a wife too often harsh on him. They stopped talking and they slowly started to blame each other for different reasons. That was the moment when the irreversible damage was done. And it's from there that I want to learn. That I want to learn how important is to remember. Are we destined to follow our parents path? Definitely not. But we must learn from it. We can recognize what life is about to serve us and react in a constructive way.
Now I feel outrageously happy and I want to imprint it and treasure it in my memory. Just for me, in case harder times will come...

So... forgive me if I'm happy, I hope you can cope with this mawkish post, but I could not avoid writing it.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Just an ordinary day...for ordinary people.

January 12th, 2012.

The new year has started at school like everywhere else. After 10 days surrounded by family members (yes, loud and crazy sometimes, but extremely fun and caring!) going back to work and to our chilled life, where our family lives in a different continent, has a bitter taste. On the first day of school I got back home alone and tired, while Thomas was still working. My sister had left a few hours before, but I didn't realize it. I wasn't there. The house and everything felt empty and sad. No more laughs and 155 conversations started and never really ended, no more real talks, the ones you can have with the ones you trust 100%, no more sharing everything (from shoes, make ups to opinions and feelings). She is gone. But somehow found the way to keep her presence here with me for a little longer. Beba left  me the sweetest note a sister could write. I cried for hours, but I'm glad she did write those words.
Did I  already said she's definitely the smartest of us, B sisters? If not I'll say it now. She is great. She has a unique sensitiveness and her brain is so sharp that it amazes me every time. She can do everything she wants, she succeeds in all challenges she undertakes. She is versatile and sensible to understand how to adjust to any situation. I miss her deeply, just like I miss Bianca for different reasons. Oh sisters...what a great invention!!!
But I apologize. This is totally off topic.



What I wanted to talk about today is this ordinary day at school. It has been a good day with the kids: funny, sweet...funny as usual, but now it's 4 pm, I'm in the gym, running on a treadmill. Across the glass window, in the gym, there is a basketball game: Thomas' team's game. And I'm supposed to pay attention an watch it. Instead, maybe because when I run I go on a sort of high heart rate-ecstasy, my thoughts are flying away, in my own world. I'm here physically connected to this reality, but mentally detached from the external environment. I'm in the middle of the action, but it feels like I'm observing everything from above. If someone comes to me and interrupts my thoughts I feel suddenly unplugged like an electric guitar during a rock concert. Silent, with no reason to be there.
I'm looking at the players running up and down the court. Are they doing their best? I don't know. Thomas alternates satisfied faces to disappointed postures and head in his hands. Maybe it's the thick glass between me and everything else. I can't hear much, so I decide to focus on the gestures and movements of the slice of life taking shape in front of me. I look at the excited parents on the bleachers recording their kids' performances, supporting and inciting the boys with all their energy. It's fun to watch them. They would risk to look ridiculous, but actually they are so well positioned in their world.  So well attached to the reality. Everything they do is appropriate for the moment. I'm probably the only one who secretly doesn't fit here, right now. But I need my little moments. I need those places where I can go with my mind. Then I come back and I will pretend that I followed each single moment of the game. :)

Score: Period 4 (last one) Falcons (us): 33 - Dragons (our rival school): 38.
Thomas is not happy and he won't get better now that  only 53 seconds are left. :(
He'll probably be grumpy tonight but I love him. He is so into it. He loves what it does and does it greatly. I am proud of him every time I look at him. He's my link to the real world. He takes me back to the more practical stuff, when my mind flies too far.
OMG!
Score: Falcons: 37 - Dragons: 39 - Second: 00:00
One of our kid shoot and I'm pretty sure he got a foul (I know, I said I wasn't really watching this game but this final part was exciting and, after all, I'm the wife of a basketball player/coach/supporter/freak and I must have learned something in 6 years!). We could have probably finished this game on a sweeter note, but I don't know what happend...the referee didn't interrupt the game and we didn't get the foul free shots (or whatever they're called). Game over :(

But good job Falcons and good job amore! Let's go back to the real world and let's go home...
like ordinary people...

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Mon Jardin

I love gardening and Dubai has just the perfect weather to grow everything you want! My basil plants growing...

 Bougainvilles have the perfect climate here in Dubai!
 
 Persils, salvia and tomatos growing healthy! :)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Waiting for 2012...Happy New Year!!!



After the Maldives, where Thomas and I experienced complete relaxation, peace and mystic natural beauty, back to Dubai a fun/intense week is waiting for us. My mom and sister Bianca met us for 24h during a stop of their MSC cruise in the gulf. 
Then, on Christmas day my aunt Vanna, uncle Giampaolo and sister Beatrice +BF Antonio visited from Florence and here we are, on the very first day of 2012... 
We had an exciting busy week filled with laughs, family love and presents!!!
One of the greatest moments of the end of 2011 is our fishing trip. Here you can see a few pictures of  it! I still can't believe what we did, but WE (including myself who NEVER EVER fished successfully in my life) took around 7Kg of fresh, beautiful, edible fish!!! :) And thanks to my sister and aunty's help, we had a wonderful dinner last night, eating 5 of our big beasts!  Have a look, enjoy ...and feel free to envy us! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!