The Bird Fairy

 

She spent all night talking to the bird. “You’ll see: one day your wings will take you high up to the skies. And then you’ll never be afraid again. She told her about her own wings: once upon a time she was the tiniest fairy in Fairy Land. She spent years wishing for her special power to reveal itself - until one stormy day. The sun was just coming back and she was watching it shine through the leaves of the gum tree she was under. “- I wish I could have wings like that” she thought.

“- I’ll make your wings” – said a young sapling next to her. And ever since then, she never stopped flying. She finally found her special power and she was roaming, setting all the birds free. The little white bird said nothing. Her plastic blue wings were sad and listless. But she had the most amazing song. The fairy shook her head. She was too young; she didn’t know yet that some birds have never known freedom outside their cages. She cast a spell and set the toy bird free. After all, she was the Bird Fairy.

Not Enough

We have too much of everything:
Too much food to throw because it's past due date;
Too many cars dotting the roads,
Too many Winters and not enough Sun.
Too many wars decided by fate
And not enough trees.

Too many lumps of coal, too much smoke
Too many books, too many hours to work
Too many worries,
Too much money to waste
On too many illusions
But not enough peace,
Not enough love.

El Bardo

Un pobre diablo sin zapatos
Ni los tiene, ni los quiere.
Pero su música a todos los tiene locos
Y ellos se olvidan de todo lo que duele.

Avant L'Hiver

Eblouie
Pour des raisons mal-comprises,
Inconnues.
Comm’elle me tombe bien, cette pluie
Et comme mon cœur danse,
Ma petite âme, qui suive l’automne et la lune.
Ce soir, on va partager les étoiles
Une à une.
Rien pour moi ; je n’en veux aucune.
Je ne veux rien de cette pluie belle de l’hier 
Sauf pour une feuille jaune
Pour emporter chaleur dans mon hiver.

 

 

 

The Second Sun

It was that second sun who stole my heart;
It wrapped my soul in love and set it free
Embracing me and guiding from the start
Although its shining light was never meant for me.

A ball of orange rays so subtly lit
Shining through dandelions on a knoll
T'was lost to me before I even found it
But it's that second sun who has my soul.

 

 

 

 

Memory Cracks

The ground is cracked and there is barely any grass left. The yard is a dust bowl speared by brown stubble. I point my toes at it and whinge: “I don’t have my shoes on!” I touch the ground again: it’s hot, prickly and dusty. But somehow, it’s soothing as well. One single blade of grass has stubbornly decided to grow, against all odds.
And then, I remember. When did I start loosing that part of me? I used to wear shoes only when I absolutely had to, constrained by stupid social norms. Or by the cold: winters at -32C are not an (easy) shoeless feat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, life does feel like a movie - and I swear, I can hear violins. And then I’m back in my beloved village and life is great again. It’s over 30 years ago but I can see her in her sunflowers dress – that was her good dress – and therefore its sight was always anticipating great things ahead: a trip to the city, a Sunday visit to someone dear or somewhere nice, a wedding… All my childhood memories are now woven in that Sunflowers dress. I wish I had the chance to keep it. I do have her blue sweater – another appearance staple of hers that stayed engraved in my memories since early days. She was never a fashionista, my Nana. She never spent time or money shopping for herself. Her only fashion statement ever happened much later, during her last days with us. She made us promise that when we lay her down for her final sleep, we will tie a ribbon around her neck, to hide her wrinkles. She even chose the ribbon: a red one. My mum was the bravest of us all and she carried out Nana’s wish, much to the affront of the old crones who came for the last visit: “you better take that silly ribbon off before the priest arrives”. – “The ribbon stays”, mum stated. The priest didn’t mind it; he was an old friend of my grandparents and he knew Nana was a good woman who had the right to one last little extravagance, after a life spent looking after the others.

I think often about her. About my village and our farm. Above all, I think about the crazy ways my life has changed so much. About the things I have forgotten and those that still await for me. About how I used to roam around the hills and forests, finding my way by finding north. My Old Man made sure I knew how to do that. I think about how I could tell a season by the birds around the place. Something that the Southern Hemisphere can’t really relate to. How I could find the cardinal points by the moss on the trees. How we used to bake bread and labour the land. I knew what needed to be done each month just by looking at the garden. Here, the soil has lots of clay. The months and the seasons are opposite to everything I knew. I still find solace in the hours I spend in the garden, Most of the time, it feels good. But it also feels artificial: Nowadays, I am not really cultivating the land or growing a crop. I have a small garden purely for our pleasure.

 

My Nana was a woman born ahead of her time. She would have made a very good entrepreneur in our days. Having survived the War, she had a great way of doing lots from little. You know how we all spend bucket loads of money on gro-bags when babies are born? Those special, tiny sleeping bags keeping babies warm at night but preventing them from overheating? My nana invented those before they were invented in the modern days. That’s how she slept her babies and that is how we slept as babies too. She made clothes from scratch and kept sewing, knitting and crocheting – depending on the season.

No scrap of food was ever wasted – she swept the breadcrumbs and fed them to the chooks. The food leftovers were made into pigs feed. The fruit and veggies were made into preserves. She moved about with the grace of a ballerina yet with a general’s demeanour and precision, ushering us all into the chores we had to help with.

And then, the bags. Those plastic bags that we all complain of slowly filling our environment… I still remember how she used to wash and recycle every single plastic bag that came her way. In fact, she recycled just about everything; nothing could go to waste. We made our pocket money by selling bottles to the recycling point. Glass bottles, not the plastic pets we have today.

There are so many things I love about her. But above all, I remember her big heart. Her smile. Her witty replies and her thoughtful praises.

She used to go to bed last, as she was preparing the household for the new day. She was first up, before even the sun was up and I remember those mornings, half asleep, when I could hear her voice talking to the chickens while she fed them. Then she milked the cow, talking to her too.

I don’t have any memory of my nana sleeping. I don’t think I have ever seen her sleeping. Her “rest” time was sitting in her arm chair, working on something – a sweater, a vest or perhaps making a new tablecloth for her 3 granddaughters’ trousseaux. I kept asking her whether she was tired – she always answered that the night was too long - something I didn't understand until it was my turn to have children.

 

 

A Monday Rescue Story

This is a rescue story with a happy ending - just in time for Christmas.
You know those Monday morning when you show up late for work with a wild excuse to make up for it? Well, this is actually not of them.
However, I would have thought it wild, had I not witness it myself.
At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this car. Or is it?

What would your boss say if you were to show up late telling him a Galah bird got caught in your car while driving to work? This is exactly what happened to one of my neighbours.

Luckily, the Wildlife expert lives just next door and the entire complex got mobilised pretty quickly in an improvised rescue team.
Two of my neighbours worked diligently to free the bird tangled in the car front.

We are all anticipating the sweet moment when he is finally freed: will he be all right?
Understandably distressed, the little fellow is very lucky to be alive and seemingly unhurt.

I've saved the best for last: a few words about our wildlife expert in residence.
Emma is the sweetest soul. She is very passionate about her work as a wildlife volunteer. Under her expert eye, the bird was kept under observation for a short while. He settled pretty quickly and then he flew away as soon as Emma opened the cage.
He sure has a tale to tell to all his other peers who aren't bothered much to move away from the road when cars drive past them.

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Self Portrait

I'm made of blue and mountains;
Of salty taste and summers,
Long silences and echoes,
Snow, clouds and stormy waters.

I'm made in equal parts
Of sunrises and darkness
tied up with shiny moon beams
And windy whispers through quiet blades of grass,
Of solitary trees that shelter all their birds,
Rivers gone dry and icy streams.

I'm made of hopes and tales untold 
Of amber skies and loosing without trying,
Of drops of rains and rainbows raising high above,
Horse riding in the sunsets bright as gold,
I'm made of rocky seas and winning without gaining
I'm made of love.

Through My Heart

 



 Maybe our souls were meant to dream as one
Temple on temple and heart next to heart
Silence to silence, two riders on the run,
Hand holding hand, not meant to come apart.

Two halves of same horizon, we sail across the sky:
Tempests within a silence and tides within a shoal
Colours that spell a lifetime and smiles within a cry
I wish the world could see right through your very soul

Stars in your eyes, like melted drops of rain
Meeting the golden rays of morning sun
I read through you the joys and all the pain
Of thousands words that haven't yet been spun.

We're Stream and River, drawing cores from depths
Where shapes and lines and colours play the part
Of songs unsung, undying love and strengths;
I wish the world could see you through my heart.

Yesterday I have been wrapping up a project very dear to my heart.
A project that I have spent my last 2 months working really hard on perfecting.
I don't intend to share publicly the portraits of the children that have thought me so much during this time.

But I would like to ask everyone to take a minute and consider this: how do you explain Autism and the Spectrum to someone that has never experienced it and doesn't understand it?
How do you educate the masses, changing ignorance through information? How do you make someone understand that the little kid throwing a tantrum at the mall is really not deserving that "naughty child" label so readily applied and that in reality some children have a huge sensory overload that they are just learning to deal with?
And how do you explain non-verbal autism to someone that has never been exposed to it? The longing to communicate with the others, as well as a parent's longing to hear their child talking?

Today, I chose to do it through a poem and an image. In writing this poem, I was inspired by a dear friend and the  amazing, loving connection she has with her son.

A Hat of Many Dreams

You meet someone in the crowd wearing same hat. Who wears it best, you wonder? And you might even alternate a couple of hats, depending on mood, style or season.
But what happens when a hat "wears" the persons?
This is not so much of a human portraits series but more of a hat portrait. It is an invitation to dream: what is inspiring you? How do you see yourself when you are wearing the "hat of many dreams?"
Nowadays everyone is a story teller; in the rush for sensational, we tend to forget that ordinary people make the best stories. This is my favourite hat ever. I started this series with my own family and our innermost self-projections but I intend to extend the project, take my hat around, ask people about their dreams, get their eyes off their phones and uncover their stories. Ultimately, this is about connecting with each other; a tale of individuals and of identity.

If you are interested to have your portrait taken in this series, please contact me.

Update: "A Hat of Many Dreams" has now taken off and it has its own home. You can read all the stories by clicking Here. 

#Winter Wonderland in THAT Special Place

 

 

 This fence is the imaginary line I draw between the real world and my special, happy place.

 

A place that changes from one hour to another; let alone days or seasons. My Grasslands have me spellbound – I always return for more of its peaceful scenery.

 

I haven’t been out and about in a while so this morning it felt so good to return. Although a tad chilly.

Armed with my very basic camera and with a very vivid imagination, I entered through the thick fog enveloping the grounds. And what a sight this crisp Winter morning was. If I closed my eyes, I could even pretend it’s really like the winters I used to know. The fog and frost made it possible for me to pretend that everything was covered in snow. For a few minutes, Winter Wonderland had moved in my backyard – as I liberally call the grasslands – and Christmas in July really is knocking at the door.

I love my early morning walks – today it seemed to be too early and too cold for anyone else to be out. Alone with my thoughts, I loved taking in the sounds, the smells and the colours.

One would never imagine how colours really pop on a foggy background.

But on the other hand, for me - the fog is still one of the hardest things to master when it comes to photography.  I didn’t take brilliant shots today and they needed an occasional tweak; nevertheless I had a great time seeing the place come to life.

It's always busy in the grasslands – this morning lots of birds, kangaroos and hares saluted me hurriedly.  

I am not sure whether the mist is making the animals more alert to the small noises or whether the kangaroos aren’t used to me anymore, since I haven’t been able to follow them for a while.

One thing is sure, they were very wary of me this morning. Usually, I was able to go quite close to them. Today however, they ran as soon as they saw me.

There are a few foxes too but I have never been lucky enough to photograph them. I have quite a long list of “missed opportunities” - things that I would have liked to photograph but wasn’t fast enough or didn’t have my camera at the right time. Until I get lucky, enjoy my imperfect frozen beauties, from the comfort of your warm toasty house.