Tuesday 23 May 2017

Feather-light.



I feel light as a feather - as if the faintest breeze could easily lift me up at any moment - 

when was the last time I was in such a mood that just the sound of a bird chirping would fill my chest with joy? Or that I found myself thinking while walking to the laundromat, 'today is a really lovely day'? Have I ever felt like this before? Have I ever been in such a ininterrupted state of joy (it's a different thing from happiness, mind you, though most of the time they go hand in hand) before? Will this joy last when I have to go back home, or is it only inherent to this place and this time? 

In part, I think, it's the fruit of the effort I have been making for these past few years to be content in the everyday. But this is not just contentedness, it is more. 

Saturday 20 May 2017

Lunch break at the botanical gardens.








Wednesday was the busiest day I've had in ages. In my pre-study abroad life I used to hate days like that, where I left the house in the morning and came back 12 hours later; busy days left me drained and usually suffering from a bad headache. But Wednesday was just blissful (another blissful day - I almost feel like i'm collecting days like that on a string here, like pearls on a necklace, one after the other, white, gleaming, precious). 

It was the hottest day in the year -27°! in the Netherlands! Unheard of- and during my two-hour break between classes I met with a friend to go to the botanical gardens. Leiden's gardens are amongst the oldest in the world, and they are just a 5 minutes walk away from my faculty. It's incredible. I feel like this town was just made for me, or viceversa, rather. The sun was shining and there was a last-day-of-school feeling. We wandered around for a while, absorbing the sunshine and doing photosyntesis like the plants around us, then we decided to have lunch in the gardens' cafè. We were the only young people amongst tables of elderly women. One lady near us was celebrating her birthday with her friends: when I am old I want to celebrate my birthday in the cafè of a botanical garden, too. My friend and I talked about our favourite memories of our months here so far over a roasted vegetables broodje, constantly reminding to each other how unbelievable it was that it was warm enough to be outside in short sleeves. Not thinking about the exams in 10 days, or the fact that we're going back home in 20 -- just sharing a meal on a sunny day, breathing fully.

Saturday 13 May 2017

About life choices, pleasure and work.



Ever since I have started my study abroad experience, I have been thinking more and more about my future and my job and what I want to do in life. Back in February I had this huge realization that I want to work in the women's rights field, especially women's right in the workplace. I am honestly surprised it took me so long to realize it, considering I am a law student and I am very passioned about women's rights; it's easy as making 2+2. But I've never been good at maths.

Last week I was in Paris and I guess the exposure to all the beauty and the art made me start questioning my life choices all over - why am I studying law, I should have studied history of art, I should just open an Etsy shop.

Right now I am working on a paper on paternity leave and why it's so important to strive towards equality in the home. And I this thought just popped into my mind - surely spending all my time studying beautiful paintings or sewing tiny stitches would be amazing, but how self-indulgent would it be? Would it concretely help someone else other than me? Bring anything else than fleeting pleasure, mostly to me? Would it help make a change in the world? I almost feel like indulging in art would be so typical of me. I will not deny that I am a selfish person. I always have been but I have been trying to correct myself. Sometimes I feel like selfishness is almost engrained in my DNA, and I will never get rid of it, but small steps - small steps.

Art, both the making of it and the studying of it, is one of the most important things in my life if not the most important. Art is like a blanket for me, I feel comfortable in it, it keeps me warm, it's a familiar place. Law is the opposite. Sometimes it feels big as the ocean, I can't see the land and I struggle to keep afloat. But from time to time, when I read a judgement that has nothing to envy to a poem, or stop to admire the perfect architecture of a code, I feel this burning feeling coming from within, somewhere between my stomach and my lungs. I think I should keep that fire going.

(This said - after working non-stop for two days on that paper, yesterday evening I hand-sewed about 30 quilt blocks in a hour and a half and it was amazing.)

Wednesday 10 May 2017

Today's golden hour.







One of Leiden's landmarks is a place called De Burcht, literally the castle. It's a fortification that was built around the year 1000 on top of a hill. The Netherlands are a very, very flat country; I come from a mountain region and probably I love going up there because the altitude -if you can even call it that- has a calming effect on me. The place feels like it doesn't even belong to the town. A hill is certainly a very extraneous thing in the Netherlands.

Since discovering the burcht it has become one of my favourite places to notice the changing of the seasons. First the hill was covered in snowdrops, then dandelions, now there are leaves on the trees, and cowparsley and tiny white flowers I don't know the names of. Unexpectedly I had an hour to kill today, and instead of going home I read an article in a cafè at the bottom of the hill -something I never do- and then went up to the burcht. No one was there, except a fluffy cat and me. I wandered around a bit. I recalled all the times I went there just to take a breather, and how I was a very different person every time. The seasons changed and I changed too.

The first time I went there was brought there by someone who I don't even speak to anymore.  One time it was sunny and I ate an ice-cream while looking at the church through the bare trees. Another time it was after lunch and I sat inside the castle looking up, and I remember seeing the trail of an airplane while the church bells rang. (The church bells here sound different than back at home, and I am almost sure that they play a slightly different melody every time.) 

I had lunch with a dear friend, we went to class and then to a café where we had cake and juice, and sent postcards to our mothers for Sunday. The sun had come out again and it was lovely and bright. When I woke up this morning I hadn't anticipated to have that free hour at the burcht; I hadn't anticipated to hang around with my friend after class; I was meant to be studying in fact. But I'm trying to make the most of the time that I have left to spend here, and trying to keep in mind that what I will miss the most when I have to go back home are these special, quiet moments. 

Tuesday 2 May 2017

On authenticity online.

Yesterday morning I ate a cold, albeit very pretty looking breakfast after having spent about 15 minutes trying to snap the perfect picture of it, and I wasn't even satisfied with any of the ones I took yet I felt like I had to post one on Instagram because the colours fit my theme perfectly. So while I ate my cold and photogenic french toast I started thinking about the kind of photos I have been sharing lately. 

I have always envied the people who managed to have a very cohesive looking Instagram grid, and now that mine has lately started to look like that too  -all corals and pinks and light greens and beiges- I am starting to think if that is what I actually want. I know I am probably thinking too much about a silly social media - that's probably where the problem is. I think too much about it. I have always loved photography and I have always thought of my Instagram as a gallery of curated photos; I only post something if I'm completely in love with the picture. And I think that that sometimes leads to lack of authenticity.

I've been thinking about the bloggers and Instagrammers I truly enjoy following the most, and I realize that they all have a quality in common - authenticity. Amy, Amanda, Lulu just to name a few: I feel like their photos are glimpses into their actual lives, and that create a special connection between me and them. The photo of a french toast I posted yesterday doesn't say anything.

I have always felt like the only way I could 'succeed at Instagram' was by posting very polished, 'perfect'-looking photos and by having a curated grid. Now I realize I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I think my photos are all quite nice, but sometimes they have no meaning to them and I just took them because I thought they'd look nice on my feed. I don't think there's anything wrong with 'setting up' a photo and thinking about how you want your grid to look like, but I'm kind of tired of it now. Wow. Never thought I'd say that.

So I guess I will try and be a bit more spontaneous on my Instagram from now on, and see what happens. 

What about you? What kind of Instagrammer are you?

PS: I didn't have a photo for this post, so I grabbed my phone, stood up and photographed what I have in front of me right in this moment. Maybe a bit too spontaneous?