Grace & Manners

New Year's Eve

I hope you are all spending New Year's Eve in a happy place - me, I will pass it right here in my little sanctuary of a flat, dreaming, pondering, hoping... laying to rest the old and welcoming the new.

Happy New Year!

Are you Grateful?

I read an absolutely heartbreaking, touching and honest post on one of my favourite blogs this morning which forcefully reminded me, yet again, how much I have to be grateful for, every single day. And how it is possible to show grace and courage even in the face of great adversity. I am a glass-half-empty kind of person and sometimes I can get lost in my bubble of gloom and doom and self-pity. It is good to have one's life put into perspective from time to time.

So, be grateful!

Laced with History

 
Today, my grandmother had to move to a nursing home. How to pack decades of memories into a few cardboard boxes, how to decide what to take and what to leave, how to sift through one's own accumulated material history, how to help? Let's just say it was an emotional day for all of our family...

I feel extremely blessed to have grown up in a multi-generational home, to have had the opportunity of being close to my grandparents throughout my childhood and teens. It is such a privilege. And I find comfort in the thought that she didn't not have to move far, just around the corner to be precise, and that she still retains a great measure of her independence.

 
Like my grandmother, I tend towards the occasional ,inexplicable, sentimental attachment to objects and "things". That's why I felt especially touched when she gave me the beautiful, handcrafted lace she had kept from her mother and parents-in-law, all lovingly stored in flower-printed cardboard boxes. Trims, ribbons, collars, little, tiny bibs...Treasures indeed!

The Magic of a City

 
It will hardly come as news to you that I absolutely loved New York. I was bewitched by its sheer magic from the second I spotted the outline of Manhatten when we approached JFK.

Work and school are currently making their demands on me but I will put up a comprehensive post of my trip soon.

A New Chapter

 
With 2010 put to rest and the new year laying ahead all unchartered, I am ready to put my pen to a new chapter.

The first days of 2011 were spent in reading (Stephen Fry's new autobiography - brilliant!), eating (curtesy of Nigella), distilling my interior decoration ambitions into a doable, affordable form (several thrift store visits are in planning), taking stock of my clothing collection (there are several newly bought vintage outfits I'd like to share over the next weeks), a quick venture into the cold outside and several Moccas to warm up.

On and upwards...

Merry Christmas

 
A very Merry Christmas to you, dear reader!

Here's to thoughtful presents, delicious food, out-of-tune carol singing and time spent with family.

Restlessness

 
 
'...that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen; that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. ... I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kind of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes..."

Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre, Chapter 12

A Face to Remember

I have just added a new lady to my list of girl/woman crushes: the fabulous Paloma Faith.

Apart from her unqiue voice and great first album, it was her special style that captured me - a wonderful mix of vintage, whimsy, the theatrical and historical references. Have a look at the fantastic Elizabethan inspired corset jacket in her Live at the ICA video. In fact, go and watch all her music videos; Paloma (in collaboration with Petra Storrs, see above picture) creates magical worlds you want to walk right into.

And the hair, oh! I have a soft spot for redheads anyway but even more so if those flame-coloured tresses are done up in vintage inspired styles.

We need more Paloma's - women who are the makers of their own style and aesthetic and are fearless in its execution.

Coming Home

I have always considered myself a citizen of the world; travelling was always pleasure and privilege, where possibilities and excitement lined up like pearls on a string. I was also fortunate enough to spend some years living abroad, an experience that I wouldn't want to miss for the world and that has given me a refreshed appreciation of my own country and our (very high) standard of living.

And yet, despite this appetite for roaming the world, coming home to the place where I grew up has never lost its importance. That warm feeling when you are on what I call 'The Home Stretch' - those last few metres before your house comes into view - is incomparable to anything else and I never fail to be astonished by its intensity. It is still surprising though, to find myself living in my hometown again. I have an abiding love for the place, no doubt, but I never thought I would live here again as an adult. In fact, not so long ago, I looked on that possibility with disdain. What drew me back? Maybe its familiarity, at times so despised, that now offers comfort at this rather difficult time in my life. Maybe the invisible ties that bind me to this place are stronger and more momentous than I believed. Or maybe I simply wanted to come home.

Moving in general is an emotional affair, whatever the reasons for packing up and leaving. More so in this instance, when a chapter in one's life is coming to a painful close and the new one is as yet, vague and uncertain. One's existence suddenly shrinks down to a pile of cardboard boxes and a few pieces of furniture. For me, it always brings into perspective that, really, we came with nothing and we will leave with nothing. Yes, like most people, I am attached to certain material objects: books, shoes, a special piece of furniture…but ultimately, it is the memories that I want to cling to and cherish. When the boxes are gone, the rooms are empty and the tears are flowing freely, those snippets of time and recollection will give comfort, however small.

Where There is Smoke...

The Smoking Ban has arrived in Switzerland; I am a non-smoker so I can't deny it will be nice to come out of a restaurant/bar still smelling of Musc Ravageur and not Eau de Marlborough. But I can understand the ongoing debate about how far the state should interfere in our private lives/lifestyle choices. I will spare you my two cents on the subject and leave you with the ladies above who are smoking, yes, but looking oh so stylish.