TO WIN OR NOT TO WIN

I went to the Sport Award assembly at school, the other day.

Honestly by mistake because my kids are more academic than sport champions. I thought it would be the last assembly of the year and Clara, my daughter no. 3, was supposed to get her first Principal Award for having had three commendations.

She did not get it because it was not the purpose of that assembly.

I really enjoyed that assembly though. Because I met lots of friends and could say good bye, I could listen to speeches and hymn singing, watching moved parents some of us are proud of our kids only in these occasions…isn’t sooooooooo bad?

thinking “how good my child is” because he/she could get on stage, shake the teachers hands and get the award.

Because I was there by mistake, I was meant to entirely enjoy the show.

Then the something happened.

A good looking ex-soccer champion of the Bafana Bafana team (the national South African soccer team. Bafana means THE BOYS in Zulu) was invited to speak to the children Jeez, I thought he was the new p.e. teacher, wow… drawing all the audience’s attention.

He spoke gently and humbly to the children. He was not academic or intellectual and he told them the most touching story he could share with that bunch of kids aged 10 to 13 years old. Let me wear blue jeans, a white shirt, put on muscles and dark brown hair, a tricky smile and here is the story.

In 1992 I went to the Barcelona Olympic Games hoping to be able to watch the 100 m. final. Those guys train hard for years to compete only for few seconds. Years of training for a 9 seconds competition that will remember only the first one.

I could not get in so I decided to stay to watch the Paralympic.

In one of the races there were only 4 runners. They all had one wooden leg. The race starts and one of them was much faster to lead the competition, when all of a sudden his wooden leg breaks and fall off almost at the finish line.

The three others competitors stop running. In the silent stadium, where people are witnessing all this breathlessly, they help him to stand and carry him through the finish line.

This whole thing changed my life deeply and they way I had always seen the competition. It is not about WINNING it is about WHY we do things in life.

I loved this story. I write and share it with you. When do we give ourselves the time to sink deeply in the meaning of our Life?

Why do we do things? What is the real purpose of what we do?

Do I want to win or do I love what I am doing?

I know the answer for myself. It is a never ending 9 seconds race where we are altogether at the finish line.

What about you?

Love and Rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

I LOVE YOU ALL

To all my beloved followers.

Today.

Because today is a precious day where I wish I could hold you tight.

I wish I could make you feel how important you are.

There is no special meaning besides I LOVE YOU ALL.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

I wonder what the real relationship with my cooking is.

I love cooking. I hate cooking.

Sometimes I feel like having a double personality, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the kitchen.

Some days I am very much inspired, some others I‘d love to feed my big family using a magic wand and just being served and spoiled.

In those days, the inspired ones, I just open a cooking book and let myself go to the joy of creating a new dish. It is a successful attempt. I choose quick dishes to prepare, because in half an hour I want to be done, I cannot stand spending hours in the kitchen.

Always. Always Indian food. Or Thai. Which lead us to think, according to my theory of my past lives that I was there in previous times.

I also cook Italian, of course. The mastery of cooking pasta is just printed in my genetic code, as well as making the best Tiramisu’ in the world. Mmmmh and what an exquisite Panna Cotta…..

Most of all I love baking. I bake my own bread when I have the time.

I just find irresistible the aroma (or scent?) of freshly baked bread. I really love baking whatever can fit in the oven (my husband will never fit in) . I must say I am successful also at baking good simple cakes and tarts.

But baking is not cooking, it is completely another story.

The love for freshness in food, good quality and healthy food it is not negotiable. It is just the way I have always eaten. It is part of my culture. But I come from there, the Boot, where we do not only love food we mainly love feeding people. It is a kind of sensual pleasure seeing friends and guests eating my food. Offering, sharing. I always think it is never enough so usually, when friends are over I cook quantities of food that would be sufficient for a starving soccer team!

Drinking is secondary to food. We invite friends to eat and then drinks will follow. But the focal point of the evening is the fooooooooood.

I usually cook recipes I have never cooked before, because I love the thrill of the “unknown”, the mystery of unfamiliar food and ingredients. But I never tell my friends-guinea pigs because it comes out delicious, so why bothering them with superfluous anxiety?

Those are my creative days, where I do enjoy cooking and feel like a great Chef. Mr. Hyde in the kitchen.

Then Doctor Jekyll shows up in bad days, when I hate cooking because I rush the whole afternoon taxi-driving my kids at their sport and cultural activities, worrying about the idea what’s for dinner? Is there food in the fridge?. This makes a lot.

Because dinner must be ready by 6 pm in order to be in bed early.

And because my kids are never hungry “altogether”, at the same time.

So I often end up spending hours in the kitchen!

The focus is on the balance of my kids’ diet are they having enough proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fibers and vitamins? So those are the days when I wish I had a small Ratatouille cooking for me, where I would appreciate ANYTHING healthy already made! Broccoli, cauliflowers, spinach, whatever green exists in this planet. But already freshly cooked, waiting for me to grab a fork and wishing Bon Appetit a’ tout le monde.

I guess I‘ll be living with my split personality for a while, in the meantime who is joining for dinner tonight?

Love & Rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

GHOSTS

I believe in the Ghost of Technology.

It happens anytime I want to do things “properly” with my computer. Something goes wrong. Strange languages appear from nowhere, Internet connection is on but Internet has gone for coffee break. I can almost hear the ghost whistling in my ears I’ll get you wherever you are. No matter how you want to hide your weakness I’ll be over you. Forever.

So basically I wrote a new post this morning, saved it on as a word document on my memory stick and when I tried to put it on another computer (ah, that is a long story…where and when I write…) it came out with hieroglyphics…

I tried to negotiate a truce with the Ghost but it didn’t work.

I promised, I begged, I implored, I bent my knees.

I did not work. Merciless wandering spirit !

So I have just decided that because I am bloody busy I will let you know that:

1. Next week we’ll be leaving to Italy for 5 weeks, so I’ll be posting from my beloved Tuscany for a while. This makes a huge difference in the atmosphere, flavours and writing!
2. I will spend one of the five weeks in the middle of the Black Forrest, in Germany, in a silent retreat where I’ll do lots of yoga, meditation, breathing exercises and WRITING as there won’t be any talking! I am really looking forward to it.
3. My commitment for 2010: finding a computer course that possibly will set me free from the slavery of the Ghost! Any suggestion?
4. Last but not least I wish to welcome Miss Rae in between my followers: she is making my day because she broke off the steady heavy number of 23, that was as heavy as a grave, being my 24^th follower! Thanks for joining, I am glad I am growing !

I love you all!

Love & rainbow

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Yesterday I spent the morning at Woodlands, the small paradise where I go for body talk. I actually was waiting for a friend of mine. Some random thoughts arouse.

Woodlands. On a spring day that is actually a winter day. I like the nature’s jokes. The cold, the snow on the Drakensberg, the astounded faces of people in the street. But the forest is still here, in front of me with its small waterfall and the waving trees.

Nothing is static in life; immobility is an illusion, a joke, like today’s cold. Everything moves in the flow of energy that is Life.

We are an agglomerate of energy and knowledge, specks in this eternal flow. Maybe. Who really knows? Probably our galaxy will be swallowed by a black hole and everything will end in one second, exactly the way it started. But now, in this right moment, I know I AM. I want to feel and be NOW. This is a feeling of belonging and fusion with Life.

I always thought I could live only in an urban environment, because I needed to feel the pulsing city life. The street lights at night, the noise of cars driving nowhere, theatres, people shopping and restaurants. I had to be one of those ants, walking quickly to the nest, carrying a tiny wisp of straw.

Now I need to be surrounded by the nature, to live in between the trees and observe what happens around.

One of the privileges of living in this country is to watch the birds. They are not afraid of men so they come close.

My favourite one is the hoopoe. Few years ago we had lunch in a small restaurant in a medieval village in Tuscany,only 5 tables, we could hear everybody’s discussions. The food was exquisite, like everywhere in Tuscany, The restaurant’s name is The Hoopoe Tavern. I thought what a weird name! What is a hoopoe? Then I was told it is an exotic bird. They showed me a picture. I remembered about this small tavern when I saw a hoopoe here, for the first time. Everyday I see a hoopoe now. Life’s flow has brought me far away, from the urban pigeons to the African hoopoe. To a small African spa, where the trees are dancing, the birds are singing and the river is laughing.

Joy, love, eternity. But perhaps I am not even far away. I exhale a breath that will reach somebody else thousands of kilometres from me. I wonder where my father is, where is his energy now. In which body… Nothing happens by chance. There is connection between all the things we do, the choices we make and the people we meet.

This morning I read the words I needed to read to wake up again the courage to write and be myself. The person I am meant to be. How many persons live in me? The mother, the woman, the girl, the wife, the lover,the friend…

Mmmhh... the writer.

Love & rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

DRIVING GRANNY

Driving in the traffic can be exhilarating sometimes.

If I don’t get distracted in a dangerous way, the rest is a movie.

Yesterday I was driving to fetch the kids at school, changing my usual way because one traffic lights hasn’t been working for one week at the crossing between William Nicol Drive and the high way to Pretoria. This means a huge traffic jam at any time of the day in such a high density traffic road. That consequently creates delays and stress, so when you change your way, looking for better options, the mood is not that great.

I was fine.

Listening to classical music.

Now you know me don’t you?

My Zen attitude untouched by taking a longer way to school.

Shame other people are not as relaxed as I am…

The traffic lights is green, I turn left to get into Witkoppen Road when I hear the rumble of a broken silencer from a small old Toyota that is coming from the right at the highest speed.

I am not joking: she was driving like crazy, cutting my way off so that I could see who is that mad woman?

The Schumacher driver was an eighty-year old at least woman with a cigarette stub leaning from her lips, black sunglasses, clinging to the steering-wheel like she was driving a Testarossa on a desert highway.

Jeez what has she been eating in the last fifty years? I thought, but I couldn’t help laughing, she was looking like the sprightly granny of Madagascar 2 those who have got kids know her very well.

She was absolutely fantastic.

The very same day, later on while I was parking my car in a shopping center, before chasing for food in the supermarket, I hear a terribly loud music, probably country music form the late seventies, coming from a convertible car.

Ladies and gentlemen here it is Bridget Jones’ sister, much older sister, wearing a hat with a large brim like a Holly Hobby doll dancing and singing at the top of her voice, in her flowery vintage dress…

Jeez what has she been smoking in the last twenty-five years?

But I honestly thought she is fantastic, a version of the middle age lonely woman in search for freedom and identity…the new version of Thelma and Louise. Is she Thelma or Louise?

Still deep in thought, with a big smile in my heart, off I go to fill the fridge with the shopping.

Hey Bob I did not forget anything!

I enter the roadway slowly, turning left we drive on the left side, like in England when a real gentleman speeds off, from a hundred meter distance, cut my way and looking at me angrily he shows me the middle finger.

Jeez…what have you been doing in the last 25 hours?

I meet him again at the traffic light, farther down and he looks at me chewing swearwords in Afrikaans sorry I understand the only the English ones… Looking intensely in his eyes I wave my hand, smile at him with my 32 teeth and send him a kiss.

He hasn’t been able to speed off anymore.

Love & Rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

BODY TALK

It is a bright hot summer day.

I actually need badly to wear my sunglasses.

Which ones? The black, the brown, the dark violet ones?

I love sunglasses. I love hats. But most of all I love books and candles. I cannot cook if I don’t light the candles on. I must have a book on my bedside table or in my car and when I am in the bookshop I am in heaven.

 

My level of energy is low today I must accept it and let it go.

 

Nothing’s wrong with my life.

 

An explosion of adjustments is happening inside, within the Intelligence that is taking care of my health. The same Intelligence that makes our nails and hair grow against our rational will, that coagulates a wound and fight viruses and cancerous cells.

 

I had my first BODY TALK session yesterday.

 

I went in the same place where we gather for the Artist Way’s Circle (see “The Seekers”): nature, silence, waterfall and the most amazing coffee shop. Full immersion in positive energy.

 

After a cappuccino that is my addiction, honestly Doc. Ela and I went into the room for our session.

She basically talks to the inner Intelligence to establish new balance  and harmony in between our internal organs that are able to heal themselves. External factors, such as bad food quality, stress, pollution and so forth, can create an unbalance that leads to illnesses. The body talk reminds the Intelligence that it is time to “tidy the mess up”, TO COOPERATE AGAIN because they are a team.

The session consists of a silent talking from the practitioner to the body, using a soft muscle pressure on the wrist and then tapping the fingers on the crown of the head ant the sternum.

Oh I was feeling so good… By the end on the session, when I thought she was still keeping her hand on my tummy, I could feel a kind of cool pressure, like if her hand was cold. It was a very nice feeling. I then realised, while still having that physical sensation that she was not there anymore because she had gone to her desk to write what came out during the session. I am feeling a healing pressure on my tummy, who is doing it? I decided not to investigate with my rational mind; there is nothing really to prove at least for me besides the physical sensation of well being.

 

Today I feel drained but I know why. I can feel the men at work in the building site of my body.

I can feel there is a kind of adjustment in cleaning out all the bad stuff that, whether one likes it or not, are collected in our bodies.

 

I trust my body, I love my body, I need my body. The way it is. As a gift to make this earthly experience something worthwhile.

 

I love my wrinkles; well they are not so many yet.

I love my safety tube around my waist. I could get rid of it with 100 abdominal a day but why torturing my body? Can’t I leave it in peace and healthy?

 

I love it because it is my body, the only one I have and will always have to be here with you in this right moment.

 

If you can’t see the beauty in it, you’d better go quickly for an eyes and soul’s check up!

 

 

Love & rainbow

 

 

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini

RAINBOW OF WISDOM

 

Just some quotes from books I have enjoyed. The rainy season has started; we are just under a huge rainstorm. Atypical, it should happen in the evening. Still so powerful and inspiring to be so close to the force of nature and feeling to be a tiny speck in the Universe. This speck, with his soul, can do miracles.

 

 

 

 

When I go about my everyday existence, I am in charge of two worlds, the little one in me and the big one around me. My appraisal of every minute detail “out there”, the sun, the sky, the chances of rain, the words other people say, the shadows cast by office buildings, is matched by an event “in there”. INFINITE CHOICE is open at every second for me to alter the shape of the world, for it has no shape other than what I give it.

 

There is no more beautiful experience than when the world expands beyond its accustomed limits. These are the moments when reality takes on splendour.

 

From Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra

 

No matter what happens to you in your life, you alone have the capacity to choose your response to it. When you form the habit of searching for the positive in every circumstance, your life will move into its highest dimensions. This is one of the greatest of all the natural laws.

 

 

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary projects, all of your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamt yourself to be.

 

From The Monk who sold his Ferrari, Robin Sharma

 

 

 

When Michelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within the marble…Michelangelo’s job, as he saw it, was to get rid of the excess marble that surrounded God’s creation.

So it is with you. The perfect you isn’t something you need to create, because God already created it…Your job is to allow the holy spirit to remove the fearful thinking that surrounds your perfect self.

 

Marianne Williamsom

 

 

Love & Rainbow