Long Ago And Far-Away...

Long ago and far-away I fell in love with a reflected world.  I was a child traveling State Highway 1, heading south on the flood-free, passing Henley.  Destination Invercargill and Nana's house.

There were swamp-lands next to the highway and a creek that offered the most stunningly clear reflections I've ever seen.

I used to imagine another world, an upside-down world, there in the creek as we passed by in those days when I was a kid in the back seat, dreaming my kid-dreams.

Genova has made me fall in love with reflections all over again.  I love when there is just enough rain to make puddles here on the cobblestones.

Today there was just enough rain to give me a glimpse of that other world. 

Rain and Reflections, Genova

It's raining today in Genova but even the rain creates rather exquisite photographic opportunities.

When there's rain here the puddles that form on the tiled sidewalks create beautiful reflections.  It seems like another world down at my feet.

I have been wandering, delighted to find that Caffè degli Specchi has reopened in my absence. I stopped in for an espresso.  Wandering on, I caught up with Francesca and bought pasta while there. 

It's wet and it's little cold here in the city but still beautiful. 

On Loving Genova ...

I arrived in Genova yesterday, ran my errands, and returned to the apartment just as the heavens opened. And I've been told there is more due tomorrow but today ... today is superb. 

The sky is the deepest blue. It was already 9 celsius when I headed out in search of my first espresso at 10am.  It's so very good to be back. 

I slept 11 hours last night.  6 hours is normal for me.  I need to  go outside again, just to be out in it all.  I wanted to download a series of puddle reflection photographs I just took.  See ... La Superba still is really.

Really?

Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again. The world calls them its singers, poets, and story-tellers but they are just people who have not forgotten.

L.M. Montgomery.

Since autumn began I've been attempting to fit my book in around family commitments and being a housewife.  It doesn't really work.  I remember those days back when I left for the office.  I recall the feeling of relief, of being in that safe space defined by clear boundaries marked 'work'.  That place where the threshold was rarely crossed by 'family'.

There was a degree of separation found there.  A door more-or-less closed on the reality that is home life and all  of those things that happen there ... from poo-filled nappies and sleepless nights, to sick cats and people you have powerful emotional ties to.

Work was always a place where I existed at another level.  Where, more often that not, objectivity was a state of being more simply found.  And I was paid for my presence, my hours, my labour.

Working from home, around a family life I rarely decribe here, oh my ... it's a topic I almost never touch.  But there is no degree of seperation.  I use the bathroom here amd I realise that I am also the cleaning lady and dammit, I haven't cleaned the bathroom lately.  I go downstairs for lunch and realise I'm the baker and that a new loaf needs to go in for breakfast tomorrow.  I make a coffee and see the dishes need washed and dried and put away.  I take a shower, need a towel and voila, I realise there are 3 loads of laundry there in the queue.  And what's for dinner tonight ...?

And really, I just want to hunker down in that seperate space called 'the office', and work for my money, and be objective but it's so unrealistic.  I was trained from a very young age that I needed to be responsible ... as the eldest sister, as a good little girl from Mosgiel. 

Gifting myself permission ... no, gifting myself the luxury of writing all day, it's something I am battling with at every level.  This last week has been impossible.  There are moments where I can do my writing work but as it is only the'possibility of income' ... can I even call it work?  Don't so many, as in those who know 'money doesn't grow on trees', view it as a luxury?  This writing lark. 

When you read of money and trees, did you find yourself adopting the deep voice of your father or some other remembered voice of authority?  I think only men have said that to me.  They get so mad with me and my lack of gratitude.  It's only the housework and the family.  You have it so easy

But I'm wondering ... 'really?' 

Anyway, I'll work it out and meanwhile, the image below.  My childish self loves the notion that there are the possibility of other worlds in puddles.