The Present

I often get asked the same ol' question every Western girl gets asked around about their birthday.."so,any prince Charming in shiny armours on the horizon yet?" Now more than ever the answer is: "yes, plenty"..the point is that not because one thinks some one is nice, they should feel innately compelled to wanting more from them. I have been fighting for so long against conventionalism that I guess now it has become my natural way of thinking. I live a happy,full and delightful life. Perfect just the way it is. So why should I be wanting more?

It was my twenty-something birthday party a few days ago. Some of my best gals and some of my male pals had been invited. It was a fun evening. We ate and drunk and laughed and I got quite a few nice gifts. My ladies got me some lovely stuff from my favourite surfers' shop. Nice. My boys also got me some amazing stuff: some of my favourite music and books..which I already had. Don't get me wrong. I have been taught to be thankful for a present whenever you get one, and I do. Frankly, I thought their presents were kind and lovely. However this brought me to make some considerations. Wasn't it emblematic that the wonderful things my "potential-princes-charming" had provided for me where the things I already had? May be I may be accused of being cynical and cold-hearted, but why should I make sacrifices and compromise to get something I already have? Just think.

Boys Will Be Boys, Girls Will Be Girls!

Thanks to my lovely ex-housemate, Bea, (who, amongst many things is about to return back to the UK..yeah!), I am growing increasingly fascinated by the musical genius of The Dresden Dolls ,creators of the self-labelled Brechtian Punk Cabaret. They are an extraordinary duo (see my previous post on them). The opening tune on their latest album, "Yes, Virginia" (already a couple of years old) is called Sex Changes. Quite ironically, despite the title, the song proves that it doesn't: boys will be boys and girls will be girls and that's the way the cookie crumbles! The spring season is upon us and, like every year, this seems to have rebirthed good moods, singing birds and, inevitably, love romance. The girlies' legs are getting out and the boys hard labour at the gym can finally be displayed (even my yoga instructor's shorts seem to have become shorter beyond what I thought humanly possible!) and so far so good.. Loads of water games,

The Dresden Dolls

chasing around, little flirting... like as if winter boring grown ups were suddenly transformed into giddy teen-agers once again. I am as guilty as anybody else of loving the sunshine and enjoying messing about. Deliberate flirting, on the contrary, has never been a talent of mine. I would feel rather 'dishonest' to use attraction techniques which, as a woman, we are aware of innately possess from birth to attract the opposite sex. Attraction laws are a funny old game! Picking up strangers, not really my thing yet, despite my attention to loyalty, decency and never ending attempts 'not to give the wrong impression' I always seem to attract the 'wrong kinda guys'. In the specific: old men, creepy stalkers and unavailable guys...not to mention some gay friends of mine who recently commented that if ever they were to become heterosexual, they would definitively go for me - not sure on how to take the remark... Spring is here, every one seems to be in love and I am living with this identity dilemma between feeling content about who I am and trying to figure out what in the world is wrong with me?!

Frustrating.

The Pursuit of Beauty

The spring season is upon us and, despite the expected sprees of cold weather, the days are getting longer, the birds are singing and the daffodils are in blossom. All this idyllic imagery inspires me and reminds me of how artists from the past expressed the vibrant bloom of life that occurs at this time of the year. I am Italian and of course the first picture that comes to mind is La Primavera, the Spring, by Botticelli. From there my mind trail takes me to the Venus - a symposium of eternal, ethereal beauty. In his Symposium, good old Plato identified the keys of ideal beauty in the context of love, attraction and attractiveness. It's a beefy piece of work (especially if you've gotta translate it from ancient Greek..), but it has always stimulated me to consider and reconsider the concept of Beauty. Following my previous post, a number of you have raised the question of what defines beauty - a concept that, despite the apparent homogenization of standards ( ei: everyone aspires to resemble the cover page models from fashion magazines) it's actually as varied as the colours of a cubist painter's pallet! The Italians say, "Il mondo e' bello perche' e' vario", the world is beautiful because it is varied, and thank God for that: it is different tastes and preferences that make life interesting and enables us to establish human contact with people who will like,hate, love us. It always astounds me to see how different cultures perceive a range of physical traits. Like the Brazilians and the Africans who love their women's big buts whilst us Europeans often starve ourselves in fear that our bum may 'look big in this'. Or the Far East Asian fascination for prominent noses and here we are willing to pay anything to have our noses made smaller..go figure! Whatever the circumstances, we all appear to conform by a set of aesthetic standards, whether we would like to confess it or not. My cultural background has imposed onto me from a very young age that I should pursuit to be slim, ideally measuring 90-60-90, the 'perfect' hourglass measurements (think Sofia Loren, Monica Bellucci, Gina Lollobrigida), to look pristine and colour coordinated at all times. In as much as I have always tried to escape from aesthetic compromise, I can't help but feel the pressure. In as much as I accept myself for the person I am and the way I look, I keep on wishing I was better, looked better, sounded better...
Expectations can play a nasty game. In an old article on jealousy I quoted Joseph Addison about how it is the fear of not being reciprocated by the ones we love that makes us insecure. Insecure about ourselves, what we wear, how long is our hair, how firm our butt, how full our lips are and so on..Advertising campaigns do not help either as they make a living out of our insecurities..
But without me rambling on for much longer, what do you think defines beauty? and is there a universally accepted 'ideal beauty'?

Classy Lassy! - The Arcane Secrets of Human Psychosis

You must know the feeling yourselves, when you have got a stinking cold and breathing is enough of an effort (let alone trying to look lady like..) That's me this morning at the office:still fighting against a silly influenza which is making me sniffle, sneeze and blow my nose to much of my personal and my colleagues' annoyance! This morning on the bus there was a guy that was so lacking any manners that was pretty minging..He had extra fuzzy grey curly hair (nothing wrong with that!) and a full grown Victorian mustache. One may say, 'nothing wrong with wearing a mustache either...', but following Brian's all-inspiring post on people's annoying habits that get on your nerves, I'll confess: I have a real issue with people's..hairiness!!! I don't get it - the mustache guy on the bus who amongst many things kept on scratching his privates, vigorously picking his nose whilst 'eating the harvest' which got entangled in his facial hair..revolting or what? Anyway, even under more decent and composed circumstances, I struggle to understand facial hairs. Like how does a man with a tash lick his ice-cream? (I always make a mess of myself even without one) What would it feel like to kiss a guy with a full grown beard? (obviously never tried that before..) Guess men feel more...manly with their facial hair unshaven as they have waited years to hit puberty and gain this most explicit sign of manlihood..and I can totally understand the sex appeal of a little stubble in a guy..but women, what's that all about? During the last and most controversial British Big Brother show, Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty, was often caught happily bleaching her facial hairs on camera - classy, lassy! On the contrary, as displayed in her self portray above, Frida Kahlo, one of the most charismatic, provocative and psychotic 20th century female artists, never seemed to have any problems with priding herself in her masculine upper-lip hairiness and voluminous mono-brow.. nice. I have a recurrent joke with a friend of mine who has a ridiculous obsession with female hairy armpits (yep,tells you a lot about a guy..) - which I quite obviously don't agree with. As one of Almodovar's characters in "All About My Mother" would say, 'A woman is more autentic the closer she gets to her ideal of beauty' - ok, this is no condonation for extreme make-overs and plastic surgery (well, whatever floats your boat, really), but I still believe that, despite gender equality on intellectual grounds, a woman is still a woman and should seek to portray a wispy,ethereal image of beauty, grace, class and...HAIRLESSNESS! (whatever it takes) and that TOILET habits should be exclusively left to the privacy of the little girls' room..Like my image conscious beautiful mother would say, "Even after 25 years of marriage!, there is no excuse not to make an effort both for yourself and the one you love" .. Guess I don't really need to make up a list of things that annoy me...'coz there's your answer!!!
Love, from an attempting to be lady-like poorly little lady and feminist in disguise!(",)

Soul Connections

Throughout my young life I have been in contact with a number of individuals who, for better or worse, have shaped the course and outlook on my existance. I count myself blessed with the rare ability to preserve a phoenomenal memory solely for the good things from the past; the bad,on the contrary,are subconsciously erased or mysteriously vanish into a feeble recollection.. I really like that about me. Nonetheless, at times like this, this quality can be a painful curse. 'Losing' a special friend in your life, someone you felt you had a "soul connection" with, and only being able to remember the times of blissful happiness, the intellectual intimacy that was shared and the memorable moments whilst brokeness and resentment prevent you from making ammends, and experience skeptically shouts from within that nothing is ever going to be the same again. As I am writing this post, the song "Couldn't Care Less" by The Cardigans is expressing musically what I would struggle to articulate verbally. However, the truth is that "I do care", and I wonder whether that could make a difference in mending this broken bridge...Soul Connection also refers to the rather surreal identification I feel I have found with Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Price winner I mentioned in a previous post. This lady has really touched me not only for her achievements and public persona,but more profoundly as a woman seeking excellence in all areas of life: woman, Kenyan, mother, wife, politician, academic, daughter, Christian. This morning I was reading about her marriage breakdown, the undermining male attitude towards an intelligent,qualified and idealistic lady who, in as much as she is professionally recognised and publically acclaimed, often struggles with being accepted as a woman with her passions, desires, insecurities and simple ambitions. I am fully aware of being no way near the achievement of a Nobel price or any of her great contributions to humanity, but I can easily identify with her struggles. Since I was a little girl, I have been encouraged to "stand on my own feet"(no matter how small they may be!!!),to learn to do things by myself, to seek personal fulfilment regardless of who is or is not in your life. All this has made me into a highly independent person; what most people seem to have difficulties to comes to terms with, is that an independent individual is not a lonely one-man-band and that he does not function, or at least does not function as effectively, without the constant interaction and interchange with others. What is remarkable is that, in the midst of many outwardly perceived successes, I often feel rejected, I wish I was a little bit more ordinary.When my little sister came over to visit last summer, we often went to the cinema (to the point that we exhausted all half-decent options),so we decided to watch "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" with Uma Thurman. May be because we were in a jolly good mood when we saw it, me and Martina laughed our little heads off all night as this Hollywood rom-com confirmed a lot of undesputable stereotypes about women in general and destroyed many others about "super-women" who, for all their super-powers and charme, are often equally as insecure, needy and emotive as every other girl. Everyone dreams of supergirl, but no-one wants to get too close to her in fear.

My auntie wrote me a letter the other day (guess that's what aunties are made for) which read: "...I always thought that you could be immune from disappointments; you, who are always so strong, so balanced, who always have so many people around, who are so couragious...you young great woman!..." Ok, she is biased. After all she is my auntie. However, I also know that, by saying so, she expresses the view of many of the people in my life. The Wee Italian Chick: An Emotionless Superheroine with no problems! (not). Frankly, I am quite sick of it. I wish I could be loved for all that I am - not just for the wide smiles that make everybody happy. Luigi Pirandello, an increadibly astute 20th century Italian dramatist and novellist, extensively explored the issues of the masks people 'put on' in their lives; the conflict between "to be" and "to appear". This concept became exemplified to me during a visit to Japan where public apparences are all that is to be seen and openness to the inner self are to be blamed as a sign of weakness. In a Western world which paradoxically claims to be a lot more in touch with their innerselves,Pirandello identified how many masks we daily put on, not out of dishonesty, but more in search of approval. Pirandello says that the harmonious/chaotic cohabitation of those masks is what makes us~I partially agree, but I can't help but think that as God sees beneath all that apparelle (titles, apparence, qualifications are irrelevant to Him), similarly I wish others could do the same. However, in the midst of disappointment and misunderstandings, I choose to seek to be happy again, to praise those outstanding people who can read the book of my life with no need for glasses,my soul connections. As Dr Maathai writes, "Life is a journey and a fight;we are not able to control it, but we have the ability to pull the best out of every situation." So I should do.