"Shaddap You Face!"

I felt we can all always do with a little 'cheering up', a short moment of happiness and positive, worry-less thinking. So here it is a little gift of """"Italian""""" joy! This song makes me smile every time I hear it - likewise I pray that it manages to bring a wee smile onto your faces as well. And to anyone who doubts us, mocks us, for any thought that hunts us and makes us sad, lets implore that emotion to "Shaddap You Face"! (Hey!)

The Realm of Possibility

"The Realm of Possibility" is the kingdom where I dwell.
It is a place where injustice and discouragement do not exist. A place where people are honest and genuinely wish each other's best. I am a day dreamer, an eternal optimist and nothing seems to have stopped me from being so. When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer, I sat in the oncologist's study with her, my father and a doctor friend of ours. The oncologist was somehow brutal in his diagnosis of the case: two months of life expectancy if not cured, chemotherapy, nauseous states, invalidity, bone marrow transplant, more therapy, hair loss. Any sane person would have been disconcerted, to say the least. My dad grabbed my mother's hand and held it tight, mother had tears in her eyes, our friend asked loads of worrying questions. I sat in the corner, in my green coat; I smiled a reassuring smile. I smiled a reassuring smile knowing in my heart it was all going to be alright. The issue is that I smile all the time. I am no idiot, right? It is just that it feels like, in extreme situations especially, I am overwhelmed with an exceptional steadfastness and inner strength which enable me to react promptly and efficiently to the problem. When we were in Kenya last summer a friend of mine badly hurt his hand. Though a grown man, he got scared he may not be able to move his hand again… I got a little scared too. In a second reached him, pulled off the cloth that was over my shorts and rapped it around his bleeding hand. Held his hand and reassured him that ‘everything was going to be alright’. Eventually he was; so was my mother. And I wonder whether my great sense of Hope comes exactly from that sense of confidence in a divine providence whereby, even when the outcome of a given situation is not that we would have hoped for, I know there is a much bigger plan in a much wider spectrum of Grace. And on this warm summer night, I am well and truly into my anatomy textbook, carried by dreams of Hope, inspired by Grace, surrounded by Love in an unending realm of possibility where dreams, reality, impossibility, surrealism and, why not, a wee touch of madness create a unique mystic fragrance that makes me smile…even in a stormy day.

To Be Brought to the Light

Today, it is a wonderful day! This morning at 6 am (2 pm local time) my best friend Rie gave birth to their second child, Saku Luukas Sinivirta ... ok, ok, I may be biased, but you've gotta admit this baby looks gorgeous and incredibly sweet!!! Mommy and baby are well and daddy and big bro Riku were happy to meet the new addition to the Sinivirta family! So proud of you guys. Love you more than words can tell. Auntie, Ivonne xx
"To be brought to the light" is how the Italians call birth. Never paid much attention to it until I watched "Under the Tuscan Sun"..beautiful expression, isn't it?

Ho Voglia di Te - The Update You Have All Been Waiting For

A brief phone call, the sound of what used to be a familiar voice and it's like as if time had never passed. Ten years, whatever stage in life you may be at, it's a long time. When we were last together, his little sister was only three. She is now a teen-ager. When we last were together, we used to think the Spice Girls were the next big thing. At the age of thirteen, everything seems like a major struggle, a drama. You think that your greatest achievement will be to get out of high school, yet you dream big: senselessly and fearlessly. You think that you know what real love is. I think you do; I think that when you are thirteen you know a lot more about emotions than most people would give you credit for - it's just that that wonderful little butterfly is bottled up in a glass jar by hormonal tempests, inexperience, youthfulness. Ah, to be free like a thirteen year old again, but with the experience of a 24 year old! I think this is just what happened to me yesterday. A brief phone call, the sound of an all too familiar voice made me feel emotions I did not think I could feel ever again. We talked for quite a while and I felt happier than I have been in quite sometime. In my previous relationship, I was always trying too hard to impress this un-impressible man, thus forgetting myself, the real me, the things I love, the person I want to be; I was on the phone to this wonderful person from my past and I suddenly felt like a re-invigorated, spring butterfly who is no longer afraid to show her true colours, her true self. It was a wonderful symphony. It was easy and beautiful to be me. I even wrote a small poem about the revitalizing emotions of the past few days. I felt like poetry, beauty, sunshine, laughter, wonder. At the sole thought of this wonderful young man. To the point: I only managed to get through to him the day before I left - he was all and beyond I thought he would have become, well on his way to making his childhood dreams come true. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet, but we parted with a lot of joy and the prospect of seeing each other again next time I am home in a few weeks time..."Ho voglia di Te", is the title of an iconic teen-age novel and homonymous Italian movie by Federico Moccia. It literally means "I feel like you", "I have a desire of you" sort of. Self explanatory?!

Tiziano Ferro, "Ti Scattero' una Foto"(Nessuno e' Solo) from the movie "Ho Voglia di Te"