Happy New Logo!

And to celebrate new year's, I present my new logo!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

C

Story of - ghosts of christmas past

Been talking with a lot of people about this thing called christmas spirit, and as an adult am finding that there are very little people that have it. 

Most of us is completely drained from a difficult year that has just passed: what with jobs being lost, difficult times at work, not much money to grant our or other's wishes, relationships that ended, people we lost...and this economy that is taking too long to get back on its feet.

Christmas is a difficult time for people who have, for a period of time, lived it as a horrible part of the year. When others near us got everything and we didn't. I myself, always found it a magical time, even if as a child I didn't have much, I've always taken into my inner circle only the important people in my life and made the most of it, and this is still today...I try, as hard as I can to give a smile to people around me. I seldom give or expect gifts, but when I do, it's usually made by me. It's more personal and fulfilling, at least for me it is.

This time of year is also the end of a period of time and the beginning of another. It's a time when we draw conclusions, we make wishes and try to believe that it will be different from January 1st, that we will cross a magical door that will take us to a land of new opportunities, and that if we are lucky we don't need to change a thing in our behavior or our lives; because we've made promises and resolutions that will be  buried in the year that has just passed, and the new year, with its new beginning's powers, will make everything all right again.

Story of - lake and sky

I just realized that after all this time I have never written about Arco.

Arco is a town near Lake Garda, in the Trentino region of Italy. It is situated in the north. Arco is near the southernmost border, 10 mins from the tip of the Lake. It has a beautiful castle that is in ruins, and my boyfriend's parents have this apartment that overlooks it.

Whenever we can we come up here, it is the kind of place that recharges your energies...and we love it for that.

Every time we are thinking to come up here ( I am writing laying in bed in Arco) our car gives us some trouble, at first it was the clutch, then it was the gear stick...this time it was the muffler. I don't know what kind of evil spirit has possessed our car, but it gives me the shivers.

The trip up here is almost aways the same, we take the highway then a pitstop to get some junk food at the service station, we get off at the “Brescia Est “ exit and take the long panoramic route that runs along the lake.

This trip is almost aways the same, and this is the beauty of it. I know exactly where we can see the lake for the first time: just a little triangle between houses and trees, quite far away, that under the summer sun gets wavy golden streaks, and in the winter a pale dark greenish blue.

This road is a windy road, that follows the hills and turns of the lake and its lakeside towns. It follows the careless urban development of the old. Sometimes it widens and sometimes it gets as narrow as it can get.

This road gives and it takes; it gives us a glimpse of the past, when roads were built to go from house to house and not from town to town. It gives us the most wonderful sights of the lake and of its majestic peaks. In the summer it serves as the guide that takes us to see the lake become a mirror for the sun and sky. In the winter for the sight of mighty mountains covered in white snow. The only thing it takes in return is a little patience with the tourists and a bit of our time.

It also takes us to Arco, and the most wonderful sight of all is when it turns north, and we can see the peaks one behind the other, and in the middle a smaller one, with the Arco castle on top of it.

Strange situations that make me wonder about stuff.

Sometimes I wonder: is it better to try something new or to follow what generations have experienced before us??? What is the best way to go about life?

And another question pops into mind: what is the best way to understand a given situation? How can we trully pereive it? Can we only do it by our means of undestanding our surroudings OR can we really undestand the situation without any interference of our own ideas and pre-conceptions. 

So the related questions come naturally:  if in the past we've been maltreated, can we ever be at ease in strange situations where we are not completely sure what is going on? EVEN if we are with people that we are sure love us dearly?  What is it that make a good friend? Or a partner? What can we expect from others? Or are we truly alone in this earth? This really scare me, I donnot need people to assure me that everything will be fine, but when I feel that the people that really matter in my life are unable to do so, i feel lost and hollow.

But at the same time I ask myself if it is only my way of computing it in a emotional way...and I lack in objectiveness. 

I need a vacation.

Dreaming awake - universe and dinosaurs

I woke up this morning to a thought that I find quite elegant and pleasing; it has to do with dinosaurs and the universe.

I was like: " whaaaat? Can it be real? " well, it can, in my head and in this blog it can.

In the last two days I've read Calvino's short story "the Dinosaurs" ( thoroughly recommend it) and seen, what I think is the first episode of " through the worm hole" where they explained the M- theory. 

A propos, I never really agreed with the Big Bang theory, of course I will never say it's bonkers, because I ain't a scientist or anything, but it never convinced me in the whole, so some time ago I learned about some of the different theories about how the universe began, some of which I could see as more plausible. I also think that we will never really know what happened, because humans are a proud lot, whatever we find out will serve to demolish or confirm something we already though through...with our limited means that we only develop by understanding our limited surrounding.

Anyhow, back to my crazy though: taking into account the fact that we also don't exactly know what happened with the dinos ( yeah yeah, I know, the meteor...) and taking into account the membrane theory, by which there are different universes only a small distance apart, what if the extinction or the appearance of the dinosaurs is due to a small collision of two universes, where two parts merge and puff, the mighty dinos are gone. 

There, I said it. I am aware that I was half asleep! and that it's still early In the morning for me. But I thought I would share it with someone before I forget my half-awake dream.

Strange Situations That Remind Me of My Birth Place

• on the train, coming back home from a day of hard work finishing up a project: I look out of the window, it is a dark winter evening and I see a house by the train tracks, and it is an odd sight as I can discern exactly what the entrance looks like, with its walls made of planks of wood, illuminated by only ine light bulb, the garage roof overhead and a window made of horizontal glass panels. 
• Reading a book, it is a short story by Jorge Louis Borges, and it is placed in buenos aires. I can feel the summer wind of the south, that precedes a storm, on my face, bringing relief to the extreme heat, and I don't experience it in this country, and only people from that part lf the world can understand exacly what the main character is experiencing.

Many times we perceive the world with our memories.

News - Cultmaster site is online!

Here we are at last!

cultmaster.it

Story of - Frogs and Raspberry Beer.

...these are the two things that are vividly stuck in my memory from that trip, needless to say I am talking about a French town.

Colmar is lovely, with its canals and pretty houses! It is a lil touristy, but worth it!

St. Martin's Church is impressive, and we had the privilege to see a stork sitting at the top! It is gothic, and feels like gothic...the inside is gothic and the outside too. I love gothic style so I was happy! When I am near something from that period I always feel like what I am living can't be real, and that we must be in a book about some sort of secret society that meet at midnight and light a fire in the dungeons praying to some strange god that we will never know about, and they are plotting to conquer the world through some really smart move, like making everyone poor so that they can buy whatever they want...so to speak.

The half timbered houses are adorable, their makers worked very hard with creativity and style, being in contrast with the church, for when I look at them I immediately think of happy families who work hard and meet at dinner for a lovely meal prepared by aunty Freya.

This is a town to be visited asap!

City Tales - stuff I come up with on my way to work.

Ive been dwelling in the idea that purpose has a sense of direction, therefore it must be made of a line, and as how most of us have a purpose in life, we all cross each other's line of purpose. With that in mind, what if these lines were what we call our "souls" or "personalities"...it means we could go from being a "rich-spoiled-girl-whose-purpose-in-life-is-marrying-a-rich-prick-she-met-at-a-rich-people's-club-lastnight" to a "brilliant-scientist-whose-purpose-in-life-is-to-find-the-cure-to-cancer".

In this scenario, one can be whoever one wishes, but the trouble is that we are unaware of these changes, and once we've crossed that path we would only live the life for a split second. The only time that we could have a glimpse of what's happening is when we go to sleep and we dream someone else's purposes, in those weird dreams where we meet people we don't know and do stuff we are unable to do in this life.

If this was true, our purposes, or lives, would just be a wearable state of mind, and this whole idea would be a "collective thinking".

Ha! what if...

Base News: NEW SITE IS ONLINE!

www.baselivigno.com

City Tales - a wagon of sadness

This should be a movie about sadness and recent memories. This tube carriage is filled with them. You can see them on their sad faces, in their tanned skins and on their smartphone's screens.

Most are still dreaming, probably because it's still early in the morning, but they are dreaming. You can hear in their eery silence, you can see in their inability to enter the tube in a hurry...they are thinking "must I really?". 

You can feel it in their bones trying their hardest to take them back to the beach, but instead they are going to a dark office, and they know they have to endure life for another 11 months.

City tales - Milan lethargy.

Milan is never described as dormant, it is never slow or passive. Unless you are talking about he month of August.

Milan in August is stagnant, it is hot and stuffy, it is empty and deserted. It is sleeping.

Milan in August is quiet, and its peacefulness is almost unbearable. It is a place where you can feel your worst nightmares coming to life, its calmness is alarming. It isn't a city for placidness.

However, once a year it goes into hibernation, and the people roaming the streets look lost and dismayed, as if they can't quite understand what is happening around them.

Nowadays the holiday season is shorter. People aren't going away for the whole month anymore, so a new situation is happening, we are stirring the city from its sleep.

Walking the streets around the end of the month is like looking at a bear coming out of hibernation. Gradually, as the days wear out, we see shops opening up slowly as if just out of bed. Workers sweeping and cleaning as when we wash our faces to clean off the sleepy eyes. People that up until a few weeks ago were milky white, not are cappuccinos. All with a sluggish manner, in tune with their holiday rhythm.

Now we also experience the other side of the city, the side that has never closed, and they are high on coffee, they are resentful, they are fighting back the city and we can feel that it is not linking it quite so much.

Mountain Tales - San Giacomo family house

The house breathes of life lived in peace, of people who have worked towards having a great life, it smells of marzipan.

It is filled with toys that hang from the ceiling, one can loose oneself trying to discern each one, dancing on top of our heads; there are many little airplanes, in different colors and shapes. Some are helicopters and others balloons. But they all fly, as they should!

On top of the beams there are also placed wooden toys, and most of them are, too, airplanes. They sit there waiting in the gate for departure. Waiting for a new adventure, for a new destination.

The house feels of reached destinations, of goals that were met. it breathes and lives off the aura of its inhabitants.

The house is filled with books, books about travels. It feeds off the knowledge inside these books. The house is part of the world around it, its inside is in tune with the landscape around it, inside and outside are interlinked and speak the same language.

The house smells of marzipan, and lingering inside its walls one can smell freshly baked bread and strawberries and cream.

It smells of people with great minds and big hearts; and it is happy.

Summer Vacay - paintings

Stargazing - San Lorenzo Nights.

Watching for shooting stars is a careful work of patience. One should never divert one's gaze from the sky. It is also a painful work of determination, as the position that is required is seldom a natural one.

We are lucky people, as we have the privilege of using a terrace that is as advantageous during the day - with its views over a castle ruin, as by night, with a star studded celestial vault.

Watching for the shooting stars can be a deceitful task, as by looking intently at the sky one is unwillingly exposed to other uncommon things. Tonight for instance, I was painstakingly waiting when I saw a star moving in a orderly and straight motion, surely shooting stars don't move like that! So my other two guesses were: an UFO or a satellite! Taking the easy way out I believe I saw the latter, and for the second time in my life! (the first was as a little girl, it went past my bedroom window.)

If you watch for long enough, you feel almost as if the sky is taking hold of you and eating you up. One feel one's oneness with the universe, one can understand there isn't "them" or "there" and "us" and "here", but it becomes a bowl of "star soup" and you are part of it, you start dancing with the Great Bear and Oby Wan Kenobi. One can almost touch the stars, and I felt as when I am at home on my bed, almost going to sleep, gazing at my "glow in the dark" star stickers.

Then the most amazing thing happen! A shooting star! I had almost forgotten why I was doing there in that uncomfortable chair giving my neck reasons to annoy me with cervical pain in the morning, and I forget for a minute of all my problems and went back to my childish beliefs and made unreasonable wishes like "happiness" and clapped my hands - but by then the magic was gone.

(And you do it all over again - going into the cosmic soup, seeing satellites and  flying saucers - up til you see another shooting star.)

Going back home - 10 years later (pt.1)

Ten years had passed, ten years of living in Italy, ten years and they were my 20's.

I have to admit I was somewhat nervous about going back to my birth place, the country where I spent my childhood. I was nervous and a bit scared, as if in these ten years the place I should know so well had turned into some strange beast. Or was I that had changed into someone who could not relate to that familiar place? I was nervous about seeing people who would not understand me, as if the language I spoke wasn't understandable to the locals anymore.

It had been a decade, a decade that I had started my profession and had found my life partner. The decade that I had fought with myself to become an adult responsible for my actions, and I was scared that by going back, this place would have the magical capacity to change me back to the person in me I remembered living there, as if I was 't sure of who I had become. 

(warning: I am listening to the "lost" soundtrack...this might go deeper than I would have liked)

Another reason for my nervousness  was that I was taking a business idea with me. Something related to my profession, and I couldn't be sure it was the right thing, as I had only heard about what Brazil had become.

Oh yeah, I probably should have mentioned before that we were talking about Brazil! A country that DID change a lot inthe last 10 years! 

Once arrived, my mum and I ( who is one of my business partners, great mind!) mer our cousin and his bf, with whom we are planning our business venture. From the airport we went straight to lunch - and we had the time of our lives! We talked and talked, wine always by our sides, and when we realizedwe had   drunk the  lunch, afternoon and evening away! It was the best welcome party we could wish for and they become one of our best friends right away! (  only found in Brazil, I think)

It wasn't only a business trip, it was also a time for reuniting with family - some who we knew and some who we  didn't, but even the known were for us unknown, specially for me, for the last time we met I was a little girl.

The first weekend we had an invitation, by another of my mum's cousin, to a BBQ in a "chácara", a "chácara" is a small farm that is usually used for parties!

 

This place was magical. I was in a known surrounding, even though I had never been to that particular one. I was home, one of the many places I can relate to in a deeper level, just because I had experienced similar situations as a little girl. 

Our host started the fire in the "churrasqueira", the Brazilian BBQ place, at the same time as starting drinking beer. just like I had see. my uncle do during my childhood, with a smile in our faces, preparing for the arrival of our guests.

This party went from 11AM to 11PM, we sang, we danced, we ate and drank. We met up with old acquaintances and met new ones, we had the new and the old generations of our family together. We told stories about the past, present and future...

 

thus connecting back with our Brazilianess!

Going North - Abbey hopping

One of the most important (un) touristy things  you can do is to go around seeing old run down places. Of course they are a must see! And we loooove them!

The first place in our itinerary was Jedburgh Abbey, a magical place...where we got showered on and  sunned on like in best British fashion!

Our second stop was at Melrose Abbey...two in one day! Dream come true! 

This one had a graveyard on which we could walk on...that was a dream come true to Lele, so we were both quite content with it all! 

Going North - seaside as never seen before

Every time people talk about going to the beach one imagines heat and bikini lines...not us.

We are not all that fond of getting sand in our special places, so when we say: we're going to the beach our friends have a questioning look in their faces.

For me, one of the most beautiful beaches I've been to is in Scotland, and it is called Portobello. It used to be the "in" place for Scottish riviera, but now with Easyjet and alike you can tet anywhere in Europe (that is hotter and melanin approved) with less than what it is worth. 

Better for us, we are also loners folk.

  We then went on to catch some pretty shells in a beach a bit further down the road, a bit wilder but nonetheless worth the trip (and the rock hopping!)

Sooo, we can say, beyond a doubt, that we've been to the beach this summer. And by the looks of these pictures we ade sure no eyebrows will be raised! 

Going North - a Scottish adventure.

Scotland is by far one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It has got everything one needs in an adventure: wonderful landscapes, beautiful villages, interesting  history, yummy food and alcohol, and good people. 

I am traveling with my bf and my step-dad, who lived in Edinburgh for over 20 years...so I also got my personal guide for this journey. 

We decided to see some interesting places close to Edinburgh, where we put out base camp up 106 steps, in a cozy little apartment overlooking Prince's St. 

This is the view, in case you're wondering:

We also get the perfect view of the Scott Monument and the Firth of Forth with wonderful sunsets (when the skies give us permission) from our bathroom window: 

  

I am, as I said, in love with this country.