Friday 29 June 2012

Grateful for contrasts



This word is on my mind. The more I've thought, the more I realise I'm a bundle of contrasts. My life is a life of contrasts.

It started when I thought it funny how Luca was a textbook routine baby and Kian was carried in a sling and we co-slept.

Then I thought about my views on medicine and natural living. I've always sought alternative therapies and treatments to anything. And yet I had an epidural with both the boys.

There are little things like how I hate noise. (OK, who likes noise?) I mean, I'm so sensitive that I'd prefer a tea towel dangling permanently over each and every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen to avoid that sound of wood on wood. I like quiet. Silence. But I'll have you know the drums are my instrument of choice. A drumming friend at school taught me the basics and I've been hooked ever since. (A pie-in-the-sky dream of mine has been to do what I do by day, and be a drummer in a cool little band by night.)

I crave solitude. I love parties.

When we first moved to Australia, we lived amongst barefoot hippies. I ran a cake stall at the organic markets and Graeme sweated it out in people's gardens. Then we moved to a place where Graeme worked in the city and we made friends with big-time corporate families.

We didn't really fit in either camp to tell you the truth.

Too mainstream to be radical and too radical to be mainstream.

I've lived a life where talking to boys was forbidden. A life in a strict private girls' school in Cairo where you are pulled up and punished if your hair tie isn't brown or black. I've lived another in a mixed public school in Kent amongst girls who did a lot more than kissing.

Straight-A student and maths graduate becomes a food writer working from home.

Used to loathe getting dirty in the garden and doing any kind of work out there. Now I've designed and built my beds, planted pots and am growing lots of green goodness. And I quite like getting my hands dirty.

None of this is surprising. I am, after all, a product of another contrast: a harsh Egyptian father and a soft, warm English mother.

I love contrasts. I love all the irony. Life is very real with contrasts. Don't you think?

And I get to see a much much bigger world (literally and figuratively).

Hence why I'm grateful.

Linking with Bron at Maxabella Loves who makes me laugh.


Have you noticed the button? Yes the big button up there on the right. The one with the cool changing text. I'm so excited about it. Go on, see where it takes you... 

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway.



13 comments:

  1. I loved this post, Vanessa. I was thinking this same sort of thing about myself during the week. How I am constantly a little bit out of sorts because one side of me likes one thing, but the other side of me wants something else. I can see from your post how we might have come to be the way we are - a life raised in contrast will probably do that to a person.

    Very thoughtful and appreciated. Thank you. You're such an interesting person, you really are.

    x

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  2. I could really relate to your post. I think we are all walking contradictions & that's why I think it's so silly that people are always trying to give each other a 'label' or put each other in a'box'. xx

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  3. Oh yes, such contrasts! I love that you like quiet but are a drummer :) that's awesome.

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  4. Such a lovely post on contrasts, I love talking about contrasts in people's lives and what makes them who they are.

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  5. Beautiful post - i can relate and always just thought i was confused - i like your perspective better

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  6. i really like this.. I was thinking recently about different stages in my life, and how different they have been; but often how much they were needed at the particular time I was in my life..

    nice to stop by your space here. xo

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  7. I liked you before but now I think you're especially super fabulous. Great post.

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  8. Love this post! And all the contrasts that make you you! Expressed so beautifully x

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  9. You have written this beautifully. None of us really can fit into any mould when we are so different on so many levels. I really loved reading this post. x

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  10. It is amazing how much we can change or discover about ourselves, given the opportunity (or necessity!) I'm with you re: the quiet... but not so much on the drums. My eldest son has been playing the drums for 10 years, and his father for 10 years before that. You could say I'm more than a bit over it, because I am!

    Visiting via 52 Weeks of Grateful!

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  11. I love this post too. Beautifully said.

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  12. Great post! So beautifully written. x

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