Atmosphere. Just before Christmas.

Tomorrow is already Christmas Eve! 

When I was a child this was definitely the best time of the year. Cold but cozy. Dark but shiny. Full of family meetings but intimate. And overall, everything was contained inside a magical atmosphere. It was the time when my imagination flew the most. Now I am not a child anymore but I still enjoy it in the same way, with the same excitement.

This year we spend Christmas here in Germany. At the moment we are in Heidelberg to celebrate it with Manfred's family. The advent is as important and magical as Christmas. Therefore I have been every day of December enjoying my ornaments and burning out the Christmas carol playlist. Despite the party won't take place in my house I felt the need to decorate it. I needed to continue the tradition from my childhood in my own house. You already know that at my mother's home we create the ornaments every year with fresh green (You can see it here and here). Now I did it in my living room and this fulfilled my spirit. It is also a way to honor my mother and everything she did to make my childhood special. I even manage to recreate this familiar atmosphere when, on a Sunday of advent while I build up the centre pieces, a couple of friends came by my home. Christmas carols were sounding in the background, I invited them to crème brulée, they helped me with the ornamentation... It was just perfect. 

Welcome to the Christmas atmosphere of my home.

I worked hard and long to make all this centerpieces. One week, to be concrete. Well, I am a perfectionist in certain areas of my life... hahaha. I am so proud of the results that I name them. They seem to me like little worlds, little landscapes were my childish imagination can travel away.

Fairytale

Silent Forest

Moonlight

Tradition 

The Guest By Jara López

The Tree

Atmosphere. Advent.

Personal. Fauna, 7 months.

Fauna is already seven months old. Despite this "motherhood period" is being the most intense of my life (every second is real, connected to the moment, filled with impressions) it feels like time is flying away pretty fast.
Since Fauna is here I had in my mind to describe her development every month. In the end I didn't manage for the last three months. Sometimes I didn't make photos in the right moment, other times I didn't find the quietness to sit down and write. This are the kinds of posts that cannot be delayed. 
However, this last two months she has grown so much! Her physical appearance is quite the same (a couple of centimetres longer, a couple of kilos heavier) but her motor skills, and especially her mind and personality have went high in a dizzy curve.

She is charming and everybody falls in her enchanted web. It is due to her easy smile. Except the doctor, everybody seems sympathetic to her. It is surprising even for me, the way she is just happy all the time. Even when she is tired, in a noisy and strange environment, she still smiles at people. However, if we stretch her patience to much she knows how to declare her needs. She would shout loud until we please her desire of a quiet place. 
She likes to talk (da da da di ta di ta da) mostly when she is alone, in some kind of trance. But she is not a talking child, she communicates more often with face expressions and body movements.
She is fascinated by any source of light and gets hypnotized if the light moves or changes. When she is really relaxed she lies peacefully and observes her own hand, turning it and moving her fingers. She loves to play with any object, preferring always the dangerous ones. Plastic and paper bags are her favourite. 
She has long moments for herself while playing. Even longer if I or papa sits next to her. She likes to bites everything as if she would be hunting .She does it with our noses too. Like dogs do, she bites and shakes the head powerfully. May be the name we gave her...
She likes as well to move her arm up and down, hitting anything around. Her force is quite rude. 
She is totally aware of her surroundings and it is difficult to hide something from her (like the bottle). Her motor abilities are really good. If you carry her in your arms and move around the room she would catch rapidly anything that is in her reach. For example, the other day she caught and moved a chair several centimetres while our friend Mila was carrying her around in a coffee place. She is able to sit but if she gets distracted she falls to the side. 
She is completely in love with papa (because, well, he is quite funny and entertaining) but if she is tired, confused or afraid, she searches for me and extents the arms in my direction requesting my company. Also, if she wakes up from a nap and we aren't at home, she cannot handle to not see me around. She only would get relaxed when I take her in my arms. 
She sleeps with us, she always did. So we decided to disassemble her bed... it takes to much space from the room to be unused. During the day she falls sleep easily in the baby buggy or the baby carrier but at night she only falls sleep if she sucks from my breast. My whole body is crying around for the bad positions I am sleeping. Eventually she let me detached from her and I can get a better position. The problem is that I often fall sleep before... She is the new queen of our bed and sex has to be made really quietly or somewhere else. But all and all she is a good sleeper and she sleeps trough the night with not much interruption. 
She eats a lot and is really open and curious about different tastes. She prefers the fruits over the vegetables because they taste sweet. But she eats anything if you insist a bit. I mostly do her food myself but sometimes, when I am in a rush, I go to the bio supermarket and get some jars. 
She loves to have a shower and to play with the water, trying to catch the stream. One of us showers with her so it is our main naked "skin to skin" time of the day. We don't know if she would already enjoy to bath. We didn't tried again since the first month because... well... is more effort to prepare.

Two days ago she got vaccinated. You can see in the pictures that she is tired but still wants to play. I enjoy so much discovering the features of her character. She is totally an individual, different to me. And I am/we are so proud of her.

Inspiration. November: flowers and memories.

November is a Gothic month, don't you think? October is really colorful and still warm. December brings already the promise of a shiny and cozy Christmas time. But November is there in between. Just Dark. In November the days are short all of a sudden. The fall, the real fall, happens then. In a couple of windy days all the trees that were golden become totally nude. 
Surprisingly, this month inspired me a lot aesthetically speaking. My mind is full of images dominated by sharp forms and non saturated colors. It also makes me think in plants: bramble, adormidera, thistle, belladonna... It reminds me too my childhood obsession with witchcraft. The books I used to look. The drawings I used to do. All the magnificent female and dark protagonist of my fantasies.

With the grey sky and the rain some forgotten memories came to me really clear. The time when, in primary school, me and a classmate painted a door of the girls toilet with glitter spray as part of a magic ritual. We were putting a spell on the hamster of another classmate. A couple of days later the hamster died... Or that time when me and my friend Maria took all of our sorcery objects and, dressing with a totally unpractical witchy clothes, we went on the fully snowed fields in a search for new and unknown lands. We crossed the second stone fence and found a cow cemetery. Then our feets were freezing and our long skirts wet, so we went back to the warmth of our mother's house to drink milk-cocoa. Or that another time, when were in our late teens. We didn't want to go to school the following day so we went to some high rocks, carrying all kind of witchery utilities to make a ritual to call the snow. The snow didn't came, but some truly shitty weather occupied the skies for one week. 

I think that November is a great time to do witchcraft. 
Since October I am trying to help a waiter from the Italian restaurant under my home to get a girlfriend, a good one. I tried it because he is a really charming guy and I truly think that this is what he needs. Well, and because he asked for it. I did my thing and then he slowly entered in the flow, meeting different girls. Finally he was into some really romantic long distant story. But....ah... She had a boyfriend. A long term relationship. Of course, she finally chose to continue what she had. 
The other day, 14th of November, I came down to make a walk and he told me the sad resolution of his romantic adventure. So I told him I will tried again, immediately (kind of joking). Then I entered the park and suddenly there she was. The Moon. Huge, bright, powerful. It felt like she was there for me to make my thing. I really didn't remember that this was the day of the big full moon. For sure, chances have to be taken. So I stopped in the centre of the circular hollow that the park has and I confronted her. I absorbed all the power that she was offering. I felt so good and strong. It was a very special moment. When I got enough I just continued my walk. Hopefully for the end of the month my friend will get what he asked for.

I made magic a lot of times in my life. I learned it somehow in the way to my womanhood. It is something that cannot be described nor explained with rules. It is abstract and invisible. But notice this: I don't take it seriously. When it works out, I am excited and happy. When it doesn't, I just laugh about myself and continue my ordinary life.

- The pictures that accompany the text of today are some flower arrangement that inhabited our living room the first weeks of the month. As I said before I was inspired by a gothic and magical direction. I liked them so much that even named them. I present you: The Undergrowth Goblin, The Volatile Nymph and The Omnipotent Witch. It's easy to guess which is which, no? -

Atmosphere. Berliner Kinder

Photo story of a great Saturday.