Wednesday 30 January 2013

Pianos, Women & Houses

Amongst other things, today has involved googling for local piano restorers (my Grieg doesn't sound as good on my long-unplayed piano as it does on my teacher's) and stumbling across a fascinating blog about a 30-year-old piano tuner who has 'no fixed abode', having moved out of his flat a couple of years ago, deciding instead to just find somewhere to sleep wherever he happened to be at the end of his working day. I really love discovering alternative lifestyles and learning about other people's choices. I personally couldn't live like him - I am a home maker at heart - but wow, how interesting! Too many people don't question what is 'normal' and conventional. It's a topic that really interests me - a while ago I seriously considered researching and writing about it via a series of interviews, inspired by the incredibly interesting people I tend to meet on my travels - maybe I might, one day. Especially in the context of women and issues around femininity and the construction of identity, womanhood and the multitude of choices that abide therein.

(I think I look like quite a strong (albeit vulnerable too) woman in this shot by Mosa (One Pix Art), Beverley Hills):


In other news, and hopefully without jinxing myself by writing it 'out loud', I have been for a long, sustained amount of time been going to bed every night noticing and marvelling at how happy I am now. I'm so busy doing what I love, decisively focussing on what I know makes me happy (dance, music, writing, learning (languages)... it's always been this these things; I'm sad without them) and being grateful for all the small and big things I am so lucky to have and experience. For a while back then I was distraught and now I am liberated!