with my DD in her home. Her home evokes peacefulness, and happiness, and I soaked it all in like a starved and thirsty sapling. Cooking for her and her husband - the sweet darlings - was hugely enjoyable as they loved what I made. Walking on the Marina, sipping wine while cooking, sitting and dreaming on her balcony watching the boats go by on the bay towards the sea, snuggled in a warm, soft blanket with a book, in her drawing room, pottering around her plants, having an evening drink as a family, sitting with her and checking out all the things she's bought.....and on...and on.... Every moment was special.
There are a lot of things that I realized during this past week with my DD.
The first is: Freedom makes sense only if there is respect. Respect for yourself and respect for others. When we say that we believe in the maxim 'Live and Let Live' we are actually talking about freedom - freedom to live as we envision living to be and according the same freedom to others to live as they visualize their lives to be.
We all know how difficult the freedom to be ourselves is, because we live in a social structure, be it in our home, our work place, where we shop, or in what we do for recreation. And yet our deepest craving is for freedom...this is what we relentlessly and tirelessly strive for... Just to be free...to feel free...to live free...
This freedom is never going to happen unless we respect ourselves. Through all the compromises that we make or choose to make or are forced to make, one thing that is for sure is that we have to work hard to not put ourselves in a situation that will require us to forfeit our freedom...we cannot compromise on the respect we ought to have for ourselves...we cannot shortchange ourselves and then soothe ourselves by saying that we did it for others. Naturally, this means that we have to become aware of who we are, we need to force our mind to think clearly and sensibly, and ww do not shy away from making some hard decisions if we have to.
Freedom is actually the space we give ourselves....the space we build around ourselves. And how can we do this if we do not honestly take a hard look at ourselves...unless we get to know and understand who we really are, what we really like and dislike and most of all, how far we are willing to be pushed.
Once we start on the road to making ourselves free, I do believe that a lot of things will fall into place.....a lot of issues about ourselves will become clearer.....and life will become infinitely more interesting. The first step is always the hardest, isn't it....?
And when we get to that critical place called freedom, we'll see that we are perfectly willing to allow others to have their own freedom without any kind of judgmentalism...