10 GRADE

Graduation day, the second graduation this time of the year.

At home we celebrate with a beautiful bake from one sister to another, made with grace by my allergy girl.
The piping is as always outstanding; patience and love for baking.
Way to go! Two sisters; one freshly graduated from her International school in London and off on a gap year now. The second sister finishing her 10 grade at the same international school and signed up for the two, very last international baccalaureate years; 11 and 12 grade. In international school know as the IBDP years. My youngest finishing her 8 grade and unlike the importanty of this year in the girls' prior Rabat American school; marking the end of Middle school, in international schools 8 grade is the third year of MYP ( Middle Year Program).

London seems a strong fit to us as a family and the three girls are doing amazingly well after our first two years in the city of Westminster.

Exhausted and satisfied.
I can't believe we' re actually winding down our second year this week.

Knowledge and Ignorance

Knowledge and Ignorance

The day has hardly begun and I have to run to the campus. Allergy alarm! Tsunami of sneezes ..... "Please bring me more medication , I am not feeling well, I am actually sneezing constantly and I get so exhausted and with my silly allergies I am upsetting the class and playing with the concentration skills of the other students, o mammy please bring it along....please please hurry up now mammy! I need more pills so badly I am feeling so sleepy suddenly and my face and body tonic are not getting any better."
Yes yes I'am on my way, quickly dressing and up you go, medication in one hand, keys and glasses. So lucky we're so close to both campuses. That at least has saved us already many times, literally in December when we made it straight into the UCLH (University College London Hospital). Since that really dramatic panic day late December 2014 with my daughter ending in the emergency room. Since that day I feel, her body has ever since been in a state of recovering; getting over that severe reaction.

Her anaphylactic shock did wake us up. Her allergies have been,  for the last 17 years, always just around the corner. Unpredictable, incomprehensible... the struggle with knowledge and ignorance within and outside the field of expertise.
Her young body is alarmingly awake rather than comfortably sleepy and this is all so comprehensible and understandable. She fights the allergies with all her strengths and between exams, the final baccalaureate coming up in May .... I am afraid she needs all her spare breath. 

I am running to her campus and promise I'll make a call so she comes down when I arrive at the building. All I see is her face and I'm certainly not happy with the face I am looking at. She looks as if she's struggling with another bad allergy. Unfortunetely with the pollen season in full size; blossoming trees plus daily temperature change... 'global warming'...  we all seem more and vulnerable to seasonal allergies. I mean with my sweetheart I never know what is the actual trigger for a reaction. Regular examination and medical diagnose showed and as the gained knowledge tells us: she's definitely deadly allergic for certain groups of food and she suffers from pollen too. No way she can tackle these reactions easily.
It gets only more complicated as we believe we're all suffering from allergies. That's where it becomes a burden for the serious and diagnosed patient.
My daughter is the very first who will come up with positive comments and tell you that her allergies are nothing to complain about, no way that 'you get down' because 'that's life' and she adds 'well we all struggle with something, isn't that what life is all about Mom'....
I kind of consider her as my hero while she comments in this way on her actual not well being and I feel like ... 'Yeah yeah yeah..... agree..'
And then she continues her story . 'Mom and there's this: those people who simply don't get it! And that's why we will sit and write and share and tell some of the best allergy adventures we came through, it might be in the stars, and it might be your simple bad luck to be deadly allergic, people should listen and try to get the message that there is nothing to joke about, allergies, the deadly ones are too serious to mess around with '. She's right can't agree more with my daughter, and this is in a nutshell the full picture of her and mine experiences. She summarizes the story of her life with her deadly allergies and the average total nonsense attitude from the world around her.
An attitude that has everything to do with a lack of knowledge and a big deal of ignorance.

PS: latest medical updates about my allergy girl: she's still and ever deadly allergic for peanuts and nuts, and both are so severe that cross examination is not advisable: next consultation on short term notice not necessary, as allergy doesn't seem to be cured.
Walking around with epi pen is! Keeping her mind straight 7/7 is too.

 PS:  We Eat cake:  Homemade, safe and beautiful.

To Follow

To Follow

Following.

That is part of my life.

In fact that is what I often understand while chatting with people; friends and family 

There is the fact that I started, leave my country adventure, journey...  

being an expat by following my husband. We left as he got the possibility to go and work in China in 1995.

It is the last thing I really want to be confronted with because it brings up so many emotions, memories, doubts, hopes, failures, successes. i feel good not talking about all the travel ad changing and just keeping busy and aware that we shall move again and that is the only thing i can think about because otherwise i will get annoyed. How does that sounds. Nomads forever. I admit I can get nervous and pretty uncomfortable if I start believing that we might stay to long in a place.
Is there something more romantic than traveling the world? No there isn't. I could travel with one piece and leave every other day.

N'importe ...

I think I never tought about it in the way of just following nor of giving up something, I believed it was the greatest thing to do and probably this is still what I feel. 

We were young and beautiful, in love. We wanted to pick up our life and go and live it somewhere else. 

Back then in those days in the early eighties.

Somehow when the last days of his university career came closer  time had come to think ahead.
And my god if I only see my daughters today, their friends, they are so more focused....planning, knowing what they want to do. Which is just fantastic. The world today needs young people who will se their talents help tackle the issues the world faces today.  and of course they like to live our life again and admire the episodes we lived. I believe we were dreaming, without really doing something with our dreams, not thinking about tomorrow,  life was beautiful, being a student was about spiritual freedom. Life seemed without too many responsibilities. It was the time spirit at least in Europe.  

So when we then finely thought and start thinking about the next step , we agreed quickly that it wanted to leave and discover countries where the sun would shine, the skies got more blue every day and freedom could continue...

There were many steps between that day where we entirely agreed about leaving the rainy days in Amsterdam and the moment we finally sailed away... 

I left my life and packed my stuff, left Amsterdam behind.

Twenty years have been about moving countries; traveling, freedom, cultures, new people, new borders and horizons. And the biggest part together with our beautiful daughters. I became we. My life became our life. 

Intuition again.

Intuition is my most reliable compass.
Sometimes you look back or you think about the near future and you want to recall. Steps, moments, images. Words mostly feelings : hilarious; naive; intense; overwhelming..  in this order... I don't know yet. 

So many years outside the country where I was born and lived three decennia. Expatriated, expat, semi-expat since a while now. What's in the name: local; import; schools; children; birth; changing; nomads; gypsies; spoiled; stranger; roots; home country; occupation?

I am baking today, all is about cake. That works for me. It feels as my intuition, my love for my daughters, my youngest memories, the allergies of my eldest daughter, entertaining friends and family all fits within that one word: bake. It ultimately makes me always incredible happy. Feeding others, sitting around a table, having food and sharing conversation; making time for the other.

I feel making food is like a mix of memories, is about shared dishes, cultures gatherings, souvenirs with ex-pats, getting together with locals, it's about making friends. New people via via... networks and it's about what do you do? Preparing food is taking time while moving around boxes and reinventing my life.  Picking up your luggage is packing up your entire life not knowing when you will need to pack again nor where you travel to. 

Live, go, start over again. Any adventure is uncertain. Qualified competences. Think and get out: follow means get social active, social circles, have and find many friends through: skype; twitter; 
Instagram; sms and snapchat. Splashing words, sentences, images all over the paper which break down into pieces of a puzzle. Puzzle about arrival, leave, settle, integrate, unpack, human investment. Empathy or selfishness? Perfection or intuition? Parent or professional? Can it be all at once?

What do you do? Where are you from? Which language do the children speak? What language do you speak with your children at home? How many times was I asked and did I ask others? 
What I feel when i look back, when I recall the different places in a split of a second there is a stream of words, images and impressions. Meaningful to me: countries cultures attitude and rituals education systems and families faculty and parents culture clash hilarious meaningful exchange in Cassis turning 7 years old meant: being reasonable... get rid of your toys, now you are a grown-up: maintenant tu es un grande... now in London it is the same, for all those other 7 years old delighted we got to know the american way of teaching pupils too there is no winner there are systems and there are pro and con.. pictures, letters,recipes, flavors, locations, the houses, the gardens and the rituals. 'We had the ever best birthdays ever..' used my allergy girl to say.
The baking the idea of champagne and cake when I turned 39 a little shock for the French friends in Cassis intuition following my heart what do I do i try to order my thoughts and find an order a algorithm to understand the almost two last decennia i want to get the picture what did I do? what did we do? where did we go and what did we learn? where are we now? it sounds like lines of a child children atelier in Cassis Education and teacher training in Lausanne artists and musicians in Beijing and prior in Amsterdam dancers and educators in Marseilles patisserie and chefs in London What did I do to turn around but never looked back What did I do, do I regret? PTA and board in Rabat, orphanage and Rotary listening may be while cooking and baking seems to picture some of the story to tell and there all the pictures, likes flashes on my mind and the book, about S, which is yet still a work in process, we will write together, finally that is what we do... when she is done with exams. 
Children are the key, your life is their playground. All things start at school. That is what it is for me and for my third culture kids. It's where al those different roles you play ever the game. 
My intuition hence is my compass. In my kitchen at home in London and when I set the table for my mother's birthday every year, mid august at the terrace at the family house in Balazuc. 
What do I do that I get distracted all the time Baking, writing, listening, taking care, photography, images all along two decennia almost In the end the question: what can I do? What did you do? What do you do? red tape.... but definitely, actually it is going to help me to come with some stories and insides in my life, our life, the good life, eclectic , colorful and cosmopolitan the silver line many places more experiences lived