When rains outside, a vintage version
- rikocucinacucito
- 11 dic 2015
- Tempo di lettura: 3 min
This month I began to participate in a nice initiative promoted by a Facebook group of blogger mothers. Basically every month there is a theme and who wants can write about it. The theme of December is 'when is raining outside'. This is the life motive of the last months since there is the rainy season and El nino come to greet us.
In my home town in Italy during winter it rains almost every day so I can say I’m kind of used to these weather so I don’t give up. My sister and I have grown up without mobiles, very little television (my mum had straight rules about one hour tv cartoons) and no net. So, when it was raining and the park became a lake, what were we doing? At that time there weren’t digital cameras so there are no traces of the small masterpiece we were making (some of my relatives are thanking God for this).
My mom, my grandmothers and my aunty used to make very nice items with recycled materials (something that is so much on fashion today).
At my grandma Pinetta's place we always referred to an children's art book called “Quindici” where with a paper bag, some small pieces of fabric, crayons and glue you could make really nice things. Leafing trough and deciding which project to start took about an hour: everything was so beautiful! My grandmother Pinetta stored the papers and boxes so that we could use our imagination.
Together with my mom we made a “Things book”, a book with empty pages where we stuck images we collected from magazines. We just looked at the pages, chose what we liked and stick it on. This book accompanied me for many years later, when I learned to write and draw. I had to throw away one year ago because it was completely finished.
My aunty Cristina is an amazing artist who when had some free time was helping us making wonderful things with simple materials. A cake box became a horse merry go round, clay became savana’s animals or dynos, small pieces of fabrics became a dove and plastic bottles robots.
My grandmother Giulia was (and still is) the queen of collage. I still remember her displeasure when her brother came to greet her and, while talking (he was talking that much!), cut all our blue paper that was supposed to be used for the sky. In her house collage paper was never missing. Furthermore my grandma saved some old toys, belonging to my father and siblings, that she put in a bag. There were two old Barbies (how much time we spent playing with Barbie!) with homemade clothes, some old Lego bricks and marionettes. Then we can’t forget her passion for board games like: memory and card games.
The female entourage who raised me left some space for men. My father made me passionate in reading. My favorites books are form Jaca Book Editor ( I still readthem today for myself or for Giovanni) because they have beautiful pictures and educative tales. But one of the best things we ever did was playing with the toy train; we settled all the landscape and, by the time we finished, we were so tired that we played very little with the train itself.
My grandfather Ambrogio spent a whole afternoon with me making paper boats with newspaper and sweets wrapping paper. I had a fleet! My grandfather Luigi (yes I know , I have been so lucky having all the grandparents around) transformed a piece of wood and some gasket in a cooker. I still have in my house a small pink chair he made for my dolls.
All these activities, that are so vintage, are still impressed in my heart and in my memory, despite the time that has passed. Maybe you, reading this post, would think that for the children today these are not fitting because they are interested only in digital. Maybe first of all we have to challenge ourselves and give them the opportunity to be filled by wonder by simple things. A rainy day can challenge this theory of mine.
By now I can say that, for my son, I desire the same thing that happened to me: to be impressed by wonderful memories of adults ready to spend some time with him, who want to give new life to simple waste materials, who want to make with him beautiful things that make us grow and, as always and discover together the world.
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