Tag Archives: kindness

Funny reminders

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Sometimes I forget, but I live in quite an awesome city. Amsterdam. And whenever I forget, the city itself hands me a kind reminder, telling me “Hey you, look! It’s pretty lovely around here”. 

Like today. I’d done my errands and picked up a massive parcel which made it impossible to cycle. So I walked the last 10 minutes, looking like a pack-donkey. Almost home, I passed the local florist. Of course, from the corner of my eye I spotted flowers that were perfect for my collages, so I made a stop to have a look. They were perfect, so I wanted a bunch. Two things you can do: 

a. Walk home, dump stuff, return later.

b. Buy the flowers immediately, embracing your inner pack-donkey. 

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t go with option b. The florist came to help me and the moment of payment arrived. Card at hand. He… only accepted cash. Solutions are there for those who need them, the ATM was two doors down. 

I started to clumsily fiddle with my bike and the several bags hanging from it. But “no, no, no, leave your bike and bags! Come on, in you go with that bike!” the florist said. Yes. He was bloody serious. I found myself riding my bike into the flower shop. Bags and parcels included. The florist would make sure it wouldn’t get stolen. 

He kept his word, I paid for my flowers, carefully rode the bike outside again, walked home and thought to myself “only in Amsterdam…what a wonderful city”. 

Flowers look so good on my bike.

Market day

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Sometimes you can get possessed by a weird and sudden urge, without being able to explain why. A while ago my friend and I were selling our stuff at a little local Fleemarket. The evening before – I had packed everything for the next day and was ready to go to bed – I decided, very last minute, to go through ALL my buttons and sort them by shape and colour. ALL meaning my giant collection of two tins filled to the rim.

There I was, sorting. Almost meditative. I found so many pretty buttons I had forgotten about, thinking of items they could brighten up. And I found so many light blue buttons, too. Light blue is not really my colour (she writes, while dressed in a white dress with light blue polka dots… sometimes exceptions are to be made). I started bundling them, the light blue buttons, sort by sort. No use for me, but ready to be sold at the market I decided.

The next day, Market Day. The sun was out, bright and hot. We had a lovely day, selling this and that. The bundled light blue buttons were waiting on a saucer to be sold. A man came up to our stall. When he saw the buttons he started to collect them, every bundle. “How much for all these buttons?” he asked. And the deal was done. Curiosity came over me. “Why do you need so many blue buttons, if I may ask?”

He told me this: back in the olden days an alcoholic would get a blue button for every year they were sober. He was a recovering alcoholic. Therefor he was covering an old jacket with blue buttons all over, as a trophy and reminder for being sober, year after year. And he touched my heart telling me this in all honesty.

Sometimes you can get possessed by a weird and sudden urge, without being able to explain why. I can explain now, why I had to sort and bundle my button-collection that evening.

Hold hands

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The birds went silent and the children at the Kindergarten downstairs started crying in unison. I knew then Donald Trump was elected for president…

And so I also knew this could be the beginning of a very dark, if not pitch black, period. My first reaction was this:

hold-hands-image1

But I also knew I have a choice – like all those Americans had a choice although something went horribly awry there… And there was my drive! My drive to not give in nor up. My drive to stay on the positive route and know that I, and we all, can make this world a better place, with or without Trump. After 30 minutes of freaking out, ranting and feeling like the world had gone under due to a massive nuclear attack, the light inside me took over again.

So from now on here’s a few things I’m gonna do. And they may sound silly and small and naive, but it’s about the drive remember.

1) after I’ve finished this piece, I will not mention Trump ever again, nor invest any energy in frustrating over the  – let’s face it – dumb-ass mistake the Americans made on November 8th 2016.
2) I will focus on all that is good, beautiful and positive in my life and in the world.
3) I will keep adding positive input into this world.
4) I will work hard on establishing my new, re-born start-up, Confetti In Your Face (more on that real soon!). My work as a happy-maker will continue and grow and I will make products and create stories that feed happiness and compassion even if it seems impossible.
5) I will keep on believing we have the power to make a U-turn for the positive – as long as we unite and join forces, no matter the distances between us, the language barriers, differences in religion, etcetera.

In fact I’ve never felt more strong about my mission to make this world a happy place full of compassion. So thank you Donald Trump, for lighting up that flame inside me: it’s a fire now! Another ‘thank you’ to Donald Trump, for creating the necessity for me and so many others to feel strong about our missions and the knowing that love is all we need.
Maybe in a next life you’ll understand this, too, Donald.

So how are you and me able to keep on moving forward and what can we learn from Trump? Well, if – like me – you want to change the world into a beautiful, sustainable and happy place, don’t distance yourself from society to hug trees. You’re not helping anyone with that. Best thing to do is continue to live your life the positive way. That way you’ll show how it can be done too, that way people may be inspired – affected even? – by it; remember that for some positivity, good will and compassion are just things they never learned. So keep acting out of compassion, keep recycling paper, glass and plastic, keep on believing. And so on. And as for the learning-from-Trump aspect: clearly, if you stand up for your believes and make yourself heard, you will reach people. Trump did… So instead of shying away from sharing your hopes and believes, make them known. Instead of shying away from showing your compassionate self, act out of compassion.

As long as we do so, as long as we hold each other’s hands, listen to our hearts and keep listening to each other, we can make that U-turn. What’s your next act of compassion?

I made this heart for all of you as part of my #aheartaday challenge. I hope it will help you find the bright side of life again and the will to continue to act out of goodness, love and compassion.

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A Heart A Day – Major catch-up, part one

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Here’s a major catch-up, part one; hearts 24 – 32. And I realise I’ll still be behind, as today should be day #36 of my challenge. Do I have a good excuses for this delay? Well, yes. I got food poisoning… When I was finally back on track I did pick up continuing making hearts, but simply didn’t get round to posting them. Life is what happened :-) But once I’ve caught up, I’ll be determined to pick up where I was, as creating a heart a day is the best challenge! The focus I now have on self-compassion and compassion towards others is what I was looking for. It triggers my brain every day!

So here we go, 9 hearts as catch-up part one. Descriptions underneath each photo.

 

24

#24 – my ode to food poisoning, as sea fruits were the cause of it all. Took me a couple of days before I could look at shells and create this heart ;-)

28

#28 – you have to look closely to find the banana-candy heart. Inspired by the colours of the picture underneath which I took while baby-sitting.

29

#29 – KISS MORE! Inspired by a good week for kissing ;-)

30

#30 – my flower heart as an apology to you. Sorry I kept you waiting for more hearts…

With love,

Tess

PS: Have you created or spotted a heart this week? Share it with me! Use #aheartaday and social media may overflow with hearts…

[I love love and I love hearts! But oh, this world needs more visible love. So let’s change that, step by step. Away with pessimism. Away with hate. Let’s fill this world with love. And hearts! To show compassion towards each other, towards the planet, towards ourselves. It proves to be difficult for so many of us. But instead of judging it’s more meaningful to show love, to respond with love, to act out of love. Say it with hearts.
So I’m sharing A Heart A Day. Every day I will draw, stitch, paint or otherwise create a heart and post it on this blog. Will you help me make love and hearts spread like a contagious but healthy disease?]