Hello Again

I read Deer Baby's heart-breaking blog to inspire me to write to someone you have lost contact with explore what I would say. That blog was beautiful so it has inspired a reverential and alternative approach!

I can think of three people, Chou Chou, Jo and Jenny. Chou Chou was like a French sister, really like a sister. She is still on my horizon and we text occasionally. Jo was a good friend until she turned and, boy, was that nasty and Jenny was a work colleague and friend whose life just took her in another direction. What would I say to them?










Exactly! Blogging has taught me so much. If I am not listening I have nothing really to say. Time to stop filling the silences with noise, time to think rather than trying to create comfort with sounds (and in so doing make Bridget Jones seem coherent and considered) - time to listen. Yes, I am happy, I love my life, but what about you? I want to really hear about you, your life and where destiny has taken you.

This morning I was up for a 7.30 networking breakfast and it was truly rewarding. I did not push my wares at all I sat back and listened. I got back to my desk and asked to hear more. I can share with you the poem that I was offered.


The Hundred Languages Of Children
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marvelling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.


Loris Malaguzzi
(translated by Lella Gandini)