COMFORT IN SPRING

Recently I have come to appreciate the difference between moving to another country for necessity and moving to another country because of desire. We have person A that moved to a new country because of circumstances, and we have person B who moved to a new country because why not? The realities of A and B are going to be so distinct. A will eventually blend in, but will A ever feel like the new country is his/her home country? Meanwhile, person B will get the hang of the town fairly quickly and blend in seamlessly, with no creases. A will try to make links to his/her country of origin, while B will appreciate everything as new. A will forever be just grateful to its new country, person B will love it with his/her whole heart.

I have come to realise that, unconsciously, my mind always tries to find links, big and small, with the life before the move (which is getting harder not because of memory alone but because of my limited knowledge of Italy that is stuck at 15 years of age). My reality is divided into two parts: the now and the before. I measure the years by counting how much time has passed since the move, not by how old I have been alive for. This year, I have come to make another small connection, or shall I say that I have acknowledged another link. I feel most nostalgic about Italy in summer. Before this year, I had thought it was because of the sun; Italy is a destination for tourists in the summer because of its beaches and heavenly weather. But I have never seen that version of Italy; in fact, I have yet to see an open sea of clear water.

In the past couple of years, the UK has been experiencing nicer springs and summers, meaning that the sun comes out more and there are days in which the temperatures are warmer. That’s what happened this spring as well. Something that I have started doing on sunny days is to stop everything I am doing and to stare at the sun, the trees, the birds and to just listen to nature. That’s how it hit me. It was the sound of birds that made me nostalgic, and it wasn’t summer, it was spring. The chorus of birds that I hear here in the UK is the same that I used to hear in Italy. Ironically, last year my family and I had decided to put a birdhouse in the garden.

The birdhouse had to be the centre of attention. We have a variety of guests in there, but I decided to portray the two pigeons because they are the ones that always sit idly nearby sometimes. I guess it reminds me of how I stop and listen sometimes too.

The background shows my memories from the past, before the move, and I was inspired by Van Gogh’s ‘Almond Blossom’. The tree is a piece of my imagination that I designed to fit this piece. The flowers on the tree are called ‘Occhi della Madonna’ in Italian, they used to be popular in my hometown, which is why I have included them. These flowers don’t grow on trees; you also may have noted the three birds in the background, that are not fleshed out. I wanted to show that I don’t exactly know if those birds used to make the same sound as the birds in the UK (although I am surer that not), hence why they are translucent. However, I do know that the flowers grow on the ground, and, hence why, they are more detailed than the birds. My memory of the flowers is more solid than the one for the birds and this is shown by the saturation of each. The fact that they are on the tree is irrelevant, I needed them there to connect the piece together. The tree then goes through the birdhouse; this expresses how I came upon the realisation I was talking above.

Behind the tree, I used blue as taken from Van Gogh’s piece, and I decided to go for a hazy feeling following the reasoning above about remembering, hence the technique that I used to colour it in. I have also added a streak of light coming from the top left to the bottom right. I felt that this added a layer of dynamic deeling to the piece. This light is shown on the birdhouse and the pigeons as well to maintain the consistency and to enhance its effect essentially. My sister had commented that the blue and yellow in the background gives the impression of a waterfall and I found that quite fitting. Water is slippery, just like my memories.