Where is the Intruder?

Behind my Back

Where is the intruder? It looks pretty easy, but I guarantee: there is not  an intruder.

This image makes easy to picture my life after Anna (my daughter) was born: it is the essence of my choice to be a mother and an architect, off course with completely new rhythms and from home. 

This is going to be as well the unstudied content of this blog.

The image is a snatch of the wall behind the desk where I work. It is the corner of my house I like pretty much. The first drawing, elegant and with a frame (the only one!), is a present from my friend and professor Pippo Ciorra. I got it the same day I defended my PhD thesis, in Venice.  

It is a drawing made by playing, drawn directly on the paper-tablecloth of the restaurant, while we were talking about the future. For me it is an important memory of my university career  and of the people involved. 

The rest of the sketches are the very serious  drawings that Anna brings home from the nursery school.  

Playing and experiencing are the two common elements of these drawings, this is the reason why I love to hang and show them there. Now when I am on a skype call nobody looks at me any longer, they look at the wall! 

Playing and experiencing are as well  the common elements of my life now: to be a mother and an architect at the same time, obliges me to re-invent timetables, to re-schedule, to be flexible and ready to change, to play more or less seriously with everything, including with time.  

I can do my job, I know how to be an architect. But playing....I had completely forgotten that!

Luckily Anna, very patiently, guided me through this new discovery. Now when I really play with her, in her way, we share a deep empathy. I got to know her better and better; and myself as well.