I Like This Move

I have just began to be proud of myself.

It is a little pride, or better, it is an awarness.

When I started GiglioCooking, 6 years ago - actually yesterday it was its 6th birthday. 6 years ago, on June 5th, there was the Opening Feast at the end of the restoring works. Then GiglioCoking started to operate on October 2009 - I cannot say my economic conditions were good. 

My monthly earning was just enough to pay the house rent and bills, so my bank accunt was constantly fluctuating around 0.

Somehow I found loans  and the place where to start. I had already wonderful friends who were supporting me in different ways.

Yesterday nothing extraordinay happened, if you look at it with the eyes of the "absolute". But it was "relatively" extraordinary. A little change, a little improvement, a little more comfort and some movement.

I like the movement that - always more often and more intense as the time passes - happens at GiglioCooking.

The movement brings money circulation and it is brought by work,  cooperation, entusiasm and by many other actions and feelings. The movement gives back entusiasm and joy. What goes around turns around....

The Carpenter arrived early morning, to fix some shelves in a concavity of the wall behind the crystal table. . I had this in mind since a long ago, but I haven't had the chance to do until now. 

On the shelves I have put pieces of my personal life and of GiglioCooking life: sometime the two lives coincide.

On the shelves there are some recipes hand written by my mother

some ceramic pieces made my friend artist Isabella Fazzo

an oil painting of Cannelle Beach made by my brother Paolo Ansaldo

an oil painting with a Tuscan landscape made by my Russian student Ekaterina.

Two abstract paintings made by my friend, the sculptor Jim Ridlon

At 9,30 Antonella arrives. She will be teaching a class to a young couple from Denmark.

Then Max arrived with his usual load of good things from his farm: asparagus, rucola, eggs....

..... and cherries.

I have never been used to say " you have been good, girl!" to myself.  I have always seen  the things I was doing incomplete, imperfect, not deserving  a particular recognizement. 

Now I have started to think differently, to slow down with expections and to compare my actual life, no with the life of others - as I live in a Country where there is still peace and... good food, not everybody can say the same - , but with my life "before", with the moment when I started GiglioCooking.

Now there are two refrigerators: this means something.

Now the refrigerators are always full: this means something.

Now, when I go to shop for the school, I buy more than in the past: not just one single onion for a sauce but a bag of onions. Before I had the money just enough for a few things and everything was strictly measured. Now I can buy more and have a little advantage on the next shopping. Now I do not buy one single bottle of wine, but a buy a box of bottles and keep them for future lessons. Before I had to wait for the payment to be able to buy something. Now I might have the money before the payment by my clients. 

This does not mean I am rich. 

You may think: this is normal when you start a business. It is not this "nornal", in a time and in a Country where businesses shut down at the rythm of 50 a day. 

So, I must be aware of this and be thankful to the "Universe of Friends & Coincidences" and to myself. 

Thus: yesterday June 5th, 6th birthday of GiglioCooking, the school was more "alive" than usual: with a teacher teaching, with students studying, with the carpenter carpentering, with Max ... maxing.  All together and all of them smiling. 

Do you understand why I like this move?