jazz cafés & femmes fatales

kitchen: daily thoughts and philosophy ramblings

laundry: washing the dirt, the bad and the ugly away, self-love & self-care quotes

bedroom: current readings, book reviews, marginalia, etc.

parlour: soirées, rendezvous, an introvert meeting social life

atelier: research as leisure activity, visual and performative arts

in this week's wunderkammer, we have two particular species of sylvia, each with its own uniqueness. but let's start at the beginning: yesterday morning, i met this little cutie pie, scientific name sylvia melanocephala (from ancient greek melas, ''black'', and kephale, ''head''), standing all alone on the curb in need of help. such a cute name for a cute bird.

the name sylvia is dear to me.

i remember, in high school, a red-headed girl named sylvia. she was exactly what i aspired to be, what i deeply craved: she was smart, independent, and self-confident. she always got good marks in every subject, was loved by every teacher, and so on. i secretly admired her, thinking i was lesser than her, lesser than anyone actually. i couldn't really see my best qualities, only my worst.

then, years later, i met sylvia plath, through this quote:

it's one of my favourite quotes because of the allusion to the red hair (from ancient greek erythros, ''red'', and kephale, ''head''). i have always had a fascination with red-headed people. since i was a kid, i craved ginger hair. unfortunately, i didn't get it in this life (perhaps in another one, who knows). even the ancient greeks had a particular admiration for redheads. red-headed women, especially, were associated with beauty (aphrodite was also a redhead) and the hair of female statues were often painted red.

reading sylvia plath's diaries was an epiphany for me. today, when i re-read my annotations, for a brief moment, i actually mistook them for sylvia's own quotes. what she wrote in her diaries, her personal reflections on different topics, is so similar to my own experiences, and to those of women all over the world. she went through the same experiences and fought the same struggles as every woman living her life in a man's world. she craved for her own personal sphere, she wanted to be perceived as an intelligent and mature human being, not subordinate to another human being. she craved her identity and refused to sacrifice her own interests and desires, because what is a sentient human being without its own desires and interests? what is its deep core? where is its uniqueness? she didn't want to vanish into another person, under a man's wings, but rather spread her own wings and create her own existence.

it is very hard not to conform to others' expectations, when you don't know yourself. you feel like you have no brain, as if you are just an automaton, following whatever other people tell you to do, to eat, to buy, to think. instead, it is a courage act to follow your own ideas, to dig deep into your soul and discover your true nature. i always thought my interests were boring and ordinary compared to those of others. i didn't allow myself to truly explore my core; to live and feel, as sylvia wrote in her diaries, all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. this was because i was simply afraid of change; i was simply afraid of my own independence, whose existence i had forgotten. sometimes, we think we are fragile beings who lack good qualities, we simply forget to live our lives following our insticts, we forget that inside ourselves there is a brand-new world, the only true one, actually.

sylvia questions herself: everyone seems to be doing valuable work. what can i do?