Twelve paper butterflies
hanging from a string
stained with children’s fingerprints
for when the days are heavy
and the heart is running low.

Twelve paper butterflies,
in colorful procession,
for when the ears are full
of crying and questions endless.

Twelve paper butterflies,
caught in the air, mid-flight,
for when the patience dwindles
and you’re about to explode.

Twelve paper butterflies,
one by one cut out,
a bunting of reminders
to call in a lighter breath.

Twelve paper butterflies,
hanging from a string.
Look up and find your wings
when you’re hanging
from a thread.

from the journal of a sensitive mama

13 may
Down with a stomach bug.
It’s one of those days when all you want and need is to crawl back to bed, cocoon yourself within the folds of a soft blanket, and groan your pain and discontent as dramatically as your heart desires. Ideally, all while the children are being lovingly looked after (somewhere not within ear’s range) and you are being mothered and nursed back to health with tender loving care.

None of that. Not today and not for me. The order of today is “let there be hell”, courtesy of my 2-year-old, whose current modus operandi can be described with an alliteration of the same 3 letters — snap, no nap, nappy.

Let me provide some context here. She is at the same time teething and having the most defiant growth spurt to date (help)— it is quite impressive to witness her juggle two languages into complex sentences, even if the sentences in question today are variations on the theme of “NO, vai via! I don’t want you, call daddy!”, all uttered with fluorescent snot streaming out of her nose.

She has refused to take her afternoon nap and is now parading her riotous over-tired mood around the living room, snapping into uncontainable tantrums — something quite alien for a little person habitually so placid and easy going to have earned herself the name Lilla Camomilla (Italian for chamomile) — biting her sister (I am willing to blame that on the teething pain, for now at least) and asserting her dominance by removing her nappy and sitting threateningly on the sofa, glaring at everyone through tightly knitted eye-brows, thumb in her mouth, blond pig-tails pointing askew. Hers is the rule of chaos.

Her sister is running out of patience and has taken to climbing onto me, in hopes of refuge and authority. All the while, I would rather dig a hole in the garden and pretend to be a spring bulb.

So while the subject matter is bugs — stomach or otherwise — I ride the wave of my cramps, pull down our craft box and declare: “Right, girls. We are making butterfly bunting”.

“Yaaaaay”
”No buffefly. No. No. No.”

Butterflies it is, then.

Sheets of colored paper — yellow, celeste, lilac, pastel green and pink (obviously): check.
Paint, brushes, aprons and a mixing plate: check.
Pink plastic scissors: 404 error - not found. Ah, ok mama will cut them then. “NOOOOOOOOOO”

Everybody sit down please, time for butterflies!

While one child is praising everything I do — “I love that colour, mama” and “What a beautiful, beautiful little butterfly you’ve made” — her sister mercilessly crumples any pair of paper wings she can get her hands on. “There” she says, ripping a pea-green bug in half, “finito, no more butterfly!” — I am genuinely scared.

Delicate wings are vigorously stomped over with brush and paint, folded in half and then stomped over again with chubby little fists who are enjoying the process a little too much. “Mama opens them now, ok? Ok. Gentle now.” — I peel the wings apart revealing a mirroring pattern of colorful stains. “Woooooooow, beeeeellloooooo” — well, at least she is pleased.

Twelve paper butterflies and their painted wings are strung (read: stapled) to a line of pink cotton thread and — with the loud soundtrack of a little girl’s yells of protest (she wanted to keep playing with them, and by playing I clearly mean perpetuating the mass exctintion of the species, one execution at a time) and another girl’s squeals of delight — hung from the banister. There, how pretty. Happy everyone?

It’s only 15.37pm.

And to remain on the theme of butterflies, here is a little sketch update — this is something I started a little while ago and I usually don’t get to work on it for more than a few minutes here and there. Teaching myself how to draw the intricate beauty of butterfly wings and curious to see where this drawing will take me and what will come alive on the page.

Thank you for being here and dedicating some of your precious time to the imperfect words and feelings of this sensitive mama’s journal. I appreciate you, quietly and truly.

with love always,
— Julia

from the unfiltered journal of a sensitive mama

2nd May 2026

Scarlet fever. Bleeding noses. A scraped knee. And “that horrible horrible wooden thingy that reeeeally hurt my throat at the doctor’s” — also known as the tongue depressor.

But also slow, leisurely mornings in the garden spent holding a strawberry-patterned little girl, basking in the dappled shade of the olive trees, watching the daisies sway in the breeze, and “standing vewy vewy still so a butterfly will land on us”.

Amidst all this, the swallows are back — they have refurbished last year’s nest and are extending into the rooftop beams above our old front door, now unused, and so undisturbed. Sitting here today, in the bright spaciousness of our new living room, with more windows than we could have wished for, hearing the swallows call out at each other, I can’t help but feel a surge of glowing gratitude — the kind that heals your hurts and brings hope back into your bloodstream.

This time last year, the four of us were still co-existing within a dark one-bed under-roof flat upstairs — the kitchen and living room compound hardly bigger than a double room, furniture and boxes piled up every wall, and two cots stacked between our bed and the wardrobe (we had to move them every time we needed to open the wardrobe or the window).

The works have started in my sister’s flat this spring — her new bedroom is the kitchen-living room that housed us for the best part of the past three years. One bright afternoon this week, as I cuddled a poorly little girl who was taking a recovery nap in our bedroom (directly next door to our old kitchen and still sharing the same thin wall) I listened to the now familiar soundtrack that inevitably accompanies the builders’ arrival and realized just how far we have come. Yes, there are still unfinished parts in the house, and no I am not talking polishing the details — the tiny downstairs toilet is entirely missing its tiny sink, the room above the stairs is in need of custom fitted wall furnture able to maximise its funky structure (boxes and bags are still janga-ed over the explosed iron, concrete and woodwork), we don’t have a door for our bedroom and the hallway is just one level above “garage” and not too far from level “outdoor shed”.

And yet, today life in this higgledy-piggledy farmhouse looks and feels so deliciously different from those early days. There is enough light in every room to brighten even my moodiest days, watching the rain from any window is a balm for the senses, babies can stomp around the length of the downstairs floor to their little hearts’ delight, and we are on our way to having a private garden of our own — which is nothing short of life-saving when you live in a highly sensitive, extremely introverted body.

About two weeks ago, we finally got around to seeding the lawn (after a couple of failed attempts, more linked below) and after many days of spying through the patio doors, hoping and doubting whether anything would grow at all (“encouraged” by naysayers who insist we should have resorted to ant poison like every person in their right mind would do), earlier this week I found myself suddenly squealing in uncontainable delight —“Graaaaaaass, it’s graaass!! We got graaaass!!”. I was promptly joined by two equally loud and excited babies and one very puzzled husband, who had to admit that “indeed, it does seem to be growing…”.

Witnessing grass grow, one miniature blade after the other, has been a nourishing and intimate experience I did not expect to enjoy it this much. Every evening, as the sky turns lilac and the children drift off to dreamlands where the grass is probably pink and sparkly, I step outside, let the gurgling song of the birds and the rustling of the old walnut tree wash over me, and I calmly water the soil. It has become a daily meditation of sorts — tuning into the delights of the living world at my doorstep through every sense of my mody, breathing the evening air in and then out, observing the gentle progress that the grass has made between last night’s moonlight and this evening’s sunset, mentally dividing the lawn into a grid and watering each section thoroughly, watching the color and texture of the soil change.

In a way, nurturing and tending to the very space that will house many of my girls’ childhood games and memories has felt like an extension of my mothering — as if pouring into this handkerchief of land my tenderness, my sweetest care, my motherly devotion is another way of enveloping them with my love, a form of love that will outlast me.

And then, amongst all this mess and magic, I have been drawing again. And a part of me — long silenced — came back to life. And it felt like pure…aliveness. There is no other way to say it. The moment I took out my coloring pencils and sat down with no intention other than to allow myself to be myself, it was like pure life force started pouring through me again after a long draught.

If I look back in time, the darkest seasons of my life have invariably coincided with the extended absence of any drawing or writing. These past couple of years cannot be described as dark — there has been much light in its own way and courage and joy and a steep learning curve of personal and professional development in other areas — however this period has been challenging and drawing or writing have been almost inexistent thoughout it. And for the little girl who always said she’d be an artist and a writer (and a mother with a garden) when she’d grow up, existing for months without regularly sitting with her words and her sketchbooks not surprisingly lead is hardly living at all.

But one morning this week, I chose to prioritise my sketchbook and pencils over whatever else could have taken priority instead. And it felt so natural. Like a fish must feel when it’s returned to water or a bird when it takes to the air. Meant to be.

Now, I haven’t found many chances to progress past this point, between ill children and well…life, but something has shifted (if you usually read my words, you will know that this shift had begun to unfold a while ago) and there is no going back.

Much like the grass in our lawn, I am looking forward to see what happens from here — both on the page and in my life — with hopeful anticipation and a subtle hint of genuine fear, because once again I am drawing up the courage to walk the unbeaten path. But it feels too good to let it go, this time.

notes from the garden

The peas we planted a couple of weeks ago have now sprouted, and the first few stalks and leaves are now about 7cm tall — it’s a dwarf variety and I don’t know what to expect height-wise (or in general if i am to be entirely honest). I am looking forward to witnessing the developments — this is our first-ever attempt at growing vegetables and, admittedly, I am largely relying on beginner’s luck.

The sage, which received a hard prune last winter, is now aflush with a bounty of lilac flowers — little girls dutifully kiss and praise their beauty every day. If there ever was a dearly beloved plant, that’s sure to be our sage. Oh, and the rosemary, the rosemary gets plenty of love and appreciation too. We hardly go for a walk without having first said helooo to the wovvmewy.

We have grass!! In our lawn!! Have I mentioned it already?? Real grass! Really growing! From seeds we planted!! Grass!!

as always, thank you for gifting some of your time to my words.
I am glad you are here.

— with love,
Julia

from the journal of a sensitive mother

A pink hydrangea and an old Olivetti typewriter — my mother’s presents for my 32nd birthday, earlier this April. Possibly two of the most life-rearranging presents in my life, alongside my reflex camera, aged 18, gifted by my father, and my wooden double-decked box of eighty Caran d’Ache colouring pencils, aged 16 or 17, a gift from my tender-hearted and artistically inclined grandmother.

This year was possibly one of the most momentous birthdays to date. Between an intensely felt full moon in Libra and an equally emotional new moon in Aries, I turned 32 with a deep burning desire to rearrange my life and my days to prioritise my joy.

I knew something had to shift, seriously shift, the moment I laid eyes on the bundle of sheets my mother carried to my kitchen table on that sunny afternoon — “Happy Birthday”, she said, and without touching it or even unfolding the sculptured draping of sheets, I knew exactly what it contained: a sign, an invitation to redirect. A reminder of who I truly am, who I am truly meant to be. Who I had been neglecting to be for far too long.

Truth is, I have been yearning for quiet writing time for months. My hands have been itching to pick up my brushes and pencils for just as long. A tidal kind of pain. Scorching and suffocating at times — sending electric waves of panic and high-pitched sirens of alarm through the teetering kintsugi-work of my nervous system. Other times, a low-frequency humming, a dull thrumming that exhausted the tender depths of me — constant, ever-present, unrelenting.

For about two years now, I have been involved in a project that, from the outside, looked like the dream life. And in many ways, it was: I love the person behind it, and I love most of the elements that make up the project. But, perhaps since the very beginning, I hadn’t been fully ready to devote my life and days to its realization — not entirely on board with it in my heart and soul. In many episodes, I think I was actually more excited about my friend and fellow adventurer’s excitement and at the idea of seeing her happy than I was about working on the actual project… A part of me also found comfort in the idea of being led by someone through the wide and uncharted waters of entrepreneurship, a part of me felt safe in knowing that I had some easy keywords to describe my role and what I was doing with my life…

It slowly became a consuming grind — reasons for frustration and resentment began piling up: unsociable hours that kept me from my family (pair that with a die-hard strand of guilt when it comes to askingmy family for help with childcare), work that required great effort for slowly trickling pay, the feeling that I was still somehow in a different shade of “employee mode” executing someone else’s vision — something I had already tried to escape from the year I got pregnant with my first daughter… In the end, something that could have been beautiful and life-giving was eroding my joy and vital energy instead.

Moulding your life and days around someone else’s dream — however beautiful, however similar to yours it may be — is not the same as living your dream.

So at some point, I had to take a long, soft look at myself, asking the bleak-eyed, underweight, burnt-out woman in the mirror: what is really growing here? what is it costing you? and is this really what you want to grow in your garden?

A tarot card-spread, several monologues held pacing up and down the garden, many a scribbled journal page, a few tears, a full in-depth birth chart/gene keys/human design self-led analysis, and a couple of pep talks from my loved ones later, last week —one week into being a 32-year-old— I finally quit. Well, not really. But I vigorously redefined and redimensioned my involvement in the project, from both the heart/soul level and the mind/practical level.

I knew it would hurt, and it did — both of us. In a way, it felt like betrayal. But we are given one ride in this body, in this human person we have chosen as the home of our soul in this lifetime — and the person I have chosen is a sensitive, creative, dreamy woman who needs a slower and entirely self-led pace of life. She functions in tides of powerfully creative extraverted energy and deep introverted reflective energy, she doesn’t run in a constant reliable flow of productivity — both high and low tides are necessary and sacred. Being a mother and a nurturer is at the heart of who she is — she loves and desires to tend to her children, her house, lately also her garden. She loves to hold other sensitive souls as they listen deep within and remember how to flourish in their own unique way. To do that, she needs to tend to herself too — she needs plenty of time spent alone, feeling and sensing and writing and painting and being, so that she can come out into the world with sparkling ideas and the drive to bring them to life when she’s ready. Even more so in this tender season of life, with two very young little girls — and no, as previously explained in another journal entry, sending them to daycare for extra time is not an option for me. My work must grow alongside and around them as much as possible for it to be sustainable and authentic.

These are all things I knew all along — the certainty of them set deep in my bones. I feel their truth inside of me. And yet, somehow, I seem to keep getting swept away. seek to keep forgetting that I am the very force that powers my life. That the only person I can be, and gleam while I do it, is me — no one else.

And so I reached deep within and found the resources to set some boundaries, to cut some ties, to build a neat little wall around my garden to protect it from the winds of the world — there are arched windows along the perimeter to let you peek in and see if the place feels aligned to you, a wooden door to let you in after you’ve gently knocked, and roses grow along the brickwork and fencing to remind visitors that they are welcome here if they move with permission and care.

It wasn’t an easy conversation and since then, over the course of the week, I have experienced several bouts of guilt and sadness — but never once regret. With the heavy feelings of knowing that I let someone down, came an undeniable sense of lightness and relief of having been loyal to myself. I had been honest and caring at the same time — clearly redefining the terms of my availability was the only way to keep bringing true value to the project. It was what my body had been asking — no, pleading for — for months: to be me and live my version of life on my terms.

After that conversation, a fiery desire to rearrange the entire living room awoke inside me, and where I had been feeling depleted and bloodless, suddenly I had the energy to move heavy furniture around the room — starting with my writing desk (a whole post will soon follow on this beloved piece of furniture). From the corner by the stairs, where it patiently stood, making an easy surface for folded laundry to linger waiting for its turn to travel upstairs and spare toys to be displayed and reclaimed, the old fold-over chest of drawers containing my entire writing and painting universe now lives on the main wall. Bathed in sunlight washing in from two windows, it sits in a location that clearly speaks “priority, top of the list”. On top of it, an arrangement of some favourite things of mine — books, a little glass jar of chicken feathers (picked one by one by my eldest daughter while visiting their chicken pen), a tall glinting stalk of annual honesty and her — the typewriter, at the centre of it all, one of my paintings gently inserted in its hold.

so, from here what…

• Well, next is first of all taking care of me — allowing the time to rest and recover that I have denied myself since…forever? I am going to teach myself the hardest lesson of all, so that my kids can absorb it by osmosis — I am worthy of rest and care, I don’t need to earn it, I only need to give myself permission for it.

• To do so, I am going to check in with myself regularly and keep myself accountable for the choice I have bravely made, ensuring that I am not tripping back into dynamics I have deliberately stepped away from, especially when the boundaries of the new collaboration relationship are so freshly laid out and there are many blurred lines and vague areas.

• I am prioritising joy and being who I am: cultivating alignment with what I actually dream and desire, embodying and honoring what I actually feel in my body, taking time to experience the enchanting healing power that litthe everyday delights hold.

• I am going to live life in colors again so — do you have it in purple?

notes from the garden

do you have it in purple?
Talking about purple…the land around our home is awash with mid-spring flowers, and while the main color of this season is still largely yellow, a new hue has begun glowing here and there: purple in every living shade.

Just outside my kitchen window, the generous buddleja waves her lilac blossoms every time I pass by her — in the spirit of cultivating joy, I have made a silent vow to her: whenever I find myself near her, I stop to smell her flowers and linger for a few moments longer than I would while breathing in her amethyst-colored scent before returning to my tasks. I slow down and create a lasting sensory memory, rewiring my brain for joy with every moment in her presence.

The wild irises my mother gathered last year from the stone walls coasting the “strade bianche” nearby have bloomed — a note scribbled on the margins of my journal a few days ago reads (cit.) “resilient af” and indeed they are: they grow out of bare rocks that in the summer heat up to baking temperatures, unfazed by the dust from the road and the scorching sunlight from above they push out their tall, proud stems, opening their impossibly fragrant, midnight-purple petals luxuriously to cyclists and passers-by who hardly ever grace them with any notice. Their new residence in our garden offers them a more clement home, no scorching sun and racing drivers…although they have been beheaded or sat on by my 2-year-old a few times. They don’t seem too bothered.

One single periwinkle, neat petals cut with geometric precision out of the most delightful shade of blue-violet fabric, just outside the front door. She climbs up the crumbling wall of the old pig-pen adjacent to the house, and every morning two little girls kiss her good morning on their way out.

a garden of one’s own
There is a little handkerchief of land just outside the patio window in our kitchen — hugged by the house itself on one side, the chicken/pig-pen on the other, and edged by the overgrown (and really quite dangerously steep) flank of the hill on the other two. Since the first visit to the house, when my eldest was only a few months old, this part of the land has been referred to as “our little private garden”.

For the past three years in our tenure, this pocket of potential had remained little more than a dumpyard of generational rubble — an interesting (and not very child-friendly) patchwork of broken tiles, shattered crockery, rusting gardening tools, precariously stacked slabs of stone, log piles, and headstrong weeds with thorny or prickly leaves — until about three weeks ago. With the arrival of spring, and with the help of our kind neighbors and community, we had fresh new soil set in place and a makeshift fence — made of reclaimed materials and a generous dose of “arte di arrangarsi”, the art of making do with what you’ve got— built around the exposed perimeter to keep my little girls safe from tumbling all the way down to the orchard.

This week, on a whim, I excitedly sowed the seed for the soon-to-be flowery lawn — raking and sowing and raking and hoping — only to discover, mere hours later, that the ants had removed all the seeds. Rookie mistake — I am told. So, on Saturday, I rallied my — not equally excited — family around to do the job all over, this time with the necessary precautions. No, I refuse to build the lawn my children will play on for the foreseeable future out of ant poison — so yes, we scraped the topsoil, one baby-blanket-sized square at a time, sowed the mix, covered them up and gleefully stomped over it to make it just that much harder for the ants to get to the seeds. Now, will anything grow at this point? Remains to be seen— every evening I am checking for ants and rain-hosing down the plot. Anyway, the girls loved the always welcome chance to roll around in mud and scatter handfuls of seeds haphazardly around “like flower fairies, mama!” (4yo), “yeeeey, flaaaa faweeeeeeeeefff” (2yo).

I’ll keep you updated — if you have any grass-seeding stories or advice to share I will gladly hear it!

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On the day of my birthday, just outside the wooden gate, in a shady and protected spot near the wall, I planted the very first flowers of this very garden — my pink hydrangea. During a week when all that I have written today on this page was taking shape inside of me like an inner storm of diverging feelings and contrasting forces, this gesture felt like a sacred beginning, the sealing of a deep truth into safe soil. As I prepared to make important decisions and take risks to follow my heart, I entrusted the Earth with my most tender desires and truths, along with the prayer that they may grow strong roots and bloom into graceful pink blossoms in their own time as well.

I have never written as much before as in those few days after deciding the course of my actions — lines upon lines of poetry and fragmented sensations. I don’t know if they are any good, and I don’t know if they will ever see the light of day, but after the longest draught it sure felt good to be back in flow on the page.

Thank you for taking the time to read my words and entering the messy and magical world I live in. If something resonated with the way you feel, please do share your words in the comments — you never know how much comfort or inspiration your story may bring to me or some other sensitive souls.

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and then, somehow
while I wasn’t looking,
outside my window, the pear tree,
she blossomed.

slow and sudden,
and fizzy and cheerful,
and I almost didn’t notice.

she was there,
right there, one window pane away,
like a cloud with roots,
hidden in plain sight.

and I was there,
—I must have been—,
but not there enough to see her.

and it won’t happen again,
not her,
not for another Spring.

and all that’s left to do
for me,
is to start practicing
— right now,
so that when next Spring comes,
I will be there,
truly.

M-other.

It has been there
—felt yet vague,
since my new name
replaced the name
I had always known.
That sense of being
less of me,
and more of me,
still.
At once.
Ever since becoming
her,
the m-other.
Entirely me,
hardly myself.
Countless fragments,
shreds,
loose threads,
untied and knotted
and woven together.
Were I ever so many
— before?
Divided.
Multiplied.
Whole.
And holy — is it fair to say this
of/to myself?
Sacred and scared.
Same letters,
different internal order.
So much meaning.
Like me.
A familiar stranger,
unrecognizable
yet belonging.
The same,
but different.
And in all this m-othering,
in all the becoming
and un-becoming of her,
all that remains
of me,
is me.

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Today could have been a bad day. The kind of day when I wake up at war with the entire world — my mind clouded with thundery thoughts, my body wound up in an invisible rope of tensions and worries both vague and real. The kind of day when, from the dark recesses of my own gloom, any ray of sunshine, any smiley flower, any cloud lamb drifting peacefully across the horizon feels like a mean joke I cannot understand — like, I am positively disconsolate, what are you all giggling, shining and chirping about? The kind of day when I refuse to make myself feel better — stubborn advocate of my own god-forsaken right to be unquestionably and irrevocably in a mighty s***t mood.

On these days, nothing will feel right. I will positively detest everything and everyone, regret every life choice I ever made, resent each single item on my to-do list (even the very ones that only weeks, months or even years ago sat in the cherished and much sighed-over “dreams” column), and deliberately spiral myself into a rabbit hole of misery, spite, and despondency.

On these days, resting will feel like a crime. Working will be reduced to a passionless grind. Any attempt at creativity will turn into a fight against myself.

On days like this, really, only one thing will do. Crack all the windows wide open, all of them. Be it January or July. Gather my hair into a bun as chaotic and rancorous as I can master — let it be known to ALL that I am not. to. be. messed. with. today! Roll my trousers and sleeves right up — if wearing short sleeves, which is preferred on such days, the roll would sit (unapologetically, rowdily, downright rudely!) above my shoulders, further establishing that “don’t you go messing with me” vibe. Oh yeah, you can bet on it: it’s aggressive cleaning day, baby!

Nothing, literally nothing, will turn my mood around like a rodeo of vigorous, angry house scrubbing. Even spelling out such a statement brings to my mind the image of some unknown suffragette ancestors of mine twitching in nervous disappointment, gasping clamorously in their grave or banging their fist indignantly — did she seriously just say that? Their rage must be real. BUT so is mine, so hear me out, ladies.

On days like this, when life feels pointless, the spark of inspiration has drowned, my own beloved heart-work feels like a chore, mothering is a trial of titanic proportions and there seem to be no traces of kindness, joy and zest left inside me — well, on these days, fiercely cleaning out my space becomes a cathartic process, a sacred purging, an unassuming and yet revolutionary chemical reaction. Easily mistaken for common propcrastination, it is in the inner end result that the substantial difference lies.

From the outside the two activities appear virtually identical — I am simply scrubbing, rubbing, tidying and scouring away, possibly with a slightly manic look in my eyes. However when I potter about in procrastination, I leave feeling more tangled, stressed, angry or confused than before — I merely got distracted for a while, escaping my problem by busying my hands but still churning them in the upper floors of my body all along, without really giving myself a chance to somatically process my feelings around them. But this kind of cleaning is a whole other business — it is like alchemy for my mind, body, and soul. It may look similar from the outside, but inside my entire being is undergoing a momentous wave of inner reorganization, mighty purification and —dare I say it?— exquisitely rogue self-affirmation. Oh no, she didn’t?!

When I am turning my whole house inside out, I don’t need to censor myself, I don’t need to act any differently from how I am truly feeling. All that is required of me is to be me, all of me, in all my nuances — good, bad, and ugly. There is no mood that my house can’t take, no emotional state is unwelcome or counterproductive. House cleaning doesn’t judge my feelings, doesn’t try to soothe me or calm me down or fix my problems or make me reason. It accepts what’s there, what’s felt and real within me in the moment, and simply asks…so, what’s matching the vibe today?

I am feeling fastidious and nit-picky? That’s the perfect mood to gut the bookshelves, dust them out thoroughly, and reorganize our books into whatever order feels most fitting. Knock yourself out, girl, no one will bemoan you for being persnickety here! Same goes for the kitchen cupboard — nothing dispels a finicky mood like piling their entire contents onto the floor, sorting through them while muttering to myself, and then lining all the packs, tins, and jars back inside, in expiration-date order, with their labels all facing forward at the exact same angle. Now we’re talking!

Harbouring anger and feeling like an atomic explosion may be lingering just underneath my skin? What a delectable time to move all the heavy furniture around — huffing, puffing, maybe even cursing under my breath— and change the entire Feng Shui of the room, removing dust, clutter and swamped energy from the long-forgotten, under-visited corners of our house. And how about the rugs now? Seems like a perfect day to dutifully beat the hallowed debris out of them with measured brutality, wouldn’t you agree? I sure would! Bonus point if you still own your grandmother’s old carpet beater — nothing like a long-trusted family tool to express layers of unspoken generational anger. Hit it, girl, hit it like you mean it!

Feeling tearful, mopey, and resentful? Fill the bucket with boiled water, squirt in a generous dose of white vinegar, then stir into the mixture a few drops of citronella essential oil with the same firm-handed, solemn air of a witch brewing a powerful potion: you’re now ready to nostalgically mop the stage floor of your own personal sad story. For extra perceived benefit, ensure you are thoroughly stretching through your spine and legs for a gentle bodily activation as you drag the mop — and all your damp sorrows with it — as theatrically as you can along the floor. May I have a spotlight, please?

And so, as I viciously scrape and rinse the grime from the unreachable seams of the kitchen and bathroom, the stagnant energy stuck in my system also begins to wash away.

As shelves and cupboards find a fresh new order through the diligent work of my hands, the thoughts in my head also start unravelling and sorting themselves out into neater clusters.

As I swat —sweaty and probably enjoying it more than it would be considere proper— clouds of dust from the weaves of a carpet, the soot coating the tender fabric of my soul also slowly dissipates.

Chaos shifts into cosmos, clutter is either released or relocated where it can finally riappropriate its original value, rooms return to feeling spacious and airy, and drawers become once again acquainted with their contents — and the same happens within me.

In yogic lingo, this concept is called Saucha — a word that, while sounding a little slippery and saucy in itself (at least to me), actually means cleanliness, purity, clarity. This cleanliness encompasses both body and mind, and naturally extends to our environment as the physical and energetic context in which our mind-body-soul system operate daily.

The first of the niyamas — the eight observances for healthy living in yogic tradition — saucha is the foundational principle to observe, before all else is even contemplated, to acquire holistic wellbeing: an energized and healthy body; a clear, pure mind; a strong, compassionate heart; and glowing, vibrant soul.

Coming before all other principles, saucha may be the most unassuming and life-changing spiritual practice of all, especially when applied with sincere devotion to the mundane reality of our everyday. And I can see why. I can feel why. In fact, after a morning spent thoroghly cleaning out my house, I can attest to the validity of this age-old wisdom throughout my entire being.

Interestingly, nowadays cleaning our spaces has become a rather unpalatable kind of task— and in all honesty, I can understand that. We have ourselves thought multiple times about budgeting to hire a house cleaner to come and help us stay aflowat once a week. Too often, house cleanings become yet another added weight to our endless column of “shoulds” — I could [enter desired activity], but uuuugh I should [enter despised cleaning chore]. Now, I am no trying to say that “scouring the toilet” or “polishing the windows” should be the new “rest”, “sit down with a book” or “go outside for a walk”— but what if, within the boundaries of common sense, we reframed these often begrudged tasks as spiritual practices?

In a world where going analogue seems like the next fronteer of modern-day escapism, what if we started small before entirely unplugging our lives, moving to a secluded cabin on top of a mountain, and forsake any technological devices dating after 1995? What if we put down our phones and, wait for it, tried to distil the pleasure out of the mundane tasks of, say, sweeping the floor and emptying the dishwasher?

Because today could have been a really bad day and yet somehow, somewhere, in the middle of the scrubbing, the groaning, the mopping and the moping…I feel better. I feel better for having exerted my body, for having allowed (some kind of) expression to my feelings, for having taken a step back from the frenzy of my mind and having stepped into my body instead.

And, I realize, this is nothing new. When I was a little girl, during the weekends spent with my paternal grandmother, we would keep our hands busy one way or other for days on end — sometimes it was cooking, others it was knitting, often it was cleaning. And, especially on those days when my mood — already as changeable as spring weather even back then — was low, pensive or agitated she would hand me, with uncanny insight, a velvety cloth to polish the windows, a tiny blue-handled brush to dust the curly-wurly ridges of her old wooden furniture, the impossibly loud and heavy vacuum cleaner, or the famed wicker carpet-beater. Each tool was an invitation to work through my feelings through the meditative and purging process of cleaning.

And now, as a student of yoga, bodywork, and somatics, I can piece her intuitive wisdom together with the science. There I am, cloth in hand, drawing circles and spirals over the window pane, bringing the glass surface back to a new transparent shine, draining my lymph nodes and clearing my own mind and system with each stroke. And here I go, brushing dust out of intricate wooden worlds, my mind focused with precise intent, almost hypnotized, humming softly as my breath and heartbeat steadying into a slow, meditative flow, my parasympathetic nervous system timidly coming online. Look at me dragging that clunky old vacuum cleaner, I can barely hear my voice over its thundery roar, it’s nearly as heavy as I am, every back-and-forth stroke across the floor requires my full strength, I am “putting my back (and nearly every other muscle) in it”, I am even putting my voice in it — by the time I am done I will be aching everywhere, positively exhausted and yet invigorated, cheeks flushed, blood pumping, warm life-giving energy streaming through my entire body. And as for the carpet beating, I don’t think it requires any explanation of why it may provide a mighty cathartic experience.

And here I am today, nearly every chakra and body part activated from throat to toe, channels cleared, energy, breath and knowings swayed unstuck and released, once again able to flow freely through me…I may not be reborn a new woman, but I do find that I am somewhat renewed, regenerated. And now my floors are clean and my windows are clear. Sounds like a win-win to me.

from the journal of a sensitive mama

08.02.2026

Digging. The dirty-handed, muddy-knees, exhilarating kind of digging. Digging for snail-shells. Digging for bulbs. Digging for the sheer joy of pure, delicious digging.

We’ve been finding it exquisitely therapeutic, the girls and I. Whatever the weather, every afternoon we have stepped outdoors and gotten up close and personal with earth, dirt, and soil. It’s been especially wet here in central Italy: some of our favourite open-horizon activities, like chalk painting and soap bubbles, haven’t been viable, so we have resorted to good old elbow grease — and a generous dose of childish giddiness.

My eldest daughter even resolved to get the digging done while wearing her current obsession — a pink plastic tulle ballerina skirt (don’t ask) — so most afternoon there she is, trowel in hand, pink fluffy cloud hanging out of her mud-stained jacket, a rosy flush in her cheeks and a look of pure elation glistening in her eyes as she purposefully digs away a little bit here and whole lot there.

The daffodils we transplanted a few weeks ago are thriving and this small success has stoked the fire under my imaginary garden plans — just like my daughter’s, my enthusiasm is volatile and giggly: I am now positively itching to start a flower bed here and clear up some space for a vegetable patch there.

So now my “currently reading list” — anyone else here reading more than one book at the same time? you can find mine at the end of this post — has finally expanded to welcome manuals on gardening, growing, pruning, and propagating, gathered over the years spent daydreaming about having my own garden while living in London and, later, in Milan.

I can feel it — gardening will change my life. Gardening is the portal beyond which a new reality, a new era of living, of mothering, and being of service will unfold. And I am ready.

Now, I do not know the first thing about gardening and that is precisely what excites me. The opportunity to do something from a complete beginner’s perspective — to have so much potential for failure, for experimentation, for learning— feels like a current of electricity running under my skin. I can sense something inherently life-affirming about gardening — working with something that has a life and an intelligence of its own, where co-creation rather than control is the common ground required for mutual enjoyment and flourishing…it feels like entering an exciting new relationship, somehow.

This is how I am also feeling about my personal and professional journey. In a few weeks’ time, when Spring will begin unfurling into her most joyous and energized expression, I will be undertaking training in shiatsu and ayurvedic massage — all while deepening my ongoing yoga, embodiment, gentle coaching, and holistic health journey as a sensitive mama of two. To most of my family, this looks like a downgrade — like why…? Why throw away years of education and a perfectly good job to do…well, what is it that you do, exactly?

But I long to work with life — my own and others’. To co-create with aliveness, whether in my flower beds or on a massage bed. I long to use my hands and my heart, my very own human intuition, to make beautiful, miraculous, meaningful things happen. Not as the sole owner and performer of the magic, but rather as a co-creator — in the same way as I see writing and drawing/painting (two of my soul passions), where the words or the shapes on the page really come alive when another heart meets them and infuses them with their own precious nuances of meaning(fulness).

I wish to participate in the wider and wilder experience of aliveness, from the inside out. Every day. In every small, imperfect, organic way. With every part of my being.

For some reason, I am feeling called to work with what’s messy and real and imperfect and alive. Like me. To apply my devotion and energy to processes that will take time and trust to unfold, often revealing outcomes both sublimely surprising and unpredictably beautiful — nurturing souls and bodies, cultivating blooms and stories…within my inner realms and then beyond the borders of my own body and life.

I am sensing a subtle, yet powerful, tie between energy-sensitive bodywork and garden work. I suspect it must be the same intimate thread that ties together creativity and mothering — two realities that have transformed my life into an undeniably deeper and richer experience.

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was reflecting on how I feel that this newly started nine-year cycle is deeply entwined with a return to my body, to the child that still lives within me, to the sheer joy of letting joy be felt — in many ways the opposite of what these past years of adulting have been for me. It’s written all over the notes hastily scribbled in the margins of the books I’m reading, in the sentences slithering sideways across the pages of my journal, in the sketches traced with borrowed pens on the back of paper napkins — the intensity of them interrupting thoughts and workflows, demanding to be spelled out in broken lines and half-legible words on whatever surface is nearby so that the reality of them shall be seen.

Something about growing closer to Mother Nature, closer to myself. Something about tending to the soil — starting from my own sacred ground, a land that for too many years has survived on pushing, and cruelty and neglect alone, devoid of a loving touch, of trust, of basic care and respect. To become familiar (again…or maybe for the first time, really) with the body of the Earth and with my own, with the energy that inhabits us both, with the immense potential for life that resides within us, trusting in our shared ability to hold tender things safe and sheltered in the softest depths of our being and, when the time and conditions feel aligned, to bring them out into the light as the most precious and delicious of gifts.

Still hidden away in my old laptop, sits the draft of a book on these very themes —nurturing a daily existence in harmony with Nature from the inside out, reconnecting with the beauty and sacredness around us to witness the immense beauty and sacredness mirrored within us, mothering organically from the body and from the soul and from the land, distilling joy from life as it unfolds in the now rather than waiting to be “there”, allowing ourselves to be intimately and immensely human…

A project born long before I had even moved to rural Tuscany and abandoned in its early days (and the early days of my second daughter) — a bold and reckless action that came with the cost of turning down a publication offer. At the time, every time I sat down to write, something felt…off. It was the very attempt at writing that book that showed me that I simply wasn’t ready…I had the idea but not the life to put into it, to write it from.

So maybe there is a book, or more than one, in the making again somewhere in the future…but there is a whole lot of living that’s asking to happen now, to be embraced now, before it can be pressed neatly onto a page like a wildflower.

To use the beautiful words of from her enchanting and deeply healing book “Mirrors in the Earth” (you find it in my “currently reading” list below):

“Books take you on a journey. I’ve always known this as a reader but had no idea how deep that journey could go when I was the one doing the writing. […] every time I sat down, I found myself at aloss, unsure exactly what this book was meant to be about. […] It took me years to realize that the reason I struggled to write the book pressing inside of me was the very reason I needed to write this book. […] In the process, I became the person who could write [this book].”

So, do I know where this path is taking me? Not exactly…but I know the general direction where my heart is leading me — somewhere where gardens and souls can blossom, where the body feels like a cherished and loving home, where living and mothering and creating belong together like locks of hair entwined into a braid. And I know I deeply need and desire to walk it.

This is not a straightforward road, I cannot see the clean line of the horizon ahead of me, the terrain under my feet is varied and uneven, my steps, at times, unsteady. I have no guarantee that the seeds I am entrusting to the Earth will bloom. Many will be failed attempts probably. Others will be interesting experiments — maybe sprouting up somewhere unexpected, out of season, out of place, out of shade… Most will be precious lessons. Some, I am sure, will eventually surface bearing colorful petals, maybe even juicy fruits. Each one — a blessing in its own form.

And all the while, I am trusting, experiencing…and writing about it. For the first time in so long, I am meeting myself every day between the pages of my journal and nearly every week I show up in front of my keyboard and write — much like with my gardening, my body, my mothering and my path, holding no expectations of perfection, simply honoring the act with my honesty. And the more I write, the more I feel alive. The more I live my life, the more there seems to be to write about.

You are already doing it — claims without hesitation the oracle card I pulled for February in my Wheel of the Year spread. What if I was? What if where I am right now, who I am right now…was exactly where and who I am meant to be to bring my dreams to life?

notes from the garden

Birdsong — many of the birds that migrated to warmer climates earlier this winter seem to have come back. As morning grows brighter, birds and children seem to have started waking up earlier and now breakfast takes place with a window cracked open (come rain or shine) and the cheerful chattering of babies mixed with the gurgling-twinkles of bird conversations.

Daffodil flower essence — as elating as the idea of co-creating with life may be, the uncertainty that surfaces when walking the unbeaten track has been bringing up all sorts of doubt and vulnerability within me. The most tender parts of my being swing back and forth between the desire to embrace this unfolding and the fear of not being enough — knowledgeable enough, trained enough, intuitive enough, educated enough, wise enough, certified enough, talented enough…good enough.

And that’s where flower essences entered my life — after a dream in which my mother gave me a book about Bach’s Flowers “because it was weird and I may like it”, this week I have made my first-ever flower essence, following the instructions in ’s book (I chose the organic apple cider vinegar version)…with daffodils.

When a flower becomes particularly prominent in your life, it’s because it holds a message for you — it brings you the medicine you need. For me, it had to be daffodils. This gentle yet fierce herald of early Spring blooms in the harshest conditions, wild and wise, wherever it is planted or forgotten, offering its sunny (and in the case of ours, Narcissus Odoratus, deliciously fragrant) chalices to any sensitive soul willing to pause a moment in contemplation and gratitude while braving the cold breeze of January and February.

Daffodil flower essence can help navigate life transitions with quiet strength and deep-rooted faith by allowing you to see your innate gifts and precious talents with clarity and trust. This is exactly what I need right now. So, as I take my home-made essence daily over the upcoming weeks and months, I’ll keep a record of any changes and shifts that will arise within and around me. But while my family rolls their eyes, sharing this precious witchy ritual with my daughter — hearing her thank the flowers and the Earth for their sunny gifts and “for being so beautiful and nice and being a home to the fairies”, watching her spy with hopeful eyes the glistening blooms as they swirl around in their bowl on the windowsill— has already lit a warm, luminous glow in my heart. As far as I am concerned, the flowers have already worked their magic.

My “currently reading” list

• Mirrors in the Earth by

• Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self by Anodea Judith

• One Simple Thing: A New Look at the Science of Yoga and How It Can Transform Your Life by Eddie Stern

• Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields MSAE

• A beginner’s book about allotments and how to start yours in Italian

If you wish to read more about real gardening, while I work my way through it:

• Story and Thread by : the most enchanting and inspiring writing about gardening, meaning-making, and seasonal living

A journaling question for you:
I’d like to invite you to reflect on the same question I am exploring here:

• What if where you are right now, who you are right now, was exactly where and who you are meant to be to bring your dreams to life?

• What may this season of your life be gifting you? How could it be preparing you along the journey towards your dreams?

• If you knew that what you desire was already meant to blossom for you at the right time, how would you navigate this season of your life?

Thank you, dear one, for reading my not-so-secret journal today.

With gratitude always,
Julia

from the (unfiltered and not necessarily well-written) journal of a sensitive mama

24.01.2026
our hilltop farmhouse, somewhere around Siena, Tuscany

Saturday morning, the girls woke up at the first sound of bird-song (finches are back, I believe) as usual — at my almost-2yo’s bilingual battle cry of “mama, voglio cuddle!”, the day began. How many buckwheat pancakes can a pair of little girls eat in one sitting — more than I had calculated, apparently. “We made them together, vero mama?” — we have, indeed, and they taste better for it, Elowen agrees. I have been solo-parenting this week, with her father away for a business trip, and yet Elowen and I have managed to do some cooking, baking or kitchen-mess making of some sort while her little sister had her afternoon nap.

With her sat in the middle of the kitchen table, excitedly stirring and whisking away, we have made together:

• our family version of castagnaccio — a typical Italian winter comfort food made of chestnut flour, water, olive oil, pine nuts, sultana raisins and fresh rosemary — our version swaps the pine-nuts (extortionately pricey) for either sunflower seeds or pumpkin seed (depending on my cycle week), a touch of cinnamon and maca powder (rich in natural hormone balancing properties), and usually a generous handful of chopped prunes or dates for a chewy sweet suprise bite. Cutting rosemary sprigs from the bountiful plant in our garden to garnish our homemade merenda is possibly the most pleasurable reminder of why we chose to leave our London and Milan life to start a family here.

• chickpea farinata — our go-to gluten-free alternative to bread, made of just three ingredients: chickpea flour, olive oil and water.

• buckwheat pancakes — beloved breakfast treat, usually reserved for slow Sunday mornings, the recipe always changes depending on my mood. This week having them ready to eat with a dollop of hazelnut butter and blackberry jam has been a life-saver for those mornings where I don’t seem to have enough hands (or neurons in my brain).

Baking with my children is a wish conjugated in all sort of aethetically pleasing pictures in the “one day” Pinterest board dedicated to my dream mothering and homemaking life, started years before my eldest was born. They are a double-edged sword, these Pinterest boards…I find that, somehow, while they inspire me, they also hold me back into inaction — in those perfect photographs, baking with children looks romantic and blissful, with hand-embroidered aprons and terracotta bowls in muted colors, even the children wear clean frilly sleeves and braided hair.

That’s not what we look like — on the average day, when I have been wise enough to get changed out of my work clothes (that being yoga pants, but clean), I am baking in old stained pajamas and palazzo pants in questionable prints handed down to me by my mother because they shrunk in the wash and now reach an unflattering mid-calf length. The girls are in their morning daycare outfits — second-hand jumbles ready to take on whatever activity may be thrown their way, unafraid of tomato sauce, grass, snot or paint stains. Just about as non-aesthetic as it gets. But I am also wearing the same yellow apron with the flowery hem I used to put on when cooking with my grandmother as a child and we mostly use the same baking tools she used back then — including her favourite bowls, unromantic white plastic things that come into three undeniably useful sizes and, more than 30 years on, are still the most frequent and reliable choice out of our array.

I am proud of myself. Between:

• two open days for my yoga classes + regular class schedule (+ conveniently timed jackhammers, a fire alarm, and a power shortage during my classes all in the same week, seriously?)

• preparations for an upcoming event,

• the start of my first ever 1:1 embodied matrescence coaching journey with a beautiful sensitive mama,

• several mind-twisting conversations with my business partner (and friend) made of few words, too many numbers, a huge spreadsheet and some histerical laughing fits,

• the business-as-usual of running a house with two young children,

I still found and cultivated ways this week to make the everyday a little more enchanted, meaningful, and love-filled for myself and my girls.

No perfection, just one small, imperfect choice at a time — one book read (over and over again) snuggled up on the sofa wrapped in the fluffy pink blanket, one cup of vanilla tea drank by the window in our favourite set (the one with the roses and the golden rim) entrusted to proud and delighted little hands, a posy of wild daffodils placed somewhere where even little noses can reach and smell the sweet scent now and then…

about quiet time
One thing that has helped nurture a more calm, compassionate and balanced atmosphere in our home: every afternoon after lunch, when Hazel has her nap, Elowen and I have about one hour and a half of what I call quiet time — time when, after making a herbal infusion, each of us is free to quietly do some calming activity without being interrupted by the other. We read our own books, we both draw at the kitchen table, sometimes I write or and she plays by herself. When the alarm goes off with its soft piano tune, we know that quiet time is over and, until her sister wakes up, it’s time for Elowen and me to do something pleasant together, just the two of us — sometimes it’s baking, sometimes it’s folding the laundry while we chat, sometimes it’s reading a book together or coloring in the same coloring book. It’s not always easy to protect the boundaries of quiet time — she’s only four and often she conjures up creative ways to interrupt me and gain my attention. For the last couple of weeks, I have been explaining to her why quiet time is important for me to replenish and be a more loving and better resourced mama for her. As I write this, she is choreographing a dance solo while pretend-cookies bake in her pretend-oven. I have only been interrupted twice.

notes from our (very unkempt) garden
We have been out in the land with the girls, for an hour or more, nearly every afternoon —rain, fog, frost or shine. Frolicking about in the orchard, in the upper olive grove, in the soon-to-be allotment, in the garden on our side of the farmhouse —currently inhabited by more broken shards of discarded ceramic than flowers — and the garden in front on Nonna’s side. We have been down the lane and up the hill, spotting animal footprints in the freshly softened clay mud: badger, fox, deer, wild boar, wolf, a big bird…possibly a pheasant?

The bird-eye speedwells are now winking here and there where the grass is low and tender, promising the arrival of Spring with their optimistic sky-blue buttons — we call them Occhi di Madonna (Virgin Mary’s Eyes), and they have been a beloved herald of Spring days to come since my childhood.

The daffodils we salvaged and planted last weekend are doing well, despite this season being possibly the worst time to move them — I have read that moving them while they’re in bloom may result in losing next year’s flowering. But the girls have not sat on them, dug them up, ripped them out for potion-making, or straight-up eaten them yet, which all in all is an excellent result.

I have identified as Borage the beautiful plant with indigo flowers and silvery fuzzy leaves I encountered for the first time a couple of years ago in the orchard and then recently when I got lost in the nearby woods, resurfaced on the other side of the hill and into our neighbour’s walnut grove, where a whole meadow of them swayed in the freezing wind of later-November. Recently, during a morning in Arezzo, I bought — alongside a book on traditional Chinese medicine — a volume about the local flora spontanea from a quaint bookshop opposite the tiniest bagel-shop lined floor to ceiling with old wooden ladles and copper cookware. There, I discovered, recognised and read about my mysterious flower with such juicy satisfaction!

flame-gazing reflections
Had a curious and interesting epiphany this week while lighting and gazing into the flame of a candle — as I walked with it towards the coffee table where I had intended to look into the details of a certification I was considering to sign up for, it seemed as if the flame was about to go out.
This set of artisanal candles can be quite temperamental as they have a wooden wick — my habitual reaction would have been to rush to set it down as soon as possible, while sheltering the flame with a cupped hand, which in the past has inevitably resulted in the flame dying out anyway.
This time, I simply paused. I paused and trusted, without intervening to protect or save the flame. The flame flickered, breathed a little brighter, and then steadied into a confident glow again. With slow, deliberate steps, I made my way to the sofa, set the candle down, and sat for a moment with my thoughts.

Earlier that day, while unravelling the tangle of feelings knotted around the beautiful and terrifying adventure that is starting a heart-led business, I realised that I have a tendency of rushing into fix and compensate mode — always chasing a solution, the next thing/tool/method, the course/training/certification that will upgrade my offering and fuel the inner flame of my self-confidence, worth and identity.

But…what if, at least for a while, I paused and trusted. What if I gazed into the flame burning inside me and trusted that all that’s needed to bring into the world the light and warmth I feel called to bring was already within me? What if I paused and trusted that who I am is already enough? What if I slowed down enough to see my gifts and trust in them?

There will always be more to learn — I will forevermore be a student. That’s fine. But what I need right now, perhaps, is not more information but, rather, more integration. More authentic, sincere, lived integration of what I already know, in my body, in my mind, in my soul and in my heart.

A journaling question for you
I’d like to leave you today with the same questions I asked myself.
What if you paused? What if you trusted? What would you see? What would you do? What might happen?

Thank you dearly for reading my not-so-secret journal today.

with gratitude always,
Julia

from the journal of a sensitive mama

17th January 2026

Life is for living.
These are the words that float through my mind as I arrange a handful of freshly picked wild daffodils (the story about them will follow soon) on the altar, between this week’s family affirmation card — beauty within me, beauty around me — and a scented candle — coconut butter, salted caramel, vanilla and sugar spice (because I know there is nothing worse than writing that a candle is scented and then not describing the fragrance). I hesitate a moment and then, deciding to honor my own promise to myself, I strike a match and light the candle.

A wave of frothy delight pours (or purrs?) through me — I feel like my neighbour’s chickens when they puff their feathers, cooing contentedly, while basking in the sunlight of a late winter morning, as if they were taking a deep, spacious breath as their tight bodies begin to thaw.

Something within me is thawing too. Somewhere deep and far down, some place I can’t quite locate yet. But I feel it clearly — Snow Drops growing, finally, in my inner garden.

I have been feeling ill all week. And yet all week, I have kept going. Even this morning, after a troubled night involving adding layers to my pijamas and making a cup of warm golden milk at 4am, I have trudged along. It was my intention to rest and replenish, but I didn’t. I had intended to take it slow, this morning. To take advantage of the children being at nursery until lunchtime to have a quiet shower, read a book, have breakfast by myself out in the garden, write in my journal, take myself on a gentle walk to find within my body answers and directions.

Some things I did — I am clean and I had some food, but it all happened with my phone in my hand and my mind anywhere but here. And now I feel drained and exhausted, confused and guilty, for not having really done much useful, tidy work this morning.

Rest. Joy. Peace. Delight. Quiet time to simply be in my own company, without asking anything of myself other than presence.
I have journal pages filled with these words. Sentences and reveries about living slowly, honoring my inner seasons, cultivating days of meaning and delight, inhabiting this body and this Earth organically and lovingly.

They are not easy realities for me to create within and around myself. Hard to give and even harder to receive, in my relationship with myself. A relationship that, in all honesty, has hardly ever felt like a love story.

The excuses are abundant — I am a busy mother of two little girls, working on a start-up project while trying to make this house a healthy, loving, inspiring, organized home where my family can grow and blossom.

“It’s not just because you’re a mother now” — my fiance’s stern reproach —“You’ve been like this since the first day we met. Hard-working and driven to the point of exhaustion. Unforgiving and relentless towards yourself. ”

Well, we’re coming onto eleven years together this Septmber — that is a relatively wide span of years for field observation. He’s right. And I know. I know it in my tissues. In the tiredness, in the anxiety, in the restlessness that soak my being down to the bone — it’s all been there for years.

Starting a business, choosing to take upon yourself the responsibility of turning your passions into work —and making it work!— requires you to truly and sincerely look at yourself and evaluate your own life and energy, doesn’t it? Particularly when holistic wellbeing, soul nurturing, intentional living and sacred creativity are the beating heart of what you wish to bring to life and into the world.

In the early days of January, on a frosty afternoon, I cast my own wheel of the year for 2026 — my eldest girl sat next to me, telling me made-up stories about the pictures on the cards. Maximalist as I tend to be, I’ve gone full house: four decks, four cards for every month — three oracles and one tarot. The divine message for the month of January felt like a slap on the face and a tender caress at the same time — practicing the art of self-devotion, tending to the sacred needs and desires of my being, spending time within my inner temple, tuning into the portal of my own heart, cultivating peace so that I can hear and begin to trust the wisdom of the voice within.

Mmmmh.

Numerology suggests that 2026 is year one, the year marking the beginning of a new nine-year cycle. A cycle that has seen me shake loose of an eating disorder and take my health back in my own hands in a wholly new, natural and holistic way one inch at a time. A cycle of growing as far apart as possible from my own body and then slowly coming back home to her. A cycle where I have tasted the life I thought I wanted and realized it was not for me. A cycle that has seen me cross an ocean backwards, tracing my own steps back to Italy — something I swore I would never do. A cycle that has seen me leave behind my maiden season and step through the portal of motherhood.

Now I have nine more years ahead of me, a body full of potential, a journal (or twelve) full of words, a house full of children, days full of moments, and a garden full of promise — and, in this season, fragrant daffodils.

What if this could be the year I become a student in the garden of life? What if this could be the cycle I devote myself to being alive, to feeling alive, to experiencing the oh-so-human joy of knowing that
life
is
for living.

There are so many things I desire from this year and those to come. And I get the feeling that the questions, here, is not so much “what do I want to do, realize, achieve?” or “who do I want to be?”.

The real question is — “Do I allow myself to enjoy peace, when it finds me?”

A couple of journaling questions for you.
Thank you for reading my journal today, luminous soul. I’d like to leave you with a couple of journaling questions to expand and deepen on your reflection. As always, choose what feels aligned and leave behind everything that doesn’t, trusting your heart in this moment.

• In what subtle or familiar ways do I hold back from joy, ease, or pleasure in my daily life?

• How can I invite peace into my day and into my body today? What would it look like?

from my heart to yours,
Julia

I hope you know that hearing from other sensitive souls is a source of joy and sense of belonging for me, so please feel welcome to leave your unfiltered and sincere reflections below — all of you is welcome here, always.

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from the journal of a sensitive mama.

                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                       10th january
lining oranges — sunny side up,
one by one by one.
dewy rows of pungent sweetness,
over my favourite wooden chopping board,
ready for juicing.

next i'm washing out the amber glass jar
of a vanilla scented candle,
the first candle of this year.
another candle — winter spices,
already dances on the breakfast table.

ooooh, bellaa candle! — my baby girl will say,
like every morning since this month began,
as she climbs up her chair
waiting for her oatmeal.

this year I am gifting myself the pleasure
of lighting candles around my house
whenever i desire,
instead of saving them for a special day
that never comes.
no great resolutions for me,
only a long-awaited yes.

outside the window,
the sky is a pink promise.
upstairs, little hands
are putting on socks  — no drama today,
and emptying out drawers.

this may be the only quiet moment 
I will get for myself,
until the sun sets.
and for today,
I am fine with that.

because I woke up and for the first time
in my life
I took the time to let my body know 
gently
that a new day had begun,
instead of yanking her out of the bed,
needles under her feet,
her mind already grappling
between a half-finished dream
and a never-ending to-do list.

the children called
and their father rose to greet them first, 
bringing back with him 
warm bundles of sleepy glee.

i held my youngest in my arms,
the way we used to, a few pages ago,
on those early days of being strangers
and family at the same time.
she looked up and smiled.

outside, in the old concrete basin
the residents cows drank from decades ago, 
the tazetta daffodils already nod
their flowery heads to the easterly wind.
the same way they did, two winters ago,
the same way they've done every year
since we've called this place home.

"snow's on her way again" — our neighbor's warning.
second time in forty years,
let her come, we don't mind. 
we have freshly squeezed orange juice
and freshly bloomed daffodils
that smell like orange custard.
and a candle, lit, on the breakfast table.

“I’ll be cat.”
My daughter looks at me as if I just spoke in a different language.
“I’ll be cat.” — I repeat, then proceed to jump nonchalantly onto the sofa,
stretch languidly, and curl into a ball.
“Purrrr” — I add.

She looks at me for a long moment.
In the background, her baby sister is loudly clanging together the little metal lids of their kitchen set. “Cat” — she enounces, matter-of-factly.

That’s not usually how it goes.
Usually it goes:
“Let’s play that you are the mama,
she’s the little baby,
and I’m the dog called Flower.
And now you cook dinner while we play.”
We’d never had a cat in our pretend family before.

She squints. I can almost hear her brains whirring as she processes this
utterly unexpected turn of events.
The cat. Since when?!

“Can I still be a dog called Flower?” — she enquires, suspicious.
“You’re free to be whatever you want, darling.
Today I’ll be the cat.
Meow.”

Today, at least for as long as this game will last,
I won’t be afraid to take up some space
and fill it with leisure
and my own aching limbs,
unrolled and surrendered over someplace
soft and cosy.

Just like this — oh my! —
in the middle of the day.

I will rest assured in my own right to rest
— no need to earn an excuse to lie down,
not for me.

I won’t question my worth.
I’ll let my needs be sacred.

I shall stretch, if I want to.
Take a nap, if I care.
I’ll say “Yes, you can cuddle me,
but not like this
and not there.”

I am a cat.

Not here to be jumped on.
Not here to be of use.
What’s that? You need something?
Well, if I don’t wanna to do it,
I shall simply refuse.

I am not here to serve.
I am not here to please.
My job is to do what I want, when I want to.
I’m my only priority,
so I shall be at ease.

I won’t dart to the kitchen because you want a snack.
I am a cat.
And no, you most certainly can’t
wipe your snot on my back.

I will bathe in my own radiance.
There is nothing for me to do.

No dishes.
No school runs.
No bills overdue.

There’s no fret.
There’s no hurry.
To me, they’re all gone.
The only laundry I must worry about,
is the pile I sit on.

Mmmmmhhh—eaow.

Oh, yes.
Today I’ll be the cat.
For as long as it lasts.

Last Thursday we had the last gathering of the hosted by the incredibly supportive and inspiring (and splendidly human) Catrin Kemp — a life-enhancing writing container that unearthed tender truths and brought into light big bold realizations I had not dared speak aloud (or even write about!) before.

If you’ve dwelled in this digital garden of mine for a while, you will know that the past months have been a(n excruciatingly) long season of few words. I emerge from this experience with a notebook deliciously filled with drafts and quickly scribbled fragments of stories as well as newfound energy and devotion to turn them into written explorations to share in the coming season. Grateful does not begin to express how I feel about this powerful unlocking that has taken place within me.

This piece, where I (begin to) unpack a topic that arose during the course of these sessions, is the one I had originally intended to share for our closing call — it turned out to be too long (as well as unfinished at the time), so I read this poem instead.

I am sharing it here today — imperfect, raw, not as unfurled as i would want it and a little hesitant here and there, and I am sharing it nonetheless as a personal antidote to the perfectionism and self-censoring I am trying to leave behind me both as a mother and as a writer, and as an ode to the momentuous change that these past few weeks have brought up for me.

i don’t notice it straight away as i enter our house.
and how could i?
i am carrying my weight in shopping bags —woven handles laced up to my elbows—, while in my mind i am already cooking tonight’s dinner, replying to an email that required an answer last tuesday, and calculating how many minutes of useful time i will get this morning before i dash out again to pick my girls up from their playhouse.

by the time the groceries have found their places on fridge shelves and inside cupboards, dinner plans are well underway (how did it take me so long to find the courage to adopt a slow cooker?) and i am making —marching— my way down the living room towards my writing desk — 75 minutes of valuable work-time to go, let’s dance!

that’s when i pass by it and notice it.
right there, on the altar — nestled between the box of seashells and the jug of propagated Potos.

the altar is the Japandi-meets-the-60s-style sideboard that houses some of my work equipment — here microphones and oracle decks, incense sticks and multi-port adapters coexist in unexpected harmony. over the smooth, pill-shaped wooden surface of its countertop lives “the altar” — a collection of paraphernalia as treasured as it is random. an arbitrarily erratic cluster of items whose jolly and obscure semiotics, under closer inspection, can reveal much about each member of our family — what they notice, what they cherish, the way they experience life.

some members contribute to this human narrative more intentionally than others. my girls’ pockets are regularly stuffed with seasonal treasures and somewhat questionable candidates for our altar display.

i can be quite liberal and avant-garde with iridescent dead beetles (“under glass, mama, under glass, ok?”), mud-caked fragments of cobalt-glazed terracotta tiles (“because if you wash them the mud sculptures will go away!”), heart-shaped confetti picked up in the square the day after the carnival parade (“because you never buy us the plastic ones, mama, only the paper ones and they don’t shine!” — Googles: “how to explain to a 4-year-old girl that she will inherit this planet and sparkly plastic confetti are an environmental crime without traumatizing her”) and even the occasional tin beer cap (“look, mama, it’s like a sun!”). however, i’ve had to draw a hard line at half-chewed pavement candy and their (damned) colorful plastic wrappers (“look, mama, ffffparkly!”), more than ten rocks at a time (which i consider a reasonable compromise), puddle water (obviously) and store receipts (i don’t even know). i did once agree to display a grocery list found inside a supermarket cart — there was something charming about the seemingly incoherent juxtaposition of items written in a shaky yet elegant handwriting…it felt like a poetic glimpse into some unknown grandmother’s life, so for a while we kept that on the altar too.

my displays often lean towards the natural and seasonal. i am definitely a supporter of the occasional jewel-shelled dead beetle, but for the most part i opt for wildflowers and branches —fresh or dry, depending on the time of year—, a deliciously smooth flat pebble gathered from the seashore, a particularly tactile clay pot found at local pottery, a scented candle — most likely something rich and velvety, such as vanilla and tonka bean, or evocative and sensual, like sandalwood and amber. this autumn, i arranged a ruby wreath of Virginia Creeper and two ripe pomegranates from our neighbor’s tree, their skin so blushed and thin it looked about to burst into a juicy fountain. a few days later, i realized one of my daughters (which one, remains unclear) had taken a bite —rind and all — out of both fruits and placed them back onto the altar with the mark conveniently facing away.

my fiancè mostly contributes by dumping on it whatever happens to be in his hands —a delivered package, a bright green elastic fitness band, a stray toy he stepped over on his way to the kitchen, car keys that we inevitably end up finding — after issuing a rescue party — in a toy basket or inside someone’s shoe…

here on the altar, much like in the other parts of the house, everything is mismatched, repurposed, and has a life of its own — objects come, go, change place and orientation, spontaneously multiply or disappear seemingly of their own accord.

the current assortment of seashells used to sit in a sage-green ceramic soap dish, while now it lives in the miniature wooden box that once stored the stuffed felt vegetables from my daughters’ play-kitchen. a swap i have been rather pleased with, as now the unpolished angular box efficiently doubles as a holder for our family’s affirmation card of the day (or week, or however long we will forget about it…). at the back, far from mischievous little hands, a repurposed family-sized glass yogurt jar from the local dairy now houses a propagated tendril of Potos. next to it, another yogurt pot, child-sized and dainty, holds a display of chicken feathers (yes.) — a wispy fountain of warm burnt siennas and deep petroleum greens meticulously arranged by my eldest daughter with the meticulousness of a Japanese ikebana artist.

and then, there it is. a favourite seashell — large, delicately sculpted, its ribbed back swirled with creamy shades of cappuccino and a sprinkle of moscovado sugar— is sitting outside her wooden box. inside it, a bunny rabbit sticker. a bunny in a seashell. propped up against the box for optimal visibility, so that it shan’t go unnoticed. Elowen. my sweet, contradictory daughter.

that same daughter i feel so often distant and alien and other from me, at the moment. the same daughter whose passion for anything plastic, disposable, bright pink, sparkly, vane and loud clashes thunderously with everything i — her introverted, organic, second-hand, barefoot, “earth is sacred, animals are friends” and “let’s make our own shampoo” kind of mother — stand for and believe in. the same daughter i observe being so easily influenced and swayed by the world around her. the same daughter for whom in the middle of the night i time travel, spiralling three, five, ten years’ time into the future, conjuring up distressing and unfamiliar scenarios — scenarios that i feel painfully unequipped to deal with…

“i don’t recognize her, i don’t know who she is anymore.” — i told her father last night, after a turbulent day, prickly tears of grief and fear and anger sizzling in my eyes. but then i stopped and considered the contrasting nature of my complaint.

for me to recognize her, i would have to assume that i know her.
for me not to know who she is, i would need to know who she actually is first.
but who am i to decide what is like her and what is not? who she is or she is not.

truth is, i have been so arrogant. in my mind, i had it all planned out.
what she’d be like.
what we’d be like.
i’d be the ever-nurturing, supportive, loving, encouraging, empowering mother, always there to hold space for her many tender feelings, her deep existential questions, and her lovely mistakes (all products of her innate excess of zeal and naive compassion, of course: no trace of real and ugly flaws such as selfishness or conceint in that dream child of mine!) — there to untiringly cultivate her confidence and sense of self, to devotedly weave into her every fiber that unsullied certainty of being cherished, beloved and nothing short of a miracle.

but the daughter i imagined to mother so tenderly in these visions was. . . me, kind of. a shy, insecure, sensitive, artsy girl with a deep, troubled soul and a heavy, feathery heart, in constant need of acceptance, safe self-expression, reassurance and someone or something to pour all her love into.

the growing girl in this fictional future may don salted caramel waves in the place of my dark unruly curls, but i see now in the ways that imagine mothering her, that what is really happening in my head is something else entirely — i am (re)mothering myself the way i wish i had been mothered.

and while this (re)mothering is crucial healing soul-work, to become the mother my daughter will one day be glad she had, i need to get out of my fantasies, alchemize my past, and distill it into the present. only here, i can begin being that mother.
a mother who loves her unconditionally. who is able and willing to let her grow into herself, whoever she may be.
a mother who can make her feel held, accepted, and valued, always.
in our similarities and in our differences.
like i wish i had felt, or more.

i don’t recognize in her the girl of my visions, no. but the girl in my mind is not my daughter, not the living human one. nor she is me actually, rather she is a misremembered version of myself, shaped by my adult elaboration of my perceived unmet needs.

the girl in my mind doesn’t get to make her own choices, she doesn’t get to develop a personality of her own, to dream her own dreams, and like what she likes. she only knows what i know and feels what i have felt. she is at the mercy of my imagination, of my unfulfilled desires, of my unhealed wounds.
wounds that, as a daughter, i have the right to nurse.
wounds that, as mother, i have the duty —and the power— to ensure are not inherited by my children.
the girl in my mind doesn’t get to write her own story, only to rewrite a different version of mine.

expectation — this is the word i am looking for. compared against the girl of my expectations, my daughter is unrecognizable. and until i let go of this imaginary little girl i am so desperately trying to (re)love right, until i release her from my preconceived idea of who she is meant to be, what life she is destined to live and how she will need to be mothered, the real little girl who carries her name, has the same mild brown eyes, salted caramel hair and pixie smile will always feel distant,
alien,
other.

and suddenly i see the path ahead. i see where my mothering mission really begins. i see it as i watch her younger sister, still dwelling in those sweet neutral days of baby cuteness, when personality is as soft and pillowy as their tummy. i see it as i witness love and tenderness swell up so easily in my heart at the sight of her doing just about anything. there is nothing this baby can do that would upset or hurt me, not yet — she is still so pure, so unwritten. her colors are but a light wash of see-through pastels, the defining lines of her barely traced. the occasional bolder stroke is still easily met with curiosity. i feel i can still hold her infinite, unscripted entirety comfortably in my arms. she is herself already, to some degree, but she doesn’t know yet.

whereas with Elowen, it has already begun. every day she is becoming acquainted with the person she carries inside. every day she becomes more and more aware of all the choices and potentials and possibilites of self available for her to test, try, and explore to see what happens.

versions on a spectrum — some closer to my shades, others entirely opposite.
all of her colors slowly arising.
some of them like mine,
the rest wholly hers...

and here, right here, is where my daughter story and my mothering story meet, in front of a mirror. here is also where the bridge between these stories of mine and my daughter’s own story lies.

i look back at the bunny nestled snugly inside its seashell, now cradled in the palm of my hands.

a bunny, in a seashell. there is something so unequivocally like my eldest daughter about it. “she made it for you last night, during your class”— her father informs me, traces of a cute memory still lingering in his eyes.

a wave of warmth rises inside me. i try to imagine what she must have thought while crafting it — how safe the bunny must feel, snuggled inside the silky belly of the seashell; how delighted i would be, finding it amongst the treasures of the altar...
maybe she pictured the smile that would curl my lips at the sight of it, maybe a little smile blossomed on her face too at the sense of anticipation, waiting quietly for me to discover it, holding tight onto her secret until the time was right.

this is exactly the kind of thing the little girl i was would do.
but this is not the point.
the point is not to love her for the ways she is like me, not just.
the point is to drop the frilly dreams, the misplaced memories, and the unrealistic expectations i may have held around the way our mother-daughter relationship would unfold and go beyond them — those visions are just empty shells, with no bunny in them.

thank you for reading and holding me in my wobbly return to writing.

i hope you found in these words a permission slip to let yourself and your children be who you are becoming. may you find trust, unyielding love and unconditional belonging within yourselves and each other.

with tenderness,
julia

if these words spoke to you, i have more for you below and on the —of rosemary and time page and there will be more coming, i promise:

• ubi amor, ibi medicina | of rage, love, healing and mothering: reflections from the kitchen floor.

• i wish i was one of those mothers | of all the mothers i am. of all the mothers i can be.

• and a crocus | a strained mother, a solo game of “Veo Veo Que Ves” and an early Autumn garden.

as always, the words of other vulnerable mothers are a balm to myself and all the other sensitive souls who read this space.
feel free to leave yours in the comment section below — you are always welcome here.

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may you find grace
in every undone thing.

in every dish
left in the sink,
because you are outside
dancing around the walnut tree,
holding their hands.

in every meal
that ends up overcooked,
because you were bandaging
her bunny’s broken tail.

in every sentence
left hanging at the comma,
because a squabble arose
and small hearts needed grounding.

in every morning routine
that gets interrupted,
because “the sun called me, mama!”
and so here she is.

in every candle
you light with intention
and then leave to burn,
unseen and distracted,
because life today
happens in the other room.

in every cup of tea,
that ends up forgotten,
quiet companion
to that lonely candle,
because she wanted a hug,
and a story,
and a song.

may you find grace
in every undone thing.
your hair,
your house,
that splendid life project of yours.

may you find grace,
in the unplanned
and the unwritten.
in the unexpected joys
of going off the script.

may you find grace,
today.
you deserve it.

with love,
— julia

it’s a crisp-skied late september morning as i begin the draft for this post — a post which would take me a patchwork of stolen moments here and there to finish, like it often happens in my mothering-first-wiritng-when-i-can life.

i was supposed to do work this morning — that was the idea when I left the house. we all had to step outside into the garden for an impromptu spell of outdoor playtime to be able to pluck baby Hazel from my arms.

when it comes to her, mother nature’s call is the only call strong enough to overpower the pull of my presence. we spent the summer physically glued to one another by our sweat, Hazel and i. we waded through the tides of our house renovation, the ensuing move, and the unexpected grind of having to take care of both my grandad and mother alone. all along, she lived firmly tied to my back. yet, she will always choose the garden over me. the greater mother, over the human mother. i am at peace with her choice.

half-dressed babies, back-to-front panties, pajama sets haphazardly tucked underneath daytime trousers, one single sock on inside-out, sticky smears of breakfast still stuck onto cheeks, hair and t-shirts, bare or partly socked feet stomping cheerfully on the dewy golden grass. the picture on my rearview mirror as I drive off.

it feels inexplicably reckless and selfish to pull myself away and leave them behind. to do what? “work” that doesn’t yet pay me?

their father is smiling encouragingly. he waves. Hazel tumbles, wobbles back up, and toddles on. Elowen is already talking to the fig tree.

quiet time to focus and get work done — that was the plan. i have leaflets to design and a whole editorial plan to put together for my new and timidly growing business. there are responsibilities to uphold, important decisions to make, money to earn. but life seems to have a way of redirecting me whenever fear narrows my focus.

lately, i have been considering the idea that i may be designed to live my life in soft focus. it’s a concept that revolves around keeping an attitude of openness and fluidity. there is something about playfulness there. about letting joy and faith guide me instead of fear and my marrow-deep need to prove my worth.

living in soft focus. there is something there about allowing things to come and go with the (in)constant ebb and flow of my inspiration without judging myself cruelly for what can be called inconsistency (but which tastes more like authenticity once i remove the bitter flavour of my internalized self-criticism). something about shifting gently while in motion, about not engraving priorities in stone with my nails, about dropping items off my to-do list(s) and vision board(s) —yes…plurals, imagine that— to pick up wildflowers while out on a walk instead.

it’s a new and unexplored idea for me, a permission slip i somewhat still feel i haven’t earned yet. but that’s the whole point. a long-forgotten perspective that belongs to childhood and that i am still elaborating with my adult systems. one that feels energizing, hopeful. freeing and grounding at the same time. and the signs, they keep confirming this.

by the time I reach the cafe, the color of the air is bright celeste, the wi-fi is out of order, i have left my phone in the car thus eliminating the possibility of hot-spotting, and a posy of wildflowers tenderly arranged in a gold-rimmed milk jug on a table by the window is nodding entreatingly.
signs.

this is the sort of place that serves drinks and homemade cakes in delightfully mismatched vintage tea sets. each cup and saucer looks and feels like it has been lovingly borrowed from a grandmother’s cupboard — the kind of cupboard with glass panes, lace trimmings pinned to the shelves, and a secret drawer for precious trinkets. the same kind of cupboard i have cherry-picked from a second-hand shop for our own new kitchen. spring flowers and autumnal fruits meet in serendipituous glee as vessels for my toasted barley oat-milk cappuccino.

plants are hanging languidly from the frescoed vaulted ceiling. loaves of freshly baked bread line the shelves. a smiling barista will always add “un biscotto per le signorine” as a gift to our order whenever i come with my two girls —no matter how busy the shop is— winking as they tuck a daisy-shaped biscuit into one very shy and one very eager little hand.

this is the sort of place that would forgive a change of plans. and so here I am. at the table by the window. not working like i had planned. writing with no plan, instead.

i have been feeling like resurfacing this series of posts for a while now. it used to be called ordinary magic, and during a brief golden summer —many moths ago now— it used to be weekly (weekly!!) transcription of journal entries quickly scribbled in hardly readable long-hand while mothering.
a list of lovely happenings.
a way to celebrate the enchanted everyday — this is its new name, i’ve decided.
to crystallize the memory of anything that brought color, life and a sweet flavour to the ordinary and the mundane of my days.
an anthology of unexpected glimmers of quiet beauty, written for me to remember the transient gifts of my messy days and for you to remember that there is always enchantment wherever there is a soul keen to cherish it.

and it used to be a way to give back. i used to gather here the words of other writers whose voices brought a ray of sunshine into my life. a snail-mail of love and gratitude on a platform that seems to have also become somewhat too fast and too busy for me.

because for as much as I have missed writing, i have deeply missed reading.

and so this is the intention with which i plant, once again, the seed of this series. because I cannot nurture a business based on soulful mothering + the art of living poetically without cultivating a sense of grounded presence and bliss within my own life. without pausing to notice and cherish the enchanted everyday. without nurturing the time to distil them into words. without devoting the time to make poetry out of it.

the word poetry comes from the ancient greek ποιέω, a term that elegantly translates as “to make”, “to do”, “to create”. to do poetry is to be one with the act of making life happen, of creating tiny moments of meaning while witnessing their enchantment, their importance. to write poetry, one has to become an expression of it. to live poetically, one must live a life worth writing about. and a life worth writing about is any life that is noticed. that is observed with loving eyes. that is perceived with senses attuned to finding delight.

i guess this is the work that needed to be done today.

so here is my intention for this series: to be a retrospective look at the month just passed through the lens of gratitude, curiosity and delight with no preconceived notion about it and to be an exercise in presence and writing when all other words and plans fail.

that said, here is my anthology of delights from the month of september.

september 2025 | the enchanted everyday

three delightful memories from my journal

mindfulness affirmation cards with my daughter
i have introduced a sweet little ritual with my eldest daughter: every day (or most days, i should say because i am not going to pretend here that every morning at our house turns out to be a haven of tranquil card-pulling and idyllic heart-holding) we take some time just the two of us and we pull one card from a mindfulness deck dedicated to children. while i am still nursing the idea of writing and illustrating my own deck one day, this ritual has provided context, vocabulary and imagery for some meaningful conversations and it’s becoming a cherished moment for both of us.

bread-making
after a summer hiatus, i have recently picked up making our bread from scratch again— even upgrading to gluten-free recipes for myself. during a beautiful circle of women we recently hosted by the sea, one very special soul came to sit next to me and out of the blue she told me, with tenderness in her voice: “your grandma wants you to know that she’s there with you when you bake for your girls. she’s happy.”
i’ve explored before how baking with my children makes me feel closer to her —especially while using her old cookie cutters — but receiving spoken confirmation that my beloved grandmother is by my side while i whisk and stir and mix now as a mother just like she used to be when i was a girl filled my eyes with tears and my heart with love and gratitude.

kissing rosemary
a sunny afternoon, the oblique amber light of late september, a whole house to clean, dinner to cook, washing to hang out to dry, work to catch up with.
choosing to step outside to watch pellucid cabbage butterflies flutter in the golden air and kiss rosemary while singing rhymes instead.

a handful of delightful reads from my september reading list
This month’s words are from , , , and .

Small Stories with Laura Pashby

the mother-writer ache

A baby is sleeping in the library, tucked up in a pram beneath a hand-knit woollen blanket in shades of orange. I lower myself gingerly into a chair near the pram, trying not to rustle as I pull a new notebook from my bag and settle myself at a table. To my left sits a woman knitting purple socks on double-pointed needles. How lovely, I think, to knit a…

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a year ago · 117 likes · 31 comments · Laura Pashby

midnight crumbs

what it feels like to outgrow your own life in real time

it doesn’t happen all at once. it’s not like one morning you wake up, stretch your arms, and announce, right then, i’ve officially outgrown this life. it’s slower. stranger. more like a quiet restlessness that creeps in at the edges until suddenly, everything that once fit feels itchy, too tight, no longer yours. for me, it began with goals. i used to s…

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a year ago · 785 likes · 163 comments · hannah bay

Heartbeats

A star is born

Hi! If you're new to Heartbeats, welcome. I'm Mariah, and I write about the messy, transformative intersection of caregiving and creativity. After a month away, I'm excited to share what I've been learning about collapse, transformation, and trusting the process…

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a year ago · 6 likes · 13 comments · Mariah Friend

Slow Sailing

Stop Waiting to do the Work You Desire

Thanks for reading Slow Sailing! Subscribe for free to receive weekly posts on inspired career & living…

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a year ago · 1640 likes · 70 comments · Maddy Odom

SoulStack by Beth Kempton

Fifteen guideposts for a flourishing writing life

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3 years ago · 455 likes · 90 comments · Beth Kempton

…and some words from my archive

• cookie-cutters and hand-crocheted lace | of childhood memories, a grandmother’s love and invisible threads.

• mothering (for) the world | if you’re feeling helpless about Gaza, please lean into these words.

• ordinary magic | september 2024 | 02: unexpected glimmers of quiet beauty + some lovely reads

i hope you found inspiration and joy here today, darling one.

with gratitude,

Julia

to all the mothers who feel powerless in the face of the abyss of Gaza.

who think of those lives broken by pain and fear while tucking their own children
in the safe nest of their beds.

who wipe silent tears of helplessness and rage secretly off their faces,
because how does one begin to explain war to a child who knows nothing
but innocence?

i write this to you as i write this to myself.

donate, if you can.
protest, if you can.
spread the news, if you can.

but keep mothering.
above all, mama, keep mothering.
with your whole heart.
from the depths of your kind, tender soul.
with all your energy,
keep
mothering.

turn your rage into love and pour it into your child(ren)’s heart.
turn your despair into hope and weave it into the stories you tell them.
turn your helplessness into trust and tuck it into your child(ren)’s pockets.

nothing you do is meaningless.
nothing you do is insignificant.
nothing.

so, keep mothering.
courageously.
fiercely.
devotedly.

keep mothering as if every word you say was a prayer.
keep mothering as if each loving touch could be felt by a child you will never meet.
keep mothering as if your mothering could make a difference.

because mothering one child is mothering the whole world.
because in mothering your child, you mother the future.

keep mothering, mama.

please,
just
keep
mothering.

i’m lying on the kitchen floor.
the weight of my body completely surrendered onto the hard surface of the tiles.
sunken.
silent.
like a relic at the bottom of the ocean.
only minutes ago, all i had been was fire.
all i had wanted to do was scream.
bitter waves of caustic frustration —rage— gushing through me.
that’s gone, now.
now, i simply feel…liquid?

sprawled across my ribcage, the tiny body of my baby daughter,
clammy from the tears and sweat of her earlier rage.
such volcanic, earth-quaking feelings housed within this minute body of hers…
feelings i am all too familiar with.
they’re also gone now. at least, for a while.
now, in their place, calm.
and the presence of her:
heart against my heart,
head nestled under my chin.
eyelashes flickering against my clavicular bone.

i’ve been feeling thin, lately.
body.
mind.
soul.
this embrace must feel rather bony to her.
she doesn’t seem to mind.

she sighs.
then stirs.
i open my eyes,
and i’m met with a close-up of a pink, runny nose and a pair of watery eyes.
the same eyes that were looking daggers at me from under the table, a few breaths ago.
they are round and mild, now.

she sighs again.
then nestles back underneath my jaw.
thumb in her mouth,
the other hand hovering,
tugging at my left eyebrow,
pinching my eyelid,
poking at my eyeball.
this has been our soothing ritual since her earliest days.
many times i have felt us frowned upon and judged for it.
many times i have felt so touched out i thought i wouldn’t be able to endure it.
and yet…time and time again, i find that i can, knowing that one day this gesture, these sensations, will be but a memory that only i will hold.
she won’t remember the feeling of this moment.

or will she?
her mind may not be able to unearth again the treasures of these days,
hidden in its distant drawers.
but doesn’t a child’s skin have a way of remembering her mother’s loving touch?
don’t the lines left by caressing fingertips sink deep into her soul,
inking there an invisible pattern,
an ancestral code,
a magical spell that, without voice nor words, whispers faithfully
“you are loved.
you are loved.
you always were
and always will be.”
even after we’ve gone?

i breathe in slowly.
my ribcage rises, lifting her heart away from mine for a moment.
then it falls, bringing our hearts closer together again.
i can feel her toes in my right ear now.
anything, in the name of love.

i am not always finding it easy to choose love over rage these days.
but when i do,
when i do…

i cocoon her in my arms.
tranquil breaths, now rolling evenly in and out of her,
plump little toes stretching and curling by my ear,
a tiny finger still poking at my eye.
the reassuring weight of her peace against my heart, like a safety blanket,
reminding me where choices are best made from, when it comes to mothering.

ubi amor. ibi medicina.
“where love dwells, there you shall find medicine”.
i whisper the words to myself — to us,
as i graze my chin against her feathery hair,
feeling the primeval truth they carry
mirrored in the pace of my heartbeat — now slow and fluid,
in my muscles — softening now,
in my breathing — an airy lullaby telling her of safety,
of home,
of unconditional, undying love.

…and amidst all these inspired and poetic thoughts,
rage throws in a paper plane:
“if you are not nodding knowingly in front of this raw kitchen-floor moment,
please do not offer me any mothering advice.”

to all the soulful mamas who i know are nodding along.
i see your hearts and they are beautiful.

with endless gratitude,
julia

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you don’t owe them _________ children.
really,
you don’t.
you don’t owe them polite children.
you don’t owe them polished children.
you don’t owe them perfect children.

take a breath.
let that sink in.

you don’t owe them
_________ children.

you don’t owe them tidy children.
you don’t owe them smiley children.
you don’t owe them friendly children.

drop
that weight
right
off
your shoulders.

you don’t owe them
_________ children.

you don’t owe them easy children.
you don’t owe them pleasing children.

you don’t owe them
_________ children.

say it out loud.
hear it for yourself.

you don’t owe them straight-backed children.
straight path children.
straight A’s children.
in fact, you don’t even owe them straight children at all.

you don’t owe them
_________ children.

you don’t owe them typical
exceptional,
original,
traditional.

whatever it is they may expect
of you and your children,
you
don’t owe it
to them.

let them make their peace with it.
or not.

because you don’t owe them fill in the blank children.

I wish I was one of those mothers who navigate gracefully
their children’s tantrums,
with an angelic smile on their face
and no fear
or shame
ringing loud in their mind.
Some days I can be.
Most days I am not.

I wish I was one of those mothers who do not mind the loudness,
the mess,
the non-stopness.
Today, that’s just not who I am.

I wish I was one of those mothers who never break down
and then utterly apart
as their children watch, helpless,
when it all gets too much.
Here I am on the floor,
once again,
picking up all the shards
of my splintered self.
“Keep away, girls. They’re sharp,
they will hurt your fingers”.

I wish I was one of those mothers who never say things
they don’t mean to say.
How many words I would wipe off
forever
from your tender hearts,
if only I could.

I wish I was one of those mothers who are brave enough
to trolley their children halfway across the world
— wet, wild, carefree.
But how? How do they do it,
when on days like this,
even going to the shops
feels so impossibly hard?

I wish I was one of those mothers who need never fear
to scar(e) their children
with raised hurtful tones
or an ungentle touch.
Instead I yell. And I snap.
And all the kindness in me
wounds up lost on the way
between my heart and my hands.

I wish I was one of those mothers who feel completely fulfilled
at home all day with their children.
Or I wish, at least, I was at peace with myself
when I leave you behind
to be the whole rest of me.
But when I am with you I wish I was writing,
and then when I am writing,
I write about you.

I wish I was one of these mothers.
Lately, on most days, I am not.

I know they are in me. I have met them before.
I have felt their peace in my heart.
I have known their calm in my mind.
I have heard their sweet words spoken
in my own voice.
Their soft, loving touch has inhabited
the shape of my hands.

They seem like strangers, these days.

I am not going to lie: if any of these words resonated with you, I would love to hear your heart.

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“Come, Mama, come see! There is a color in the bathroom!” — my daughter whirls in with a look of pure elation on her face —“Come see the color, mama, under the table!”

Well, these are rather confusing directions — in the bathroom or under the table?

My hair looks like a bird’s nest, I’ve got spiderwebs laced around my elbows and knees, I have just tossed a handful of dead bugs in the bin and what in the name of Mother Earth am I even wearing? My fiancè’s underwear, his stained t-shirt from yesterday, and — wait for this one— mismatched flip-flops. There. You’ve got the whole picture.

I am in the process of cleaning up my sister’s flat in preparation for my elderly grandad’s arrival — the uninhabited, unrenovated flat has hardly ever received a proper clean since we bought the property three years ago. Generally used as storage space by our three families, in the past year it has housed most of our belongings since our side of the property shrunk into a one-bed flat during our turn for the remodeling works.

These two rooms have been our sole living space for most of my youngest daughter’s life, now fifteen months old — a multi-purpose kitchen doubling as shared office space, laundry room and playroom, and a bedroom where most of our furniture also lives. With our girls growing up and our adult lives evolving alongside them, the place has been feeling less and less welcoming and more and more engulfing with every passing month. What used to be generously sized, charmingly low-ceilinged, a little-dark-but-how-delightfully-characterful rooms, now feel as cavrnous prisons. I am starting to feel claustrophobic. And fed up.

And while I know that even having these two rooms, functioning plumbing, central heating, lighting (albeit bin-lined) and a roof over our head is a considerable privilege, I can’t help craving light.
And space.
And privacy.
And beauty.
I long to feel settled.
I long to see around me a place that looks and feels like us.
I long for a sense of home.

And honestly? I have had enough of pushing drying racks out of the way every time I wish to reach the fridge or the dishwasher.

So here I am, frazzled and frankly quite irritated for having been left to face this mastodontic task alone by my mother — sure a high percentage of the clutter belongs to us and our children, but not all of it, and at least the cleaning tasks could have been shared once I was through with the decluttering (or more accurately the clutter-stacking)? — all while my own house also resembles a junk yard.

I have just made my way back into our kitchen through the obstacle course and Jenga-work of furniture and stacked boxes needed to keep my crafty crawler from walking out the front door while I spin around with rubber gloves and wash-cloths. I am still muttering under my breath when my daughter swirls in with her messy caramel waves bouncing around her and sparkles in her eyes.

“Come, Mama, come see! There is a color in the bathroom!”

I have just been to the bathroom in grandad’s flat — I have just dusted, and scraped, and wiped all around it. There were no colors when I left. I am sure of it.

I can already feel the rage surging from the pit of my stomach. In my mind, I am already running over all possible color-related scenarios that may occur when a three-year-old is left unsupervised in a freshly cleaned bathroom. I am not in the mood for impromptu floor or wall art, not today.

She seems to glide past the chaos as I plod along after her, stumbling through cardboard boxes, scattered shoes, and the entire contents of the left-side kitchen cupboard which her baby sister has just meticulously emptied right in front of the doorway. She looks uncommonly pleased with herself. What is it with babies and pots?

“Under the table, under the table!”

When I reach the bathroom, she is pointing at the tiles underneath my mother’s old console table, tucked against the wall. “Ah, this needs to be moved or grandad will trip over it at night when he forgets it’s there” — is my first, functional thought.

And then I see it. A rainbow. A soft-edged, leaf-shaped fragment of rainbow. It shivers, impalpable, across the pink surface of the tiles. And then it dances on the palm of her open hand as she giggle gleefully. My daughter looks back at me. She’s beaming. Quiet tears well up in my eyes.

“Thank you for showing me this. Thank you for sharing it with me, Babi.”

She nestles into my lap and, for a while, we stare in silence at the rainbow petal on the wall. In the bathroom, under the table — just like she said.

“How does it happen?”

“It’s the sunshine, it filters in from that window over there, then it bounces on that big mirror and then it lands on the wall.” — now it’s probably not the time to get into the depths of prismatic light refraction.

She traces the path of the light from the window, to the mirror and then onto the wall with her eyes. For now she seems satisfied with the answer.

I lean my chin softly on her head and give her little birdy body a gentle squeeze.

“What does it mean?”

I know she’s not asking for further clarification about the physics of rainbows. Not in this case. Too often I have walked around with her and told her — “Oh, it’s a sign from the Universe!”, every time she spotted a squirrel, a swift, a wild rose, an acorn, or a cloud. I think it’s my way to help her create a meaningful connection with nature in a world where children seem to be growing further apart from the environment with every generation.

Especially Italian children — my girls here are often looked at with concern and disbelief when they play outdoors — free, often barefoot, and serene with grass stains on their knees, leaves in their hair, and occasionally gravel in their underwear.
Here children are not often allowed to play with dirt.
Here children grow afraid of getting dirty.
Here brown and green stains on a blouse are avoided at all costs, more often than not.
“Don’t sit on the grass, you’ll get dirty"!”
“Don’t touch the leaves, they’re dirty!”
“Don’t dig in there, the mud’s all dirty!”

One day she came back from one of her daycare mornings claiming she didn’t want to play in the garden because “La terra è sporca, mamma” — “Soil is dirty, mama”. I felt my heart freeze and crack at those words. Calling plants by their name, teaching her how to distinguish nettle from melissa, appreciating the intimidating beauty of a carpenter bee, and inviting her to believe that, whenever something natural draws her attention, that may be a message for her from the Earth is part of my legacy to her.

So when she asks “What does it mean?”, the words flow out of me without hesitation — “It’s a blessing, darling. It means you are loved”.

“And you are loved.” — she looks up and smiles.

And in this moment I feel blessed too.

She’ll probably keep pointing at the flashy, glittery, pink toys at the supermarket every time she catches a glimpse of them.
My heart will sink every time she’ll say that she prefers the swimming pool to the seashore.
She may still routinely come back claiming that soil is dirty, vegetables are bleah, blue is for boys and pink is for girls.

My work is not done yet. But today none of this matters right now.

Today she found a sign.
Today she chose to share its sacred message with with me.
Today she believes in magic.
Today she belongs with nature.
Today she is loved.
By me.
By Mother Earth.
She can feel it.
She knows.
She has evidence of it.
In my arms around her.
And in this speck of rainbow on the bathroom tiles.

today, I wished I didn’t have children.
today, I wished I was alone.
my life,
my days,
my energy,
entirely
my own.
today, I wished they weren’t there,
on the other side of a closed door,
waiting for me to emerge,
once more,
composed,
loving,
available.
today, I resented them,
their needs,
their demands,
their very existence.
the way they make me feel,
like everything about me,
my worth,
my self,
my purpose,
is tied to those two syllables.
— mama.
such a short word to contain
the multitudes of me.
such a small, confined space,
to spread my wings and fly.
today, I craved for more,
much more than babbled names.
I craved the entire sky,
to fill with a l l my colors.
I craved a boundless ocean,
to expand my inner waves.
today, I craved the chance
to exist,
as something
other.
what could today have been,
if only I…
today, it didn’t happen.
today, I could have belonged to me,
I belonged to them, instead.
of all the me I hold within,
the mother is the fiercest.
always,
always,
ever.
today, I wished I didn’t have children.
but then I held them to my heart,
and I had to think
again.