I had a draft of this post ready for publishing when I heard the tragic news from Brussels. Christian world has been targeted once again. My heart goes out to all the people of Belgium, and the families of the victims. The Evil wants to destroy everything that is good in this world with word and weapon. You can use religious or philosophical, or even scientific terms to give a name to that evil. It exists, and it is feeding on fear and its derivatives.
Fear not!
This set of Easter Eggs is dyed and ready for painting. Two pairs of little hands took care of that, and did a splendid job. When I was young, we used to dye eggs with onion skins. The skins were collected all over the winter. “Don’t throw out the onion skins!” I heard this phrase often enough to always remember of Easter. When the time came, the skins were placed in a huge saucepan, and the eggs carefully arranged so that each egg was well covered. There was always a smaller saucepan for ‘special’ eggs. My mother tied different flowers and leaves to these eggs to create patterns. When she got older and lost her creativity, she only used the flowers and leaves from her Geranium plants. Here is a link to a blog that will give you a good idea of the process.
Easter has a nostalgic feel to me. It even has a fragrance – my aunt who stayed with us every winter, always baked a special cake with rum and raisins. All the house smelled divine. I also remember some chocolate eggs and bunnies in shiny foil, but they didn’t taste great, and were mostly used as toys first. We would also receive postcards from our distant relatives – pictures of fluffy bunnies and cute lamb.
Some ‘old style’ pictures seem appropriate for the memory flood.
Another aunt always came over for Easter. She has never been married and never had children. Every summer she would take me home with her for a couple of weeks, and staying in her house in the dunes is another bright memory of my childhood. We exchanged letters since I learned to write until her death in 2000. In this photograph, we are holding wild anemones. We would walk about a mile into the woods, to a special place, a blue lake of flowers. Our Easter dinner table was always decorated with wild anemones – they are in bloom from March to the end of April.
Our house is on the left, and the lake is on the right, down the hill.
These photographs from my 2013 project were taken in the place very similar to the one where I used to spend summer breaks with my aunt. All these houses were built in the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the beautiful summer houses are restored and with certain investments turned into great modern homes.
What is memory without music!
One of my beloved pieces of music is a chorale prelude Ich ruf zu dir Herr Jesu Christ by J.S Bach. There are many brilliant interpretations, both for organ and piano, but I want to share the one of a Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva. A slow tempo (almost one minute slower than any other interpretation, for such a short piece of music!) has an expressive and poignant effect. Every note breathes and lives.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUSK68yi-fw&w=560&h=315%5D
Nestle and Cadbury have removed the word ‘Easter’ from their chocolate eggs. I don’t know about Nestle, but Cadbury have removed something else from their Cremes, because they don’t taste right anymore. Here you can learn how to make your own Easter Chocolate Eggs 🙂
Making memories 