Admiration. Let me count the ways.
Mom. Dad. Grandparents. Uncles. Sister. Everybody in my lifeline who came before me. They must have done something right to lead to me. Amore. Astrid Lindgren. Tomaž Šalamun. Slavoj Žižek. Jeanette Winterson. Charles Bukowski. Milan Kundera. Ian MacEwan. Margaret Atwood. Tom Robbins. A legion of other writers. Pearl Jam. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Joan Baez. Bob Dylan. A handful of Slovenians, Marcel Štefančič jr., Miha Mazzini, Tadej Zupančič, Svetlana Makarovič. Nejc Zaplotnik. A fistful of teachers. Maja Turnher. Philip Burt. A couple of friends.
A whole lot of fellow bloggers and people who I’ve found online and will probably never meet. Everybody who dares to share.
People who stay true to themselves. Who fight for their rights, and for the weak. Who dare. Who tell it like it is, but keep their voices down (well, some refuse and yell instead). Who are humble in their greatness, and gentle when victorious. Who do what they say they will. Who are reliable, determined, transparent and full of integrity. Unbreakable and unputdownable. My kind of people.
There is an ad in admiration. But there is mir too (=peace).
As for places, the last town to yield my deepest admiration was Siena last week. I’ve been in Tuscany for three years and this was the first time I saw it. Its ups and downs, brick colour and arches transported me in time, to some place like Portugal or Morocco (have yet to visit either). Or possibly I returned to the time of playing with grandmother’s postcards. I never tired of sorting them by colour vs. black and white, country, city, number of stamps, sender, recipient, whether there was a single photograph on it or multiple. In a way they were my first step towards blogging and admiring the views and words you all post for us.
Not just architecture, the people were very admirable too. I have never seen so many stop and wait for me to take the photo (not of them). A woman stopped on her own accord to explain to us the use of a giant electric charger (nope, not meant for phones, rather for electric cars). And, as it’s a custom in Italy, everybody not just didn’t mind but truly loved our pouncing bestia (except my visitors who managed him for me); a Russian tourist pushed the trolley with his toddler right into the dog, saying that he had three dogs at home. A kiss-and-greet followed.
I bet there were some of Siena in that box of postcards. For an unknown city it felt too familiar.
≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈
Photo: a © signature mmm production
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Admiration
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