Rowan Spazzoli

I’ve brought up the concept of “play” a few times in my blog posts. It’s an overlooked part of adult life, something that we relegate to children.

In our work and personal lives, we leave little room for play. Things must be taken seriously, and work must be done without any silliness.

This can produce results, and help lead a normal functioning life.

But I’ve found that as I’ve begin to let myself play I’ve been more free.

Free to make errors.

Free to explore.

Free to be myself.

Today we went to an aqua park. We let ourselves play. We got on the rides with the same enthusiasm of a child. We expressed ourselves unashamedly when the rides ended.

And we had an incredible time.

Maybe there’s a time and place to grow up. But if play is childish, I’m happy to still be a child

Image was taken at the aqua park this afternoon 🙂 we got photo bombed by one of be birds of prey

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Song of the day: I’ve got to break free – Queen

After dinner and a few drinks, our conversation today turned to mental health and psychology. My cousin (Alex), his friend (Fabian) and myself had a great discussion about our own issues as well as mental health issues generally.These discussions can be really difficult. And mental health used to be such a taboo topic. But we spoke about it as if we were talking about a sports team or the weather.The final point we discussed was whether people were more depressed today or whether we were more aware of it.We concluded it might be a combination of the two. But that people nowadays are more able to discuss, diagnose and deal with mental health issues.And that’s pretty awesome

Image was taken while walking down the streets of Lagos 🙂Blog: 240/365Song of the day: Myst by Myyst (my cousins band from Oslo) 🙂

I’ve never ridden a motorbike or scooter before. Despite a small desire at 16 for independence, I’ve never really wanted to.

But over the past few days I’ve been driving a little 50cc scooter around the Portuguese Algarve. I’ve explored little streets, small towns and coastal areas.

I’ve also been able to gently drive past a massive backlog of cars and go down some rural roads. It’s been phenomenal.

I think I’ve understood the allure of being on a bike.

It gets you to the same place. But with so much more freedom.

P.s. Mom when you read this know that I’ve been like, super safe and that I won’t be buying myself one anytime soon 🙂

Image was taken at a little promenade I found outside Tavira

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Song of the day: Don’t go breaking my heart – Elton John and Kiki Dee

I’m staying in Portugal with my family who live in Norway. Some were born in Zimbabwe, some were born in England. The guests that are here are Swedish but one was born in the USA. My aunt who lives in Ireland just left. And my dad is Italian, we’re born in Zim but live in South Africa.

And today we sat around the TV and cheered on Japan while they played Belgium.

Facebook recently showed me that I have 1000 friends from outside South Africa, and 700 from South Africa.

So my friend base us international and my heritage is too.

National pride makes us feel like we belong. Like we’re part of a big tribe.

But in an ever globalised world, these boarders and groupings count for a lot less.

It’s fun to support a national football team. But as the boarders begin to blur, we’ll begin realising that we’re all pretty much the same anyway

Image was taken at a bar in Lagos where we upped the tally for Zimbabwe from 3 to 5 🙂

Song of the day: If I could change your mind – HAIM

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Family holidays used to consist of doing as much as possible in the time we had available. Because we were in a new city or country we needed to see and do everything we could.

This sense of urgency has lingered with me into adulthood. I’ve explored Portugal over the last week but this weekend I’ve started to take it easy and relax in one place. It’s what I need

Yet I still feel this guilt… like I should be doing something seeing as I’m here.

I think the important thing that I’m learning is to distinguish and understand what you’re needing at the time.

Sometimes, forcing yourself to get up and see a city is important.

But sometimes, you need to switch off the alarm and let yourself sleep in.

Image is of some orange trees I drove past on my scooter ride today 🙂

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Song of the day: It’s my life – Bon Jovi

Much of what we do is measured by how it will appear to others.

“What will people think if I only marry in my 40s?”

“Will people judge me for my shitty car ?”

“What will people see me as if I don’t have a stable job?”

Some people may judge you. Or talk about you behind your back. Some might even bring it up with you directly.

But he majority of our social measures are in our own head.

It’s us judging ourselves by how we think other people will judge us.

And in reality most people are too worried about themselves anyway to deeply care about what others are doing.

The best way to beat the social measure is not to outperform it, but by realising that it’s only a construct that we build for ourselves

Image is of the local bus station where we dropped Jared off this morning 🙂

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Song of the day: My Immortal – Evanescence

This evening my mom and aunt Jacs spoke about their childhood while we were all sitting around the braai. They told us of memories from when they were 6 years old, some of which were incredibly dark.

Here we are, almost 50 years later and these memories still linger. And they still affect us.

Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis looks deeply into our childhoods as a source of much of our worries and behaviours. We’re shaped by them, by forces that were very much outside our control.

And sometimes they make us stronger. But sometimes we might spend a lifetime healing from them.

Image is of a phone chair from the backpackers we stayed in last night 🙂 I remember having one in Zim, where the phone and phonebook were placed on the table so you could sit and chat on the phone 🙂

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Song of the day: Haim – Ready for you

NB: I know I’m a post behind… we’ve been venturing up the Portuguese coast and have had little time to write. Will write a double post tomorrow 🙂

Over the last two days we’ve been exploring the south coast of Portugal, known as the Algarve. We’ve visited two cities, Lagos and Albufiera, both of which have been spectacular.

We’ve done something quite different in terms of how we explore. Instead of using phones or guides, we gently walk the streets and see what comes up.

Sometimes we end up on a dead end.

But mostly we’ve ended up with incredible spaces and places.

Just by letting ourselves explore

Image was taken at the beach in Lagos this evening 🙂

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Song of the day: Santana – Maria Maria