These days, I'm not quite sure how to approach Easter in the public. While it's a holiday that I believe in and celebrate, I'm aware this isn't the case for everyone so I am a bit reluctant to make a sweeping 'happy Easter!' comment. Personally, I blame twitter for this: many of the people I'm following tweeted comments such as 'enjoy your weekend, however you spend it!' or 'happy Easter, if you celebrate it!' which made me wonder about the appropriateness of broad Easter comments in the modern world.
Instead of making this post about Easter specifically (but while I'm on the subject, I hope everyone who celebrated it enjoyed it!), I've decided to focus on two universal topics: chocolate and new beginnings. Both, of course, relating to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly.
First off: chocolate. I hope that everyone reading this has recently experienced the joys of chocolate.
I grew up in a family of chocoholics and am something of a black sheep: I am not addicted to the stuff. That said, I enjoy it and believe chocolate has its place. (Come to think of it, I don't recall knowing anyone who doesn't like chocolate. By all means, prove me wrong but I'm yet to meet someone who detests it.) I can't eat much of the stuff in one sitting but sometimes I find myself in situations where the only logical thing to do is eat a piece of chocolate. (Such as when I'm writing a particularly fiendish law research paper. Or on Easter Sunday.)
Audrey Hepburn was another proponent of the importance of chocolate, saying: 'Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.' Sean Ferrer also recounts his mother eating a piece of chocolate every afternoon after her nap in his memoir. By all accounts, chocolate was one of Audrey Hepburn's little pleasures in life.
Unfortunately, I could not find a picture of Miss Hepburn eating chocolate. Instead, I chose a picture of her with Ip - the fawn she raised during the making of Green Mansions:
My reasoning is simple, really: Audrey loved Ip. Audrey also loved chocolate. Therefore, the two are related.
And my reasoning for discussing chocolate is even more simple. Chocolate is sometimes a necessary part of life. Audrey Hepburn was a proponent of this view. Therefore, you should all go and eat some chocolate.
Now that chocolate has been covered, it's time to move on to the second universal topic of this post: new beginnings. An unavoidable part of life, really: things end, things begin, things change.
Grace Kelly embarked on her own new beginning shortly after Easter 1956, when she sailed to Monaco to marry Prince Rainier. She left behind her home, her friends, her family and her career to start what was virtually an entirely new life.
The unknown can be wonderful and terrifying but I believe that to truly live your life, you need to venture out there fairly frequently. Most of my fondest memories and rewarding experiences come from such times.
Whatever you believe or don't believe, I hope this weekend nevertheless marks a new beginning for you. (And for me, come to think of it!) While I doubt any of us are about to sail off to an exotic locale to marry into royalty, I hope we have some sort of exciting new beginning. Whether it's meeting a new person, taking up a new hobby, discovering something new about ourselves, facing one of fears or whatever else.
And while we eat chocolate and have new adventures, I hope we have as much fun as Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly did, raising Ip and sailing off into the sunset (respectively):
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