I Think I've Always Been a Collector

I was born and raised in a village, and stayed there until I was around 13–14 years old. We have farms, open fields and more sky than walls. As a child, I would spend hours walking through those fields — not looking for anything in particular, but somehow always finding something: wild flowers, leaves, stones, odd-shaped pieces of earth that looked different from the rest.

I would come back home holding them tightly in my hands, feeling like I had found something priceless. Not because they were rare, but because I found them. And if I ever came across a stone that looked different — a strange shape, a different texture — it felt like discovering treasure. Something the world had quietly kept aside, and I was lucky enough to notice.

I didn't know it then, but I was learning how to pay attention, how to pause, and how to feel joy in small unnoticed things. That habit stayed with me and it grew quietly without me even realising it.

Now, wherever I travel — especially near the ocean — I find myself doing the same thing. Bending down, looking closely, picking up shells, stones, little fragments of places I've been. Not as souvenirs, but with the same feeling I had as a child: like I've just found something meant for me.

And when I come back home, I don't just store them away. I sit with them and turn them into art. Not something perfect or planned — just arranging, placing, creating, until it feels right.

I think, in a way, nothing has really changed. It's still the same girl walking through fields, finding small things and feeling like she has discovered something priceless. Only now the fields have changed, but the feeling hasn't.