A Few Things That Shaped Me

I’ve spent most of my life moving between worlds. Languages. Tastes. Ways of seeing. I don’t think that was a conscious choice at first, but over time I’ve come to recognise it as a pattern rather than a detour.

Some of that began early. I grew up bilingual in a household where French lived at school and English lived at home. I was fluent in one language where no one else was, and immersed in another where I wasn’t allowed to use English at all. It taught me, quietly and early, that meaning depends on context, and that listening matters as much as speaking.

That sense of being slightly between things followed me into adolescence. I was a contrary teenager in the most predictable way. When everyone around me was drawn to the polish of 80s pop, I veered towards rock, punk, goth, and indie instead. Music became a way of staking out who I was not, long before I understood who I was. Looking back, I can see how taste becomes identity when you’re young. How choosing differently can feel like survival rather than preference.

Life didn’t move in a straight line after that. I took circuitous routes, made sensible decisions that didn’t always fit, and ignored good advice until I was finally ready to hear it. My mother, a writer herself, encouraged me to find my own path. It took me years to understand what that actually meant. When I did, it wasn’t dramatic. It was more like a door quietly opening and staying open.

There are harder parts of my story too. Both of my parents lived fast and died young. Addiction ran through their families, and its consequences shaped my early adulthood in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. I was angry for a long while. Now, I see those experiences less as defining scars and more as formative pressures. They taught me empathy, self-reliance, and a deep appreciation for softness where it’s available.

Food became one of those soft places. I’ve been vegetarian on and off since my teens, but labels have never mattered much to me. I love cooking. I love feeding people. Kitchens are where I think best, write most freely, and feel most at ease. Travelling through France, eating slowly and well, remains one of my great joys. Creativity often starts there for me, among heat, noise, and small rituals.

Another place that shaped me profoundly was Japan. I lived in Tokyo for a time, fully immersed in the strange clarity of being both invisible and intensely aware. It was exhilarating and disorienting in equal measure. I fell in love with the culture, the rhythm of daily life, the attention to detail. I also got engaged in a nightclub sushi bar, which probably tells you everything you need to know. I would live there again in a heartbeat.

Games have been part of my life for just as long. I’ve been drawn to them since the early 1990s, not only for play but for their systems, worlds, and aesthetics. I’m fascinated by how they’re built, how they invite exploration, how they hold attention. I don’t always have as much time to play as I’d like, but the impulse hasn’t gone anywhere. Games, like films and books, are places I go to think and feel differently.

If there’s a thread running through all of this, it’s curiosity. A willingness to revise my opinions. A tendency to circle back to things I once dismissed and see them anew. I’m interested in what happens when we slow down, pay attention, and allow ourselves to be surprised.

Sianya.tv grew out of that impulse. It’s a place to sit with media, memory, and process. To notice what moves me, what resists me, and why. Not everything here will be polished. Not everything will be for everyone. That’s part of the point.

I’m less interested in having the right answers than in staying open to better questions.