Tag: travel

New Start Friday

Credit: Refinery29

Hi, friends and readers!!! I’m back. I’ve missed you, and writing the Adulting-Second Half blog, so, so much. But I just came back from a wonderful trip to London and other parts of England. (My husband and I just had to check up on our daughter who is studying there this summer. We knew that she missed us. Ha!) I had never been to England before, and I was so utterly pleased with what I experienced. I am not a city dweller. I love nature. I like to call myself “Snow White.” But if I had to live in a city, London is the most liveable city that I have ever travelled to, and I have been fortunate enough to have visited many cities in our own country, and abroad.

But before I bore you to death with my trip details, I do realize that this is Friday and it is a good one!! It’s the New Moon. We are officially, fresh-starting the second half of the year. What do you want for the rest of this year? It’s a perfect time to reflect, get your thoughts down in writing, and start taking steps towards what you want. My first half of the year has been amazing – chock full of adventures, travel, visits with family and friends, weddings, the birthday clump of our family members, holidays etc. etc. Honestly, it’s been delightful, but it’s also been a lot. I like the second half of the year because things don’t get too drummed up for our family, until the holidays at the end of the year. Things in my life never seem as frenzied during the second half of the year. I like spontaneity and the second half of the year seems to allow for more of it. But, I digress. . . . today is Favorite Things Friday on the blog!! Today my favorite is packing cubes. I had never used these before in my travels, but my daughter insisted that they make a huge difference in utilizing space in your luggage. I purchased a soft set of about seven packing cubes for this trip, and while I’ve never been good about rolling up my stuff like little sushi rolls (my husband, being a long-time military brat, is a master at this), I loved how organized these cubes kept my stuff. My tops were with my tops. My bottoms were with my bottoms. My hair stuff was all together and easily found. My suitcase was no longer the jack-in-the-box jumble that it usually is, when I am travelling. If you have never tried packing cubes, I highly recommend giving them a try.

Okay, for those of you who want my reflections on London and other parts of England, here they are, in no particular order:

+ England has excellent food. It is a mistaken thought that the only thing good to eat in England is fish and chips. (although, I had fish and chips and it was yummy) I had incredible food including delicious steak ale pies, delectable sandwiches, fantastic Indian food, superfresh and colorful greens and fruits and desserts from Borough Market . . . now you may think, “Well yes, you were in a major city in the world. There is competition and variety,” but I will tell you that the best food that I had on my trip was in a tiny pub, out in the country, near Salisbury, England. We had “Sunday Roast” there which was like a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. You could choose beef or chicken or steak pie, and then on top of each of these was a huge Yorkshire Pudding. Yorkshire Pudding was maybe my favorite item that I ate the whole time I was in England. Yorkshire Pudding is a delightful, doughy cloud that you dip in gravy. I adore it!

+ I kept describing London as the most “wholesome” city I have ever been to, and we went all over London. My husband and I averaged walking about 20,000 steps a day. (my kids were never a fan of our style of vacationing. “Some people like to relax on vacation,” was something which we often heard muttered by one, or by all four of our children, on our various vacations) London has wide streets, lower buildings, less traffic (the London Underground is safe, easy to navigate, quiet, and reliable – we took it everywhere), and lots of green spaces. The people are reserved, but kind and polite and eager to help you. It’s a wonderful place for “eye candy”: beautiful historic cathedrals and buildings, colorful flowers outside of every pub, gorgeous, multicultural people with smart, dressed-up, intriguing style. In short, London is everything it’s cracked up to be.

+ My husband and I saw King Charles being driven out of Buckingham Palace, quite by chance. We noticed that the gates to the palace had been opened, and a crowd was gathering around the road by the gates. My husband and I were curious, but having it be our first day in London, we instead decided to meander over to the fountain in front of the palace to see it more closely. The next thing we knew, a police officer stopped traffic on the road, just a few feet away from us, and a luxurious black car drove by with the white-haired king sitting in the back, his fingers in front of his body, held in a position, much like when you were a kid and you were playing, “Here is the church, Here is the steeple”. His fingers were in “steeple position.”

+ We toured St. Paul’s Cathedral, The British Museum, Southwark Cathedral, The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. All were interesting. I particularly liked the smaller Southwark Cathedral where Shakespeare is said to have spent a lot of time and I delighted in having the proper English afternoon tea experience (with a three stack tower of treats) at The British Museum while my husband satiated himself in Egyptian history. While all of the buildings and their historical significance were incredible, it struck me that Westminster Abbey was essentially an extremely enormous fancy mausoleum. And having spent most of our time in The British Museum staring at mummies and sarcophaguses from Egyptian tombs, it struck me that it is kind of sad and egotistical that many of the wealthy humans of our past were so fixated on the afterlife, and of being remembered by future people. (other than major historical figures and writers buried in Westminster Abbey, I knew very few of the names nor the significance of the people buried there) I honestly found the experience to be an excellent reminder that life on earth is NOW. And as happens on all of my travels, I was sincerely amazed how many millions of different people I was witnessing every day, all over just one city, on our great big Earth. (and as happens on all of my travels, there were plenty of Americans afoot. You just can’t escape us. There is a line from a song, whose band and name escapes me now, where the singer dejectedly and flatly states, “Oh, you’re all still here.” That line played in my mind a few times on this trip.) Anyway, what I felt deeply reminded of, when I reflected on all of the carefully planned, and elaborately and expensively made “death artifacts” is that our life’s experience is really mostly just consequential to ourselves, and to the few people in our inner circle. This realization is freeing. Stop focusing on making an impression on other people. Just be yourself, and be kind, and live each precious moment of your life fully and consciously. Don’t fear death. Focus on living your life.

+ My favorite part of the trip was being with family whom we don’t get to see often at all. (it’s hard, living across the pond, and all) They live by the sea in England, and we took a train out to see them, and even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, the love flowed fervently. We even met children that we had never met before and by the end of the night, we were all hugging and professing our love for each other. We “saw” each other. There is something so special and uncanny about “the family bond.” We even all went to Stonehenge together and I had honestly expected that to be the most spiritual experience of my trip. But it wasn’t. The most spiritual part of the trip wasn’t the cathedrals, nor the choirs singing in chapels, nor the mysterious giant rocks of Stonehenge. The most spiritual part of my trip was a reminder of just how beautiful and strong the elastic bonds of love, hold us all together. Great, loving arms enfold us all. This I know.

It’s great to be back. I love you. I missed you. See you tomorrow!!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1488. Do you prefer sporty or academic members of the opposite sex? (Lucky for me, my husband is both.)

Field Notes

Hi friends. I missed you. I just got back home from my trip after midnight last night. My husband and I were travelling all through Belgium, which is six hours ahead of us on the East coast, so to say that I’m exhausted and out of sorts, is an understatement. Still, I feel the magnetic pull to come to my precious blog, so here I am (still in my robe, most of my stuff unpacked, two loads of laundry under our belts, and lots of loving on our three elated-to-see-us doggies). We chose to go to Belgium because my husband is a huge cycling enthusiast and having watched many European bike races on television throughout the years, he decided that he had to see one in person. When he mentioned going to Belgium, all that I could think of was chocolate, french fries, and waffles. It wasn’t hard to convince me to go. And it was wonderful (especially the chocolate, french fries and waffles.) Here are some of my travel notes:

+ Belgium is a European country about the size of Vermont. For the first time, we rented a car in Europe versus taking the trains. It was so fun and interesting to do it this way. It made me feel more immersed and less touristy than I ever have felt in a foreign country. It was fascinating. Belgium seems to be a microcosm of bigger countries much like the USA. We went to Brussels, but also to other northern cities like Antwerp, and Ghent and the medieval village of Bruges. The northern part of Belgium is highly Dutch influenced, and the people mostly all speak English. The southern parts of Belgium, particularly in Wallonia, are highly influenced by the French, and much fewer people speak English there. The architecture also was notably different as we travelled south, with the northern Dutch buildings and houses being much more ornate. The habits and traditions of the people were markedly different, as well. I suppose ever country has its own version of “the north and the south.”

We spent a lovely night in a teeny, beautiful, mountain town in what is called one of the smallest cities in the world – Durbuy, Belgium, before heading to the town of Huy, where the final finishing stage of the professional cycling race called the La Flèche Wallonne takes place. The cyclists have to climb the Mur de Huy (translation – Wall of Huy) three times to finish the race. The Wall of Huy is a hill with the average gradient of 9.7 degrees although some parts of it, are 26 degrees steep (that’s STEEP). This final climb on the Mur de Huy is after the cyclists have already ridden for miles all day, and also, for many days previous (for instance, the Tour de France lasts 23 or 24 days). Cyclists are tremendously strong, gritty, resilient athletes. What started out as a nice sunny spring race day, ended up being a cold, wet, 40 degree day, with rain, sleet, snow and hail and lots of mud. It was brutal and grueling for the cyclists. Over forty of them had to drop out of the race. It was brutal and grueling for this Florida girl (who is used to sun, heat and no hills) to walk up the “Wall of Huy”, in totally non-waterproof attire, to be a witness to the finish, but my husband was in his own special heaven, and I got a lot of “good wife/friend/partner” points for being a good sport about it all. Honestly, it was thrilling and fun to see the long-standing traditions that go along with the spectator sport of professional cycling, such as the cycling teams’ travel cars throwing candy and hats out to the crowds along the way, and people loudly yelling “Alle! Alle! Alle!” which means “Go! Go! Go!” to the passing cyclists, all the while as the spectators pounded furiously on the boards of the flimsy gates, which only keep spectators slightly apart from the cyclists riding on the road. I had never before witnessed anything like this in person. It was a truly, memorable experience and retrospectively, the dramatic weather changes made it an even more interesting event, and a fun memory forever.

+ As you can imagine, the biggest American imports in Belgium are McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King and Coca-Cola. They do fine with their own brands of beer (we saw the monastery in Dinant where they still produce Leffe beer, which first started being brewed in 1240 A.D.). When we travel, we try to avoid these American staples as much as we possibly can (one time in Austria, we saw an embarrassing display of crappy processed foods like hot dogs, peanut butter and marshmallows, in a grocery store under a huge red, white and blue display sign that said, TASTE OF AMERICA), but this time, when we were travelling between towns, we were starved, and a McDonalds was our only fast option. Interestingly, this Belgian McDonalds sold chicken wings, and burgers with upgraded bakery buns and unusual cheeses. They did not have any ketchup or mustard to offer to us. The Belgians love their mayonnaise for their fries, and there was a curry sauce for the chicken nuggets. Honestly, it could have been because we were starved, but this was truly one of the best McDonalds meals I have ever eaten.

+ Speaking of Americans, I have to give us wonderful Americans a huge shout out. One of our servers, after the bike race, said emphatically, that Americans are the nicest tourists that come to his country (Australians are a close second), and we experienced this first hand. As we were getting on to the first leg of our three plane rides home (Brussels to London), the carry-on luggage space was all filled up. (My husband and I only brought carry-on luggage for this particular trip, because we had several flight stops, and we knew that we would be travelling all over the country. We could not afford to lose our luggage.) So the flight attendants were telling my husband and I, another American woman (who had paid extra, for guaranteed carry-on availability) and a man from another country, that we would all have to check our luggage, all the way through to our final destinations. We were sick about this, as we had valuables and souvenirs, and we had all packed our things like medicine, and whatnot, like we would be able to easily access it. And of course, we did not expect to see our luggage ever again, if we had to check it all the way through like this, right at the door of the airplane, in a foreign country. Needless to say, the other passengers were not thrilled with the hold-up either, as we all waited for our luggage to be taken by the airline’s authorities. The flight attendants worked fervently to make room for two bags, but ours were still needing to be checked. The sympathetic baggage attendant suggested that we ask for volunteers from other passengers whose final destination was to London, to check their bags instead. At first, no one offered to do this when the flight attendant made the pleading request in an announcement. All of the sudden though, two gracious American women, a mother and a daughter, offered to check their bags and thus, we were able to keep our luggage with us. These wonderful women wouldn’t even accept lunch/Starbucks money from us, as a token for their kindness. If ever I have felt a duty to pay a kindness forward, it is now. If I were in their shoes, I’m not sure that I would have done the same thing. But now I will (I suppose this is how kindness spreads.) I was so completely and utterly grateful to these women, but truthfully, also so very proud, and yet not really surprised that they were generous, kind, empathetic Americans.

+ My favorite story of the trip was when we spotted a boutique in the Sablon area of Brussels called 29th/October. This is my husband’s and my wedding anniversary date. We will be happily married for 30 years, this October. I had to go in and get a souvenir. It felt like kismet! Well, the story gets even better, because as I went to purchase the bracelet which I carefully picked out, I was waited on by the owner of the shop, who was a young woman who was also the artist who had created my bracelet. It is signed by her. And she was overjoyed to hear that October 29th was our anniversary, as she loudly called her mother (who was helping in the shop) over to meet us. It turns out that October 29th was named after her parents’ wedding date, and this young woman was one of their four children. (We have four adult children, too!) These kinds of stories are what make me the happiest. Goosebumps, for sure.

+ What I love most about travel is the humbling perspective it gives to you. We are all just one teeny, weeny part of this whole thing that we call Life. I felt like I saw millions and millions of people as I travelled around in one small country, on one of our smallest continents. When I purchased a candle made by a wife of a supposedly extremely famous celebrity in Belgium, the clerk was shocked that I had never heard of these people. One night, as we exhaustedly laid in our hotel bed and flipped through the TV shows (all French), it was funny to see a version of our HGTV show, House Hunters. If you think our kitchens are outdated, you should see some of these European houses’ kitchens that looked they could have been over a hundred years old!! There was also a show that appeared to be like Survivor, but it took place in castles, and the contestants were called traitors. I suppose what I am trying to say, is that the world isn’t all about ‘us’ – not even close. But I actually find this to be a relieving and comforting thought. Perhaps if we just trust Life, enjoy our experience of it all, and be truly engaged with our experiences, and then try to be kind, and leave mostly good along our way, I really believe that’s all that we need to do, or are meant to do. It really is that simple. I am also astonished, as I travelled around one small country, on one of our smallest continents, how much beautiful countryside still exists everywhere. My husband and I drove through miles and miles of gorgeous country fields dotted with patches of brilliant yellow rapeseed (an unfortunate name for a beautiful flower) and enjoyed standing under enormous trees in Bruges that had to have been hundreds of years old (despite the common Belgian custom of pollarding, which is to constantly prune the trees so that they stay in their adolescent stage – must we really project our fear of aging on to the trees?!?). We still have a lot of natural beauty and abundance all over this planet. Nature is honestly usually the most astonishingly beautiful thing that I ever witness on any of my trips, even after witnessing unbelievably grand works of architecture and art. I went up to one big tree in a field in Bruges and the first thing that I noticed on the tree’s enormous girth, was a tiny red ladybug. Both the colossal tree and the teeny insect have their own place, and their own experience on this Earth, and they seem to know to savor the experience and to blissfully share it with each other. Perhaps part of their experience on this Earth, is to serve as pure examples of peaceful, beautiful, trusting beings which remind us to be the same way.

+ And a bonus favorite, since I missed Favorite Things Friday, yesterday: Despite watching a few movies on my flights that left me wondering why anyone even thought that these particular movies should have ever been made (I nickname these types of movies, “This Just Has To Get Better at Some Point, Right???” movies), I did enjoy a gem. Watch Jules. It was one of the sweetest, most heartfelt, amusing movies I have seen in a long, long while.

It’s good to be back, friends. There really is no place like home! Thank you for staying with me during my break from writing, and thank you for indulging me with my “field notes”. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1699. What is the last song you danced to?

Bonus Day

Hi. Happy last day of February! Even with the special bonus day, February seemed to cruise along a lot faster than January did, right?? We are one sixth of the way through 2024. How is it going for you?

I’m exhausted, and yet exhilarated and rejuvenated, all at the same time. That’s typically my experience with travel. There are very few experiences that deplete you and energize you, all at the same time. Giving birth and perhaps running a marathon (although I wouldn’t know anything about long distance running. I won’t run to my mailbox) are the only other experiences that I can think of, off the top of my head, that could fall into this same category. I suppose winning an Olympic medal would be the extreme example of instantaneous exhilaration and exhaustion, but again, that is way out of my level of expertise.

When you add new experiences to your life, you add new layers to yourself. And some of your other layers get sort of reorganized with perspective changes, as new information gets assimilated into your being. Travel changes you. Travel expands you. I rode in a helicopter for the first time in my life this past week. My late uncle and my sister-in-law were military helicopter pilots and they always spoke so fondly of the specialness of flying in helicopters. I totally get it now. It was incredibly thrilling. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget.

Give yourself new experiences every day. You don’t have to travel far to try a new coffee flavor, drive a new way to work or to school, talk to someone whom you have never met, read a book that isn’t your usual genre choice . . . . The expansion of yourself from your experiences is really the point of “it all”, isn’t it? At the very least, expanding yourself is deliciously exhausting and invigorating, all at the same time.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1547. What gives you zest for life?

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. I’m leaving on another little adventure. I may write every day, or I may not. (I’ll keep you posted. 😉 ) At the very least, I’ll be back in full form by the end of the week. Sundays are devoted to poetry. Today, I felt a little “rhyme-y”. Write a poem today, just because you can . . . . Here is my poem for the day:

There is nothing that will make you feel more like a child,

Bringing you back to your natural whimsy and wild,

Than planning a trip, an adventure, an impromptu lark,

And feeling the giddy frenzy right before you embark.

Perhaps the most exciting trip anyone of us has every planned,

Was the one that we have right here, in this place, in our hand.

Life is a journey that sometimes feels long and banal,

But if we look at it closely, its length is quite small.

So open each day with the thrill of the new,

Unpack all of your baggage, and enjoy and pursue.

Make the most of your days, as if they were your vacation.

Before you know it, your adventure will reach its culmination.

Every exciting experience always ends, this we know,

So, in the meantime, make it amazing, every inch that you go.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

624. What word or phrase do you use too much?

Courage/Stupidity

“Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. That is why life is hard. . . . . .What is the difference between courage and stupidity in your life? A big part of adulting is not crossing the line where your rebelliousness turns into recklessness. The people who ride this line most gracefully usually have a clear eye on their values and a good friend or two who will tell them when they’re being a dumbass. If you can’t decide if you’re being brave or stupid, call a friend.” _ from the Spiritual AF inspirational deck by Roxan McDonald

Earlier this year, I reluctantly agreed to a plan to go on a trip to Egypt with my husband, this upcoming spring. Visiting Egypt is one of my husband’s biggest dreams for a long time now and although I was nervous and not nearly as intrigued as he is with Egypt, I decided that I should muster up my courage and support him and get excited about sharing another wonderful adventure with him. I spoke at length with a sensible friend who had recently traveled to Israel, and she encouraged me to go. At that time, I think that I was choosing to be courageous, and it seemed to me, at that time, that the benefits of the trip certainly outweighed the risks. Egypt might not have seemed like the most safe place in the world for us to visit, but in light of all of the random shootings which we have here in America, “safe” is a relative term.

However, considering the terrifying events of this past weekend, we have cancelled our plans to travel to Egypt this spring. At this point, courage to go there, clearly seems to me, to be veering far more into the realm of recklessness. At my age, recklessness does not appeal to me at all. It goes without saying, that my sensible friend would most likely agree with our decision to not go, in light of the new information about the particularly unstable, worrisome and devastatingly sad circumstances happening in the Middle East.

I love what Roxan McDonald has to say about the fine line between courage and stupidity. This line gets particularly muddled when strong emotions come into play. That is why it is always helpful to have people whom you trust in your life, to be your sounding boards, and your helpful “voices of reason.” In the end, the final decision is totally yours, as it should be, but it is so good to have other people in your life, whom you deeply trust and who have no other stake in the game, other than the fact that they care about you. These people can help you to clear your vision and to see perspectives that you may not have considered, because your decision making process is already clouded by your own preconceptions and heavy emotions. These sounding boards in your life, also help you to get clear on your own desires and inclinations. If you find yourself strongly protesting and arguing against what they advise, this at least, gives you a clear idea of how you really feel about something and what you, yourself truly wants to do. (It’s like that old, wise adage of flipping a coin to make a decision, and then noticing how you are secretly hoping for how the coin will land, while the coin is still up in the air.)

I believe that my husband and I will visit Egypt one day. (Of course, right now my deepest wish is for a peace and comfort for all of the innocent people who are experiencing so much pain and loss in this horrific trauma, and in other traumas happening all over our world. War is hell.) I also know that this time period is not the time for us to go there. At the very least, my level of anxiety would make it impossible for me (and thus, for my husband) to enjoy ourselves and immerse ourselves in the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

There are no perfect answers and decisions about anything in life. These answers and decisions are as unique and personal, as is each individual person and all of the mitigating circumstances surrounding each person. One person’s courageousness is another person’s stupidity. In the end, though, it always comes back to learning to trust one’s self. You have all of the answers that you need inside of yourself. Sometimes you just need a little help excavating those innate answers, and that is one of the beautiful blessings of having each other.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Highlights and Reflections

++++In my experience, what Europeans do best is that they linger, they savor, they relish . . . they absolutely luxuriate in their moments. The Europeans seem to realize that the flourishes and details are what makes life so delightful and meaningful. When my husband and I eagerly purchased several pastries from a bakery in Rome and I mentioned that I needed them to-go, I was so utterly amazed and enchanted, when we got back to our hotel room, to find out that our delicacies had been carefully wrapped up like a gift, tied up in bright red wrapping paper and a pretty gold ribbon. It was a poignant reminder that we can always give ourselves little gifts throughout our days, and that our every days carry so many precious gifts with them, if we take the time to unwrap our precious moments. Perhaps by carefully wrapping up our delicacies, the bakers were saying, “Slow down. Notice and savor what you are about to experience. Unwrap it intentionally and carefully. Appreciate the many parcels of beauty, and joy, and sensations that you get to partake in, every single day of your life. Be thankful for your many, many beautiful gifts, large and small.”

++++My husband and I are not typically “tour people.” We are both independent, stubborn, reluctant to take orders, and a tad manic when we are on our adventures. In this past trip to Italy, we averaged walking over 20,000 steps a day. (Our children have lamented to us, more than once, “Some people like to relax on their vacations.”) However, our well-experienced travel agent insisted that we had to take a few guided tours in order to get into the sites which we wanted to see, in an efficient, “inside scoop” sort of a way. And so we agreed to take a tour of the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica, and the museum that houses Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “David”, and a few other short, “required” tours. (The statue of David was, surprisingly to me, enormous – in most regards. Ahem. “David” is almost 17 feet tall!!) Our tour guides were a colorful bunch and quite proud of their profession. They were all multi-lingual and apparently, tour guides in Italy are required to take six different tests in order to achieve their touring licenses. The “tour guides” were distinguished from our “tour leaders” and “drivers” whose main job was just to shuffle us along, and to make sure that no one got lost. Apparently “tour leaders” can get fined thousands of dollars if they offer up any information about different sites, as that is a job which is entirely devoted to the highly adept “tour guides.” Our first tour guide (in Rome, a tour of the Coliseum) was a lovely young woman, who unfortunately, I cannot remember her name. She was beautiful and proud of her Roman heritage and had one small tattoo of some artwork that her two children had created. She was enchanting and dedicated to giving us a thorough history lesson. Another tour guide was Larisa, in Florence, who was highly dramatic, artistically snobby, and animated in a Jessica Rabbit sort of a way. Larisa was utterly horrified when I touched the “lucky boar” in the center of the city. “Don’t touch it!” she exclaimed with her dramatic flair, nose up in the air. “It’s full of bacteria. A true Florentine would never touch it!”

“I’m not Florentine. I’m an American tourist. I’m touching it,” I said, staring back at her, like a defiant child. (Larisa didn’t know me well enough to know that I am willing to put my life at risk for anything considered “lucky”. I will, without hesitation, stop traffic in order to pick up a lucky penny.)

Our most interesting tour guide was in Sienna. He was “Uncle Paulo”, an older, elegantly dressed man (the theme of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, “Arrogantly Shabby” comes to mind when I think of Uncle Paulo) who made his opinions about everything and everyone be known. He didn’t care for modern buildings, modern art, scantily dressed women (“Practically naked, can you imagine?!), nor dancing children (“I hope that they are teaching those children to learn, and not to just dance!”). Everything that disgusted him, he would declare and then for extra flourish, add the question, “Can you imagine?!?” So, how the tour ended, was something that we will never forget, nor will Uncle Paolo. A proud man, Uncle Paulo wanted to keep the tour efficiently on time, so he decided to take us on a short cut through a park, which happened to be hosting a bike race. He had wrongly assumed that the bike race would be over, but it wasn’t. So Uncle Paulo had to shuffle us through a bike race, where only a couple of us at a time, would duck under the safety ribbon, run across the street, right after a motorcycle had passed, indicating the last racer of that particular racing heat. When we all finally and safely, yet a little ruffled and harried and full of nervous giggles, reconvened at our tour bus, Uncle Paulo was obviously deeply chagrined. “This is quite possibly the worst mistake of my life! Can you imagine?!?”

I felt sorry for him. We all did. We all reassured Uncle Paulo that these are the stories that make a vacation. These little “snafus” are the things that you remember with a smile on your face, once you’ve survived them, and they are happily in your past. (I’ll save the story for another blog post in which my husband purposely bought an unusually green colored piece of luggage, specifically for this particular trip, only to have accidentally picked up the wrong piece of luggage when we arrived in Rome. It turns out that my husband picked up the suitcase belonging to a young Texan, who had also purposefully purchased the same unusual green colored, piece of luggage for his trip to Italy. These are the stories that make our trips and experiences so memorable and amusing and idiosyncratic to each of us, for years to come. Can you imagine?!)

++++I am, I realize, unfortunately American-centric, and I noticed in myself, complete surprise when I noticed Italian people with Down Syndrome or other conditions. I had to giggle at myself, to notice that I seemed to think that somehow all human experiences were somehow limited to just us Americans. I was deeply moved when were sitting in an outdoor cafe in Rome, having dinner next to a beautiful Roman family, whom I won’t soon forget. They were a young couple, with a beautiful little girl. The husband was so attentive to his little child and also to his lovely wife, who was in a wheelchair and was making constant involuntary movements and sounds. I don’t know what her affliction was exactly, but it rendered her completely dependent on her loving husband and unable to care for her little girl, as I am sure she wished that she could. The husband affectionately fed his wife dessert, and gently wiped her mouth after each bite. I found myself praying for this lovely family, and being in awe of them, all at once, in a constant stream of emotion. They were so young to be dealing with what they were experiencing, and yet they were so brave, and resilient, and determined to make the most of the moment. It was one of the moments when the Universe was giving me a reminder lesson that “the human spirit” is a Universal thing which resides in all of our bodies, no matter the race, religion, ethnicity, or condition that our individual bodies are currently in.

++++We were picked up in a car outside of our hotel by the tour company who was going to take us through the Vatican City, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica (which is also unbelievably enormous – it could house more than two American football fields). We were told that we had to pick up one other family on the way, and we arrived outside of a hotel where a lovely Chilean woman and her daughter jumped into the car, giggling at the husband/father who was running towards the car from the sidewalk. He was a lovably rumpled middle-aged man, whose glasses were missing one of their arms, making his glasses perch, perilously and crookedly, at the end of his nose. The Chilean family were delightful and I felt an instant kinship to them. The husband was a lawyer, the wife had raised their four children (just like me!), and their 19-year-old daughter, a graceful young woman, was the youngest of their four children and the only girl. (just like us!) The mother and I bonded easily. She had a no-nonsense, intelligent sense of humor and a twinkle in her eyes. So, I was taken off guard, when telling each other about our children, that she mentioned that one of her sons had died. That’s when the sparkle in her eyes faded, but the beauty of her vulnerable soul still glowed.

We met Mohammed, our guide for the Vatican experience (he was the first to admit the irony of it all, being a man of Middle Eastern descent, who reminded me of a younger version of the game show host, Bob Barker), at a cafe which was below ground. As we were shuffled down the stairs, my Chilean friend, giggled, grabbed my arm, and suggested that perhaps we were being kidnapped, and that’s when my stomach turned a little, considering the idea of that perhaps not-too-far-out-of-the-realm possibility. It turned out that Mohammed was an excellent guide, with a lot of connections, so we got to see quite a bit of everything, in all of the right places and at all of the right times. When we got to the Pietà, Michelangelo’s masterpiece of Mary, holding the body of Jesus, who had just been removed from the cross, I was instantly moved to tears and I was entirely entranced for a period which felt eternal and timeless. I have honestly never seen a more beautiful work of art in my lifetime. When I turned to exclaim and share my unbelievable flow of emotion and excitement to my newfound Chilean soul sister, I noticed that she was no longer nearby, nor with our group. She was far away in a corner, and she was sort of crumpled, and small, and dark, and sad. I walked back to her, and I put my arm around her. I had no words. But I purely understand the universalness of a mother’s heart. It is amazing to me that Michelangelo was able to capture the intensity and emotion of a mother’s broken heart, forever in a slab of marble. He captured the vulnerable, defenseless, yet still armored, resilient, purposeful heart of a mother, to the point that I have no doubts that the Pietà must be nothing but Divine.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

On the Road Again

Before writing this post, I went to Twitter and I looked up “Southwest” expecting to find some really funny, snarky memes that I planned to share on the blog. Instead, the first and most popular tweet that I saw was a suggested act of kindness. The tweet asked people who were stranded at airports to go to baggage claim where baggage is piling up, and to call people using their luggage tag information, to let them know which airport their luggage was currently in. The holiday spirit is still alive and well and prevailing, it seems.

My own family is starting our 16+ hour road trip back home this afternoon. For the first time in a long time, I won’t likely be publishing my daily blog for the next couple of days. (I am not skilled/talented enough to write this blog from my phone.) I am so eager to get home and back to my regular routine. Have a wonderful rest of your week. I hope to be back to writing the blog by this weekend.

By the way, I did scroll down and find more tweets (if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry):

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Invitation

Good morning. This is travel home day, so I don’t have a long time to write like I usually have on Tuesdays. That is the beauty of travel, it opens up your inner and outer landscapes, but it also makes you appreciate the wonders and comforts of home.

More than many times on this trip, I felt thankful. I felt thankful for full flights, and for being on crowded shuttle busses, and I felt thankful for waiting in long lines at national sites. I felt thankful for crowds, and I am not one who generally likes crowds. I mostly felt thankful that we all felt safe to be fully alive again, after the scourge of the pandemic. There are silver linings to everything, and these silver linings are often painted by a brushful of gratitude.

I typically save poems that I like for Sundays, but I will share this one today, so that you don’t feel cheated by a short blog post. It was by the elevators in one of the places we stayed in this weekend. I think that it is a lovely, soulful poem.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

When I travel, I enjoy seeing historic buildings and unusual terrain. I love partaking in different kinds of food and celebrations. I get inspired by clothing styles which are unique to an area. I am amazed at all of the landscapes and creatures which are different than what I am used to seeing. I love experiencing an overall ambience that is entirely unique to itself. I suppose I would say I like to get to know the rhythm and the poetry of where I am staying. Every place has its perfect poetry embedded in its DNA. Here is a poem which was left on a card at one of the lovely places we have stayed in on this current trip. It was meant for Soul Sunday, the day devoted to poetry on the blog.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is the music and mystery of our hearts. Lately I have been publishing other people’s poetry. With our daughter, who is the youngest of our four children, about to graduate from high school next week, I’ve been keeping the box around my heart, a little more tightly locked. I find poetry to be the most emotional form of writing and I’m not quite ready to unlock the box and let my emotions flow out torrentially, just quite yet. So instead, in the spirit of being on our road trip, I looked up poems about travel and I really liked this one:

Enjoy a beautiful Sunday, friends! Live the poetry of your heart.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.