how the day ended in venice

After we toured St. Marco's Square we walked back to our hotel.  Since it was our first full day and we were not accustomed to the walking routes, we got lost. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel to rest and regroup.  That night we took the kids to dinner at a restaurant we had been to years before, a place that served great spaghetti on the Grand Canal.

piazza san marco, part two

Piazza San Marco is a magnificent place of artistic wonder.  We stood there, in the center of the square, taking it all in.  All of the brilliance and beauty and color of a day in June in Venice.  Sky and I took photos. My new lens made a difference in my photography experience, as I remembered the last time I was there.  Now I had closeups.  Annabel watched the musicians.  Shawn's favorite part was the pigeons.  

real time

Man I'm so relieved!  I just found out I don't have jury duty this coming week.  I had gotten out of it so many times over the years, and then recently twice due to travel.  I just assumed that I might be needed.  Still, I was hoping the issue would be settled out of court, and it was.

It's a good thing.  December is a crazy busy time of year for us, especially this year. Sky has applied to three colleges, all ones she loves.  There are perhaps a couple more to apply to, but first we will find out in two weeks if she gets into one she applied for early decision.  She just submitted two of the three applications last night.  We visited one university a week ago.  

Now it's time to work on scholarships.  (Sky likes all private schools, of course).  Did you know there are hundreds of military scholarships?  Most she doesn't qualify for except the one for a grandchild of a Marine.  My dad was a Marine.  Did you know there are scholarships for people who operate ham radios?  There is a scholarship for just about everyone under the sun.   I am working my way through a book of, oh 2695 scholarships.  I am up to #702, which happens to be one for journalists.    

All this focus on academics has gotten me inspired.  I am thinking of applying to graduate school myself, in psychology.  Instead of clinical work, I think I want to do research, and teach.  I am really getting into science.  That combined with my interest in meditation has got me thinking about the science of mindfulness.  Right now I am learning about neuropsychology by watching Ted talks and Youtube videos of scientists and physicians.  I am looking into graduate programs.  I just got six GRE study books from the library.  

I am also trying to find time to continue working on a book about parenting that I started years ago.

Always so much to do.  My son doesn't read my blog so I can say this: I want to get him a robot kit for Christmas.  I prefer to get this vs. the video game he wants.  We got Annabel a bass. And Sky, well I won't say.  She reads this blog. 

I'm so excited to learn again.  To go back to school at my age!!  Science and life experience and the brain and the mind fascinate me, as does the soul.  Recently I talked to an old friend about career options and he urged me to go for what inspires me.  I'm searching for what exactly that is.  I just found out I can become a meditation teacher to teach the technique I practice.  Now that inspires me.          

piazza san marco, part 1

We took a boat from near our hotel to the Piazza San Marco stop.  The crowds were vast on this warm day in June. I enjoyed using my new camera lens, stopping for photos every thirty seconds, slowing down the rest of the family.  The kids' favorite part was feeding the birds. We watched an energetic young woman violinist entertain a crowd gathered eating beautifully presented food on white tablecloths, surrounded by ancient marble carvings of people, frozen in time, watching over us all.  If the marble people could talk, what would they say?   

our first day in venice

After a long flight from New York we stepped off the plane and made our way to a taxi boat.  As we approached Venice, water splashing on both sides of the boat, all the tension from travel began to melt.  We arrived soon thereafter at our hotel, dragging our small suitcases behind us on the bumpy paved street.  One of us had two suitcases for Annabel was holding the instruments that she insisted on bringing on the trip, a guitar and a bass in soft cases.  We walked through the glass doors of our hotel, ready to start our adventures in Italy.  We rested in the room for some time, settling in. Then we took the kids out walking on the streets of Venice, keen to every sight and smell, and found a small restaurant right across from our hotel to eat an early dinner of lasagne, salads and pesto pasta.  The kids got along so well.  A successful first day.      

shawn's heart

Today I was doing my daily meditation.  I usually do it in the morning when the kids are in school, but I had gotten a late start and therefore was in the middle of sitting in silence when Shawn came home from school at three o'clock.  He opened the door and came into my room quietly, slipped a single pear slice into my opened hand, patted me on the head, kissed my cheek, and tiptoed out of the room. He has never done this before.

Earlier today I found my old resume, or Curriculum Vitae (CV) as I was told to create (more intellectual). The CV was on paper -- creme colored, thicker than the typical piece, with a little texture.  Even back then I was recycling, because the CV was actually on the back of an old handwritten presentation I used to do about art and dissociative identity disorder, research I did in graduate school many years ago. I looked the CV over, pleased to have found it, as I have been thinking a lot about a question that used to be of utmost importance to me in my younger years and is only recently coming back to visit me...

What am I going to do when I grow up?

I thought today about my past professional work experience, how I left a prestigious full-time art therapy job in Washington DC behind to start a new life in California; I was young, energetic, full of hope at the age of twenty-six.  How I found odd jobs at that juncture in my life, and did many presentations for free in California, trying to get my foot in the door of something new.  How the best I came up with was a job as a part time art therapist/part time psych tech in a psychiatric hospital, after teaching one course at a small local university.  This and teaching gymnastics and art classes kept me busy until I welcomed my first child into the world.

I thought about how inspiring it was a few months ago for me to see my brother do a presentation of his work. This is the brother who is a physician that does research, teaches medical students, and runs an ICU all with finesse and class and heart.  This is the brother who due to his own conviction has been to Haiti several times to help save lives of people traumatized by the 2010 earthquake, because he was asked.  This is the brother who saved the life of a little girl with a lung infection when doctors in Haiti could not help her.  He found two doctors in Chicago willing to bring their own equipment to do the risky surgery after several Haitian doctors had failed, and a person in the community was so touched by the story that he paid for all of their flights.

As I thought about my CV, a bit yellowed with age and untouched for so long, I asked myself what can I add to this?  What work have I done in the last twenty years while raising my kids?  I did help edit a book for a couple of years.  It has yet to be published.  It awaits my attention, and will take time.  But this is time I do not have right now.  I volunteer as a treasurer for a local humanitarian group.  Can I put that on my CV?  And I did help Gary and the girls with music promotion, and still do.  Do I put this on my resume to fill up the space for the last twenty years, I wondered?

But when Shawn came to me and slipped that pear slice in my hand, that little quiet gesture, I realized that I have done work that doesn't go on a resume, or a CV, but nonetheless is incredibly valuable.  In that moment I realized I have been doing a good job at my job.  And the rest will unfold as it is meant to.                      

it was a great summer

Like I said, the summer started out well.  After LA, our second stop was New York. There was a reunion of almost all my siblings at my parents' home.  We celebrated father's day with the multiple generations.  My younger brother set my parents up with a new high tech stereo system.  We talked my mom into considering giving up her flip cell phone for an iPhone.  She began to consider.  My rock star sister, the queen of domesticity (who is also a college professor), made the awesome cakes.

more new york summertime

Family dinners, computer repairs, church on father's day, outdoor impromptu concerts with all of the cousins singing.  These were some of the things we did this summer with my family.