Entries about italy

...the one day in the world when we are formally acknowledged for the toughest, most demanding job there is. I don't think there is any other job that requires this much of your soul, mind, and your heart...at least, I hope not.

This is my own third Mother's Day, and I remember each one, like a badge of congratulations for all I have done for that year. This year takes us from the middle of Italy last May (where I spent last year's Festa Della Momma), through our summer traveling throughout Europe. Mostly full of adventures and new experiences, but also filled with some difficult times trying to figure out where we would end up next, where our next footsteps would take us, and how I would continue to convey consistency and security to my son who was sleeping in a new place every week.

This experience of traveling on the road with a one year old taught me, or I should say reinforced in me, that home is where you are. That life is wherever you are. That the journey is taken day by day. And that doesn't make it insecure or scary. It makes it present. Many people think it's necessary to build a stable foundation of a home, a place, a routine that helps a child feel safe. I thought this too, perhaps from something I had read. I thought it was best to be in the same place day after day. But what I realized from last year of travel is that what is most important to feeling safe and secure the people around you. We found friendships all around us. We found community from town to town, place to place. But wherever we went, we went as a family. The safety and the trust that I was worried about interrupting in my son last year, I actually reinforced and strengthened with our roaming. You know why? I helped him see that where he laid his head did not make his home; wherever we were as a family, that was home. Home is where the people around you, they support you, they surround you with love.

So this year on Mother's Day, I am thankful that I can spend it in such a beautiful place, on Hawaii Island; but more importantly, I am thankful that I can spend it in the comfort of my home, which is my family.