Horizons

"Now, bring me that horizon"- Johnny Depp

I remember photo albums when I was little...that's the joke "photo albums"... no-one does photo albums anymore. I asked my sister in law to see my nieces' 'baby books' and she held up her phone. "There ya have it", she said; "It's all in there". It's all in the imaginary 'cloud'. There is something about holding a photo album and holding a piece of history in your hands; the touch; the ability to stick it on the fridge; the 'realness' of it. I have closets full of albums. They ARE slightly a hassle, as designated linen closets become filled with memory books. Hoarder status activated. 

I remember, when I was young, seeing books filled with women, and eventually learned were my Aunt and Grandmother, in far away lands...in row boats or fishing or glamorously laying on a beach chair... I would look at these photos and think how strange it was that my Aunt and Grandmother had a 'previous life' before the one filled with, well, 'grandma things'...like cooking and sewing and babysitting. The black and white images were magical and I am sure were much more, so much more, when experienced in color. Need to interject a funny story here: my son, when he was little, told me that he thought the world was in black and white back then. Well, 'back then' wasn't that long ago. I remember black and white tv, and I also remember when I received my AARP card in the mail...insert sad face emoji.

Times change and people age and the world evolves around us. The 'black and white world', as my son said it best, becomes brightly colored within a 4D or 5D atmosphere that changes in a nanosecond. If you blink you may miss it. Literally, IF YOU BLINK you WILL miss it. Often I will talk to one of my children about a 'breaking news story' and they will casually, and boredly (if that is not a word then I am going to Trademark it for our new generation) say that they already saw it on Instagram or TikTok. I'm like, "It just broke!!! They just announced it". A nano second I must have missed. 

Cut to March 2020 and a worldwide pandemic. The world changed. People became prisoners in their homes.  Our worlds became instantly smaller; four walls to be exact... and it lasted foreverrrrrrr. I don't think it's really over yet. I think we just said FUCK IT and give us a booster shot and let us be human again. The four walls melted away and we stepped back out into our world...one foot at a time. Like a child learning to walk, we started 'learning' how to live again and socialize and mask up and unmask and stand closer than 6 feet apart again. I think we may actually be shaking hands again when we meet people, although I still have a slight fear when it happens...but baby steps...we are getting there; wherever our new 'there' is.

Our priorities may have changed somewhat from our covid prisons. Perhaps we appreciate our time on this earth as healthy human beings because we were all faced with the fear of our own mortalities. Daily, healthy people, and even babies, were, well, dying...out of nowhere...from a virus. We lost family and friends, and those that we didn't lose aren't healthy anymore, and may never be again. If that doesn't make one appreciate life, then I have a therapist's number you can use. Offices became Zooms; doctor visits became Teledocs;  kitchen tables became classrooms; dining out became curbside pickup; garages became gyms; and hospitals became morgues; we became sanitized; and Kleenex became toilet paper. 

Then, we stepped outside again. Charles Bukowski wrote,“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.” This got me thinking...

Summer of 2019 changed me...it changed everyone in my family. It was the month that I became a brand new person. I would navigate this big blue ball, floating in space, alone. Not alone physically... I have my friends and family...but, alone as in a new identity: single.  I wrote in my journal, "I wonder who I will be in a year". Well, ironically, we were all living in our own little worlds with quarantine and isolation from the bigger world that was out there. I started this new life by collecting my thoughts...and then my belongings...and built  a home, safe behind the comfort of four walls and a closed door. 

Then, that egg cracked and we could all move around this planet once again. 

I evaluated what I want my memories to look like to others...it's that sense of mortality talking...what do you want your life to look like when others look back at your life? What will it be that shows that you truly lived? What will it be that shows you were loved and lived? This perspective has become increasingly important to me lately. I don't want to be the mom that became a widow; that raised her children; that went back to work; that paid the bills and went to bed every night in perfect routine. I want to be remembered for much more than that. I didn't come this far to only come this far. 

I made a conscious decision, and discussed it with my children, to make more memories that matter...more memories that add to quality over quantity. Now that I COULD move around this world, I SHOULD. I WOULD. I AM.

There's something about being in a place where no-one knows your name. Thornton Wilder wrote,"It seems to me that once in your life, before you die, you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to”. I want to move with no purpose, in lands that I have never experienced. I want my children to not just 'expect' a summer vacation, but experience core memories that shape who they are. Travel rarely starts when you step foot on an airplane and rarely ends when you arrive safely back home. It should involve research and education and profound intellectual curiosity about people and places and cultures unknown. It should educate and refine you. I want travel to become our family's new uncurable epidemic for which there is no antidote. By seeing the world I want to discover how I fit into it...how WE fit into it. It is about leaving the familiar. It's been a long time since I have been ME...I've decided to say 'NO' to everything that doesn't fit into the life that I want to live.

Cut to summer 2022. Summer of travel. I spent a week in Paris with my daughters. I selfishly taught them French culture as a disguise to 'have them all to myself' for a week. Empty nest moms rarely get to HAVE their children on a daily basis.  They learned about history and culture and art and the importance of all of these things in their lives. They learned to continuously be wanting to know more, feel more, see more. Core memories activated!

Italy is next on the books this summer. I started saying, "Yes" to things in my life that I otherwise may have second thoughts about doing. In an world where everything has changed, I am becoming more ME than I have ever been. I am going to start romanticizing my life. It was easy for me to say yes to this trip. I said to myself, "When else in your life will you be able to say that you sailed the Amalfi coast of Italy in a catamaran for 10 days". It was a hell fucking yes. So, I plan on diving off of more boats, eating more pizza, and drinking more wine at sunset, unapologetically. I am going to document more memories of what heals me. I am going to print off more of these pictures, so that somewhere, in the maybe not so far future, a little girl is sitting cross-legged in her bedroom, asking about the smiling woman on a sherbet colored beach in the photo in their hand. 

Horizons. I don't know where I am going from here, but I promise it won't be boring...and in the end, I will just be happy I was there and lived to see it.

“Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.” Ryu Murakami

Ciao