Career mom

Today I accompanied my niece to her swimming class. She goes there with her kindergarden teachers and classmates just before lunchtime. Most children are helped by some family members, mostly grandmothers, but also mothers and, in rare cases, fathers. For the few children whose relatives are all busy in the morning, teachers take on the parental role.

As an outsider, it was a fascinating experience for me to observe this family universe, still mostly a universe of females, where the children are the focus and the pace is set by the daily nurturing activities of feeding, dressing, hugging, comforting, and so on.

During the class, the reassuring eyes of mothers and grandmothers watched the kids, each of them following their own child, the most important being in the universe, participating with sweet anxiety to every step, smile, little hesitation, failure, conflict, of their special one. In the merry crowd of women, laid back, many of them a bit chubby and wearing jeans and sneakers, one stood out. She was the career mom, arrived in a hurry just five minutes before the end of the class. Slim, wearing a suit with her jewels, make up, high heels and leather briefcase, how not to notice her? She was not sure she could come, and it does not happen often that she can make it. I know because I saw how she was asking questions to the regulars about the what and when, and how she looked slightly lost at the swimming pool.

As the end of the class approached, she was the most eager to see her child, I could see it on her face. And when the boy came out of the pool, I heard the teacher say "He was so excited when he heard that mom is here!". Before the class, the same teacher was helping the kid and saying "I've been helping him for so long that sooner or later I will adopt him...". I am glad that the career mom could not hear that, because if she did she would have felt a pang of guilt. Instead, as soon as the boy was in her arms, she transformed herself into the most expert nurturer, a mother like the others.

I left the swimming pool wondering who is a better mother, the regular or the career mom. I don't know, but I would like to think that both types are good mothers, each her own way.

Happy again

My prayers for sunshine have been heard (see previous post). Life feels good again!

The power of prayer

As you have read in the previous post, I am having my vacation ruined by a major monsoon that keeps me from even stepping out of the house.

I was told that before my plane landed in Milan, the country was suffering a terrible drought, so that the local agriculture was severely impacted. Everywhere in the countryside, the farming communities, near desperation, started to pray and make offerings to God, asking for rain.

Well, as the scripture says, God's mercy is always abundant. Soon, people will have to start to pray for sunshine.

My own private rain

Greetings from Italy, where I arrived a couple of days ago to spend a two weeks vacation. I carefully planned to come here in May, since usually this is one of the best times of the year: warm and sunny, but not too hot. With enthusiasm, I packed summer clothes, sunscreen and sunglasses. Well, I should have packed a coat, instead, because it is raining like hell, and it's freezing cold.

I live in one of the rainiest places on Earth and it looks like the rain has followed me on vacation. The sky started to turn cloudy just when my plane landed in Milano Malpensa and the forecast is, guess what? Two weeks of rain!

Aww!! This does not look good.

The first impression

You know the feeling when you arrive someplace after a long travel, tired from a early wake up, from the cold and rainy weather and from the chaos of the airports, and find a warm, welcoming hotel room that is not the usual one... A room with character, where things seem to have been put there just for you. Where colors match, the lighting is inviting and there are many soft towels and a good moisturizer in the bathroom. And, there is not only coffee, but tea too!! Someone in another room is playing the violin, and that is the only feeble sound that can be heard, rather than the noise of elevators and vending machines.

Ahhhhh.............. peace.

The first impression is important, I would say crucial. To impress someone, there is nothing like the right hotel.

Greetings from Indiana!

Going home

After a vacation that feels eternal, I am finally going home... I mean, my american one: I have given up on trying to understand what is home for me, so I decided that I have two homes, one in Italy and one in the US. I already know that after a number of months I will be nostalgic of Italy again, but now I am happy to leave.
I wish someone invented quantum teleporting on macroscopic scale (it already exists on microscopic scale, isn't that exciting?) because I hate to travel and I would like to be home instantanously, instead than having a more than 30 hours trip with buses, cars, hotel rooms, planes, and trains. Well, friends... see you all in about two days!

You know you have been away for too long when...

... you go back to your own country, look at the awesome beach, and, in awe, cry: "Wow, it's just like California!".