Like most (I think anyway) I wasn’t as aware or appreciative as I could’ve been growing up and especially as it relates to our mom. 

I think our childhood was wonderful.  My happiest moments and the most vivid memories still today are because of our mom. There’s just not a single sentence description or even two which would do her justice.  She loves us unconditionally.  She was committed to helping us have a happy childhood.  Not in a material things way (although we always had plenty) but in moments, in time, in a being there way.  At a young age I remember her walking us to school. Sometimes I’d be a little embarrassed like “hey, I’m big, I can walk by myself, I don’t need my mommy to walk me”.  Then at the end of the day as I would start to walk home, I'd turn the corner and would see her walking towards me to pick me up and feel a little relief and jump of excitement.  There was such comfort/safety in seeing her there.

Our childhood friends can attest, also, our house regularly had some sort of fresh baked good and she was quick to feed anyone who came through the door. She especially loves to feed children.  She gives them gummy bears (still does). She takes them out of the package first and puts them in their own personalized little cup. Something in this small gesture seems to increase the specialness for the child and for her.  I have the most awesome picture of her feeding our nephew, Jeff, as a toddler.  He’s sitting on the counter, blue checkered dish towel wrapped around his neck and our mom’s face is awash with joy as she’s putting spoonful after spoonful into his mouth.  Even today, there is no doubt, if I woke her up in the middle of the night and said “mom, I’m kinda hungry”, her response would not be “get out of here, I’m sleeping”, it would be “want me to make you a sandwich?”.  Her mother, our Oma, was the same way.  In my twenties, my mom and I took a trip to Germany.  One night we had dinner with her sister, Tante Kathe, and my cousin Anja.  There may have been a few drinks and it may have been a little late when we got back to  Oma’s house.  She was already in bed and as we came in, our mother expressed, a little loudly, “Mamma, Ich habe hunger (Mom, I’m hungry)”.  Oma got up, came to the kitchen and while she asked about our night pulled out an assortment of lunch meats, some bread, cheeses and of course pickles, OMG, the German pickles are fantastich.  We sat there in the kitchen, snacking, chatting about the evening and giggling, lots of giggling.

But our mom doesn’t show her love only through food, she also makes things fun.  If we were home, stuck inside on a rainy day, bored, bored, bored.  She would first encourage us to play a game or do something or read to which we respond “boring”.  Ultimately, she’d take pity and invent a game for us.  One would be an empty shoe box or Kleenex box which she would turn upside down then cut little arch ways into the bottom, have us draw on it and get some marbles which we would have to shoot (flick with your thumb) into the little holes.

Then there were the holidays.  Every holiday.  At Valentines, she made sure we made cards for everyone. In the evening she drove us to our aunt’s house and our grandma’s house and friend’s houses and cousin’s houses so we could leave the valentine on the door step, wring the door bell and run. Christmas was filled with cookies, Christmas tree decorations,  carols (in German), Santa bells, stories and reindeer hoof prints in the snow. 

It’s hard to pick a favorite holiday. Christmas seems like the obvious choice, but Easter … well, it might be my personal favorite. We would go camping in the desert (not sure why the desert but I remember it had to be the desert).  One year in particular comes to mind at 9 mile canyon.  SIDE NOTE: If you’ve never been to 9 mile canyon, you really should go.  Another thing I never really appreciated as a child.   Check it out at http://www.castlecountry.com/Nine-Mile-Canyon. It’s beautiful. Some have called it the "world's longest art gallery," with tens of thousands of petroglyphs and pictographs, many over a thousand years old. The canyon is about 40 miles, so there is some debate as to why it’s called Nine Mile Canyon.  One theory, adopted and documented by many online,  is the explorer and surveyor John Wesley Powell may have used a nine-mile transect (a method used by cartographers) to map the area.  However, the truth, documented by our dad, Virgil Lamb, answering this exact question to me as a child, is it was named 9 mile canyon because the turn off to the road (9 mile canyon rd) to get to the canyon is 9 miles from the edge of Price City, UT.  You decide for yourself which to believe :-)

Anyway one particular year we camped (I don’t think camping is allowed anymore today so please check before going) in 9 mile canyon.  Our dad drove the pickup pulling our Prowler trailer off the dirt road, across the bumpy desert floor (this I’m sure is no longer legal to do so don’t do it if you go) (ok, in hindsight, I confess it probably wasn’t legal back then either but … he … well … ah, never mind, I got nuth’n), and behind some boulder type mountains to find a great secluded spot to set up camp.  

Mom brought everything with us, hard boiled eggs, PAAS egg coloring stuff, one large carrot and hidden items including Easter baskets, small chocolate eggs, large chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, peeps, and Easter presents which were always a sun hat, a small plastic colorful windmill (she still buys these little windmills for the grand, and great-grandkids), sometimes sunglasses, and swim suits – usually bikinis when we were children.  The bikinis were not my favorite but ooh-la-la if you could see pictures (which unfortunately I don’t have right now) back then of us in our Easter attire it is obvious by Katy’s Greta Garbo (movie star) pose she loved and rocked the bikini and glasses. It would only be a better visual if we had video. You’d be able to see her walking, no,  strutting with one hand on her right hip, one hand behind her left ear and swinging her bum back and forth.  This image is permanently etched in my brain for life.  I so admired her self confidence and comfortability with herself in a bathing suit.  Come to think of it – still do admire her – Love you Katy J

After coloring eggs, mom would put them with a note and large carrot for the Easter bunny on the camper table in a large ceramic bowl (it was dark green on the outside and white on the inside – I love that bowl, she used it for so many delicious things, like cake batter, cookie dough and orange whip (vanilla ice cream whipped together with Crush Orange Soda) NOTE to self: find bowl on next visit. NOTE 2 to self: Make Orange Whip

In the morning we’d wake up to Easter baskets overflowing, a half eaten carrot with buck teeth marks on it and the eggs gone. Hurriedly we’d dress (shorts, tank tops, sneakers for me, sandals for Katy), eat a piece of Easter candy (something chocolate for me, jelly beans and peeps for Katy), bolt out the door slamming it against the trailer, land on the soft desert sand and start searching for the eggs. Mom would watch us and at times give us hints with the direction she was looking. Once we had found all the eggs, we’d have breakfast but not with those eggs.   After breakfast mom would help us look for the best place to roll our eggs.  It had to be somewhere where up a slope of with an obviously defined ravine just wide enough for an egg to fit in and long enough for the egg to roll to the bottom.  We’d take turns rolling the eggs, watching them go to the bottom, sometimes having to give them a second or third nudge part way down, all cracked and dirty. Mom would clean them up and make egg salad sandwiches for lunch.

For the afternoon she would invent a treasure hunt.   Something would be hidden somewhere in the desert. She would draw an intricate treasure map.  The map clearly indicated the trailer as the starting point. Dashes leading away from the start represented the number of footsteps to a certain landmark, like a big rock or a sage bush,  and then a turn and different number of steps to the next landmark and so on until the final “X” (which was also marked on the ground by either drawing it in the sand with a stick or placing two sticks crossed).  To this day, I credit this single exercise for my absolute love of maps and subsequently me getting into the career field I am today.

But the best thing about everything she did for us then and still does for us now is she never asks us to “wait until this show is over (yes, I’m ashamed to say I’ve said that)” or “how about later, I’m tired right now (yes, I’ve said that one too)”, instead she asks “do you want mustard?” or “is something wrong today?” or “what do you need, kid?”.  She’s enthusiastic, filled with love, and compassion and empathy for whatever we might need in any given moment.

We love you mom and appreciate all you’ve done to make our childhood wonderful and for instilling in our adulthood the desire to carry on those traditions!
 
Happy Easter and Passover!
 
 
 
 

Ok, some things are actually weird. Every once in awhile, completely randomly, maybe once or twice a year, a single long white hair grows out of my face, right in the middle of my cheek.  One day nothing and the next day a snow white, bristly 5” long hair.  Well, not actually 5” but long enough where it’s absurd to think it could’ve grown overnight.

Recently my world has gone through a transformation.  I resigned from the company I had been working with for 32 years and took a position with an organization in Oakland, CA, pseudo moving from Austin, TX.  “Pseudo” because my house and everything (sans clothes, vehicle and dogs) are still in Texas.

It’s been a challenging few months. For the majority of my life career took priority. This leg of my path began with a gentle continual tugging feeling scattered with an occasional panic.  “What the heck am I doing?” “What about my house?”  “What about my 32 years?” “What about everyone I work with?” etc etc etc (side note – I can never write “etc” without thinking of the movie “The King and I” - love that movie).  There seemed to be so many reasons, including a huge comfort, to NOT do this.

Eventually it became beneficial, sort of necessary, to create a visualization and mantra.  The visualization entailed hands cupped around the outsides of my eyes, like blinders, and the mantra whispering in my ear “just one more step”, “just one more step”, “you can always change your mind”, “you can stop at any time”, “just one more step”.  As time went on I’d like to say the anxiety waned, maybe it did a little, but mostly I began to trust in the one more step.

As you can imagine there was a great deal of self reflection and introspection.  I’ve always considered myself spontaneous, free spirited even. Maybe this sounds weird after just saying I’ve had the same employer for over half my life.  But during these years, I’ve never hesitated to take on completely different roles or challenges, including those which were in different parts of the US.  Once moving within 4 days notice.  Yes, moving, presented with an opportunity on a Tuesday, packing everything up (well, it wasn’t that much back then), loading a u-haul and, boom, outta there Friday afternoon.  And that was with work. Personally, I could travel on a moment’s notice.  A sister could call me (or I call a sister) on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and suggest we meet in Zion’s on the weekend and we’re there! Or head to Laughlin after work for just the evening or once, sitting around with friends having brunch one Saturday morning when an advertisement for cheap flights to Vegas came over the radio.  We paid the tab, drove to the airport and flew to Vegas.  And, you know what? Looking back, I regret none of those times. They created great memories!

So throughout this process the spontaneous side of me was saying “do it, move, it’ll be fine” but the older me, who now owned more stuff and worked with so many people I truly adored was saying “whoa, slow down, do you really want to do this?”.  I relied on my mantra and what seemed like unwavering confidence from my sisters to keep going and follow the tug. 

At 5:00 pm on my last day, I picked up my work cell phone and selected the option to revise the voicemail greeting “Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of AECOM Gulf Southwest Regional Project Controls.  If you have a question or need support regarding project controls please dial ….. “.  Tears welled and a lump grew in my throat as I came to the realization that until that very moment I really didn’t really know positively for sure I’d truly follow through and make this change.

Now when someone finds out about my recent move, their first question is “did you sell your house?” I find my self feeling weird saying “no, all my stuff is there and I’m not sure when I’ll get it taken care of” but maybe if I start saying it with more confidence like it’s perfectly normal to start a new job, move `1500 miles and not have sold your house or move your belongings, they won’t think it’s weird either, you think? If I don’t make it weird, it won’t really be weird, right?!?!

Happy Spring!

P.S. I started to wonder, as usual, what the actual meaning of weird.  According to dictionary.com,
                  Weird: involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny
Weirdly enough I wasn’t expecting this definition :-)

P.P.S. Know anyone who wants to rent a furnished house with an incredible view of Lake Travis in Lago Vista, TX?
​

Before I begin I wanted to be perfectly clear about one thing – my passport is GOOD until November (yes, November) 19, 2016.

Preamble: I’ve always struggled with “everything happens for a reason”.  On one hand, I believe in a higher power, God, the universe, a collective consciousness and the power of a higher power to manifest things in one’s life.  On the other hand it’s hard to find the reason in some things.

Now:
As many of you know our “The Path of Stillness in Germany” Retreat began on Sunday, Sept 4.  We had ladies flying from Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Francisco and Austin (me).  This first travel day is always exciting and this was no different.  We would all meet in Detroit and fly to Frankfurt together from there.  I dropped my dogs off early with at our friend, Susan’s house and got in my ride to the airport.  I question whether to curb check but ultimately, as always, decide to go in.  There’s a bunch of people ahead of me in the priority line but I’m not worried, I’m early, I’m TSA Pre – no problem. 

It’s finally my turn and I hand may passport to the agent for check in.  I did try to check-in online previously but it errored and said “see gate agent”.  “No Biggie”, I thought.  As he swipes my passport, I check email on my phone, and I notice he swipes it again and again and now he’s entering it on the keyboard.  Now he has my attention then he says “I’m sorry, Miss Lamb, I can’t check you in because your passport is no good”.  I’m just looking at him in total disbelief as I try to process what he’s saying.  I’m thinking to myself “listen carefully, very carefully”.  He repeats “your passport is no good, it expires in less than 90 days”.  I can’t do the math and am just looking at him and find myself repeating “what, what are you talking about? It’s good until November”.  To which he replies it needs to be good for 3 months beyond your return date and sometimes 6 months.  I start to get what’s happening and what he’s telling me and start to panic a little.  I explain we have a retreat business, I need to meet my group in Detroit and be in Germany tomorrow.  What can I do?  He says “you need a new passport”.  Me: “ok, but what else can I do right now to get on a plane”.  He talks to others and tells me, as he’s handing me my boarding pass and checking my luggage “Ok, you can call the German Embassy in Houston, tell them you’re going for a short trip only and ask them for permission to wave the 3 month rule”.  He gives me my documents and tells me to promise to call and resolve before getting on the plane otherwise he will personally be fined by officials in Detroit.  He recommends talking to the agent at the gate since she is the one who recommended the embassy idea.  I sigh in relief and head to the gate. 

At the gate I ask the agent who again I should call – she says the Germany Embassy in Houston.  So I do but … it’s closed.  It’s Sunday.  Oh yeah, Sunday before Labor Day which apparently the German Embassy in Houston recognizes as well.   The gate agent and I are trying to find something on line when the agent who checked me in comes to the gate.  I tell him the embassy is closed and then he tells me he’s very sorry but he can’t let me get on the plane and he gets on his radio and calls down for the baggage handlers to remove my luggage from the plane.   I’m in shock and walk to baggage claim in a trance and plop down on the seat to wait for my luggage.  At a loss, I just sit and stare and ….  and …. I don’t know what exactly.  I’m startled to attention by the sound of my bag hitting rail of the baggage claim and collect my luggage and shuffle to the taxi stand

In the taxi back to Susan’s multiple text are flying around about next moves along with frantic searches on the internet “expedited passport”, “same day passport”, “24 hr passport”, “24 hr passport weekend”.  Everything is either not open, or really can’t help.  One website has a “chat” function and after giving them all the info over chat, they say they can have it to me by Friday. FRIDAY! Uh – NO!  I do try calling every service as well, just in case and one answers  He tells me, very abruptly I might add, “nothing can happen until Tuesday anyway and you are calling me from Texas, I can only help if you are in New York, If you were in New York I could have your passport by 5:00 pm but you’re are in Texas,  goodbye” and he hangs up. The search continues as well as going to the state department website for ideas.   I find out (which I knew before from an incident in 1996 where my passport was expiring and I noticed 3 days before I was set to leave and flew to San Francisco to renew – a story for a different time) in emergency situations like life, death, or leaving within 14 days, a person can get a passport the same day at select state department locations. In order to do this, one calls the automated system, sets up an apt time at a location, brings all the required paperwork, their old passport, and a new phone at the appointment time and can possibly receive a new passport by 3:00 pm that same day.

OK, this sounds potentially doable.  I would want to get in somewhere first thing Tuesday morning to have the best chance of getting to Germany by Wednesday morning.  So first I check potential flight departure cities schedules which would get me to Frankfurt by Wednesday am and where also locations who accept appointments.  This narrows the search to a first wave of Atlanta, Houston, and New York.  Ok, now which will have appointments available Tuesday am? Atlanta and Houston both have appointments on Tuesday and 9:30 and New York doesn’t have one until Thursday but I remember the guy who I talked to and said he could have it by 5:00.  Next step, contact the airline and see what it will cost to change my airfare – ugh!  At least they’re waving the change fee which is really an irritant because as I look at my original itinerary it says at the bottom “Passport Confirmed” and in my mind they should wave all fees but I try to be patient and keep my eye on the ball.  Houston is the optimal idea, I could drive there, they have an apt available at 9:30 but the flight to Frankfurt leaves at 3:05 which would be cutting it close. Atlanta was the next optimal because of the 9:30 available appointment HOWEVER the new airfare to fly from either of those cities was insane and approximately six times more than flying from JFK.   I booked the JFK flight and quickly called the guy I had spoken to before.  Desperately I asked “if I come to New York, can you guarantee you’ll have my new passport by 5:00 pm and I could make a flight to Frankfurt at 8:00 pm”, he says he thinks so and he’ll email all the forms.  

Ok, so now I need to find a flight to JFK, on Labor Day Weekend.  There’s a decent flight at 4:05 through Minneapolis arriving JFK at 11;30, it’s 2:30, I’m 45 minutes away from the Austin airport, I book it and head back to the airport.

Again, a bunch of folks in line but not worried. As I wait, I pull up my email and there’s an email from the airline, my 4:05 flight is delayed until 8:05 and I won’t make my connection so I need to talk to a gate agent for rebooking.  It’s my turn, the agent tells me there are no other flights.  Now I’ve been looking at every possible scenario all afternoon so I KNOW.  I say there’s a flight through Atlanta at 4:50,  Gate Agent: “There are no seats”, Me: “There are seats in first class”, Gate agent: “I can’t put you in a different class of service than your current ticktet”, Me (very controlled): “what about another airline”.  As she calls other airlines, I use my app to find the 4:50 flight and see I can book it using miles (it’s my backup plan).  She comes back to say she found another flight which leaves at 7:00 pm, connects and get to JFK the next morning, connects through Seattle.  From Austin to Seattle to JFK!  Time to initiate back up plan.  I hold up my phone and say I’ll just book the first class seat at 4:50 with my miles.  She takes my phone and changes the conversation with the person on the phone to begin my new booking.  After, she hands me my phone and I see an email describing miles were used to book a flight. THEN she says to me “oh no, the seat is gone”.  What? She’s like “I don’t know. The seat is no longer available” and she gets back on the phone.   She looks at me and says ( I can tell she’s passing on whatever the person on the phone is saying) “what if we refund 15000 miles and put you in economy comfort>”. I say “what if you refund me ALL the miles and put me in economy comfort?” She listens to the person on the phone and says “what if we refund 15000 miles and credit your account another 15000 miles and put you in economy comfort”.  Now, still in control and measured but definitely louder than previously I loudly say “How about you refund all my miles and put me in economy comfort.  It’s the airline’s fault I’m not on my original flight and you told me there were no other flights, I tell you there is and you tell me you can’t because it’s a different fare and I buy the other fare so I can get on the flight AND THEN YOU GIVE AWAY THE SEAT I’m buying so why don’t you refund everything and put me on that flight?!?!?”  She agreed, finished checking me in and I headed to JFK.

I arrive at my hotel at 1:30 in the morning and am starving so I ask the front desk if there is room service. I already knew the answer would be no but he also told me the deli across the street was open 24 hr. I'm totally in, I find the deli and it's huge and it has everything and the food is amazing and I remember how much I love New York and how I've felt drawn here for the last few months but not sure why.

Yesterday, I  filled out all the paperwork yesterday because the company A-Passport & Visa Services worked yesterday to make sure everything was correct.  I met with them this morning where they told me they were actually going to have to go to Connecticut because the New York appointments were all taken and they won’t know anything until 3:30 after which their person will drive it to JFK and meet me.
. 
It’s 3:00 now and I’m awaiting to know if my passport is renewed and I’m headed to Germany.  The suspense is killing me so thought I would do this to keep my mind off of it.
 
Wish me luck every and yes, I think most of the time things happen for a reason even if we don't every find out what that reason is.

Fingers crossed!

If you read a previous blog (http://sistersonpurpose.weebly.com/blog/grandmas-and-grandkids-rule) you already know I adored our grandma.  She was tiny, red headed, freckly and funny.  She was a great story teller as well and I felt like I really knew so much about her past,  her family, siblings, her love of sports, her playing basketball,  supposedly dribbling through a very tall opponent’s  legs to ultimately make a basket. Her father painted houses and after she was married, she wall papered her own kitchen and when her father came to visit she realized she’d hung it upside down but pretended she did it that way on purpose. After she had my dad and my uncle all she really wanted was to have a baby girl, which she eventually did.  She was faithful, dedicated to her church, quilted and crocheted and loved to fish as well. She was a bit of a perfectionist which would come out kind of subtly when she baked.  Another side note her, she made the best fruit cake.  As an adult I could never understand why people didn’t like fruit cake until the day I realized she was the ONLY person who put gum drops in hers instead of actual fruit.  And one of my favorite unique stories, is when she was a young girl, the courthouse burned down and everyone had to recreate their birth records so my rebel grandma change her name from “Fay” to “Faye” – OMG = she cracks me up!
So a few years ago, I was kind of stunned to realize we never really talked about, or I didn’t know about, her heritage.  I think her parents were born in the US and I know she was.   I never even gave it a single thought – ever!  Isn’t that weird? Of all the things I asked her over the years, I never once asked her that.    Then Debbie, on a spur of the moment, while in Germany decided to fly with her friend Jody to Ireland which is a whole other story for Debbie to write J  I think Debbie texted me or when she got back called me and said “you won’t believe it – all the women in Ireland look exactly like grandma”.  And, I’m like “really? Grandma was Irish?”  It was a strange feeling, I didn’t know if it was some coincidence and I guess I still didn’t give it much thought since then until ….
The other day, I was researching fun facts about Ireland (http://www.ireland-fun-facts.com/ireland-facts.html) and came across this gem “One of the most popular radio shows in rural Ireland is still the weekly broadcast of local obituaries”  Why is that so interesting, you ask? Well because, besides the gum drops in fruit cake, one of the other things my grandma did which I never heard of anyone else doing before or since is collecting obituaries.  Every Sunday she would go through the newspaper , clipped obituaries and put them nicely in photo albums.  I’m not sure how many she has but it’s a lot!  And if I didn’t know it was true before, oh I do now – Grandma Lamb was for sure Irish!

Sylvia,

P.S. For more stories about my grandma and Debbie’s impromptu 24 hour trip to Ireland, join us on our upcoming  “The Path of Gratitude Retreat” in Northern and Western Ireland March 14-22.  See http://www.sistersonpurpose.com/gratitude-in-ireland.html for more info and to register

Actually both of them are and I adore and admire each of them in so many ways.  They’re strong business women, pretty good wives (you have to really check with their husbands on this one), wonderful mothers (I can attest to this one by how much I love and genuinely enjoy being around the children they’ve raised), they’re passionate in their beliefs while being compassionate of others and they are freak’n determined man!

Many of you know already Debbie has returned to the Camino. Camino de Santiago to be more specific (check out http://caminoways.com/ for more information).  Her first trip there ended after discovering, very painfully, she had had a broken heel for who knows how many miles already.  She struggled with having to leave the Camino then and even considered hanging out there until it healed and getting back to it.  I think it’s fair to say when she returned home, and after her heel healed especially, the Camino continued to call her back.

Well….she’s BACK! And already many many many miles in! 

I’ve been following her (not literally but through her blog @ www.debbielambturner.com) on this journey and have been surprised to find, almost daily, I’m flooded with memories of her when we were young (younger that is).  I think it's the familiar radiance in her pictures but am not sure how to really explain it.  It’s like this magnetic draw.  I feel 6 years old again, jumping up and down inside, wanting to run out and go play with her. There's a pull to be with her, to just hang with her and follow her around and be just like her.  It’s a feeling of intrigue, and pride in her being my sister, and a stong desire to experience what she’s experiencing but not because of the experience itself but because of an appeal to experience it WITH her.  Most people who know her already know this, especially her grandchildren, Debbie has a gift of making anything fun or funner and definitely funny and safe. OK not “safe” in the "don’t run with scissors way" (cuz she might let you do that) but “safe” in the way you can totally be yourself, with all your  faults and insecurities and angsts and fears and she, seemingly effortlessly and without even trying, makes you feel nourished, lighter, comforted, valuable, beautiful and so very much loved.

As I read her stories and she describes the impact the journey and people are having on her,  I can imagine the impact she is having on the them and the journey.  She is leaving her mark, on the earth with each step of her physical boots, on the minds and memories of those she crosses paths with her conversations and her spirit and on the hearts of those of us at home who continue to be more and more impressed and proud of her tenacity, determination, and strength as she traverses some adverse and less than comfortable conditions with grace, humor and full heart.

You got this Debbie - we're proud of you!

Sylvia

You can follow Debbie's journey at @ www.debbielambturner.com and I'm sure your thoughts and good wishes are welcome :-)

For those of you who have traveled abroad, especially to smaller, less touristy, towns or villages, you know some things are different then what we’re used to in the states. Things you wouldn’t every think of.  Some are fairly easy to figure out like the object next to the toilet that sprays water up isn’t for washing your hands or the little towel hanging up is really the bath towel, really.  But others are less obvious. Like knowing there’s a strap next to the window, behind the curtain, which will raise and lower the outer metal shades and if you try to do it by hand, the little slats will only drop down and disconnect from the others (some of you know exactly what I’m talking about here), or butter doesn’t automatically come with bread everywhere, and you may not get it even if you ask for it specifically. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the ice situation. J

Having said all that, we feel like we’re pretty well traveled at this point in our lives and are fairly confident we can’t be easily surprised or confused when we go somewhere new.  Did I say confident?  If I’m completely honest, for myself, sometimes it might get closer to feeling fairly “cocky” but just barely.  Of course, in my experience, when I start to feel a little, just a little, cocky about something, it doesn’t take long for a reminder to come my way telling me to “not so fast”.   My latest reminder came as I was perusing pictures from previous trips to one of the most magical places we’ve been, Spoleto, Italy in the Umbria region.

My first time there was with Katy and a different group of women.  Katy and I were going to be in different rooms and so upon our arrival we excitedly planned to wake up early the next morning, go for a walk and have some sister time. Before we went to sleep we decided on a time, 6:00 am. It would be tough but we were convinced it would help us recover from jet lag quicker and we were looking forward to it.  Envisioning, the nice brisk air, the sister conversation, the morning light on the Ponte delle Torri (236 m long and 90 m high just btw) while we nibbled on cornetto con crema (croissant with crème) and sipped a doppio (double espresso). That’s a lie, Katy had the doppio, although I like saying it but I have to have milk in mine so just boring latte for me. Anyway, you get the picture. We were anticipating a wonderful maiden morning in Spoleto.

We woke with no problem, got dressed excitedly, wide awake and we left our rooms armed with our journals and our enthusiasm.  We carefully shut our respective doors so as not to wake anyone else nearby.  The hotel was as still and quiet as a church. Our footsteps echoed on the granite floors as we made our way, quietly, to the front door. I think it was Katy who reached for the door first and turned the handled excitedly ready for our morning adventure.  And then? Locked!  No, problem, right? Just turn the lock and open and go. No lock! There’s got to be a lock right? We’re on the inside.  They wouldn’t lock us in like with a key would they? I mean really? Isn’t that a safety hazard?  We look to the sides of the doors.  No, I don’t know why.  Maybe we remember those straps next to the windows which concealed the way to lift the blinds, I don’t know, it was odd. Then it hit us … we’re trapped!  Yes, we’re literally trapped in this hotel.  Then panic … but we want to go for a walk, we want coffee, croissant, the Ponte delle Torri is waiting for us. Our shoulders began to slump with acceptance of our defeat.  It’s ok, the lobby looks comfortable enough to sit and write in journals. No sooner had our proverbial buttes hit the cushions when I recognized that familiar gleam in Katy’s eyes (I’m writing it and this is the way I remember it plus it sounds more like Katy than me anyway, right).  As she look around, trying to admire the room and settle in she notice the extremely large (possibly 3meter) windows that went to just off the floor. Instantly I knew what she was thinking. Hurriedly we got up from our chairs, glanced all around us like burglars checking for police and sneaked to the window. Sure enough they were locked … but… the lock was not a key and it was easily opened from the inside. Another glance around, no one there, and we tentatively turned the lock. Bam! It opened! One leg over the windowsill, a last glance to make sure no one was around, and then the other leg – we were out!  OMG! We were out! Free! On the run! On the Lamb you could say! The courtyard was beautiful and spacious.  There was a wall looking over a ravine at the one side which had a great view of Montefalco but we weren’t going that way, we were headed out into the village.  We turned to the left and across the courtyard to where the cars were parked the night before.  The two difference between this morning and the night before were 1. the courtyard furniture was gone and moved inside somewhere and 2. a big ole frigg’n wood GATE – SHUT! UGH!  Both of us “ NOOOOOOOOOOOO, it can’t be locked”.  Say it isn’t so, puh-leaze be open and able to open from the  inside.  Slowly we walked to the gate and guess what?  That’s right …. LOCKED!  With a KEY!  I decide right then and there someday I will become a locksmith in Spoleto and make a fortune.

Vanquished, we looked back at the window we just came out of but we couldn’t do it.  NO WAY, we’re not going back inside.  The view from the wall is nice, we can take some pics, lean against it and chat.  I found I could lean out far enough and get a picture of the Pont delle Torri in what was left of the morning light.  As I leaned back to admire the picture I just took a planter box sitting on this very wall caught my eye and expressed my exact feeling at this moment so I took the picture above as well.

I only wish I had a picture with Katy and I on either side making this same face.

Hope you’re having a wonderful Holiday Season so far.

Love,

Sylvia

 

PS  Still two spots left for our Celebrate in Spoleto retreat March 11-21, see http://www.sistersonpurpose.com/celebrate-in-spoleto.html for more information if you’re interested.