H E L L O Y E L L O W »

Masthead header

ee cummings // i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

i truly can not look at my girls lately without getting a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. they’re just getting so big and they amaze and delight me daily. they’re not perfect – no, not even close. piper is walking this fine line between toddler and young lady, and often surprises me with her maturity but then teeters back over to her whiny younger self and i remember, oh yes. she’s only six. 

stella, too, is growing up in spite of her best efforts to stay the baby. she is so funny, truly she has the best sense of humor and can make us laugh in an instant. but she’s complicated as well – outgoing and hamming it up one moment, shy and nervous the next.

i guess we’re all like that, to a degree. a mix of emotions and personalities and flavors all blended together in our own unique recipe.  brave one day, terrified the next. full of energy, confidence and spunk today, a mute little wallflower tomorrow.

right now i just want my girls to be happy, kind and grateful. that’s it. they’re both starting school (piper a couple of weeks ago, stella in a few weeks) and they’re surrounded by new faces and personalities and decisions on a daily basis. i want them to choose joy, to be gracious and generous to those around them.  both of them are going to schools with a beautiful mix of cultures and nationalities represented, and i can already see piper’s little wheels turning as she immerses herself in this melting pot each day. i love that she’s having this experience, of seeing how big and rich the world is, how god has woven together this amazingly colorful planet with amazingly colorful people within in. she’s asking questions and mulling over the answers and i just absolutely am so grateful for this whole chapter.

i both hate and love that they are growing up. i want to hold on to the chubby little cheeks of their baby-ness, but also celebrate them as they grow and learn and make mistakes and apologize and start anew. i want to carry them in my pocket but also cheer them on as they run ahead of me, skipping towards their stories and their journey.

as i can’t stop time, or even slow it, i’ll simply do my best to also be happy, kind, grateful for these beautiful little joy-bringers who still call me mama and crawl on my lap and lean back into that perfect little pocket within my arms.

…
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
ee cummings
Filed in: best | life and love and stuff. | the chicklets.
email a friend

roma // awe-inspiring, larger-than-life, busy, big, old.

… if florence is small, intimate, charming, then rome by contrast is just massive, overwhelming and larger-than-life. everything is big in rome.  the colosseum, with its grand arches, exploding with history and stories and morbid tales. the vatican, trevi fountain, the spanish steps … everything is even bigger (and more amazing) than you imagine it to be.

we stayed in the most adorable little neighborhood called trastevere, which is a bit off the beaten path from the center of rome. my only major piece of advice for anyone traveling to rome is STAY HERE. truly. it’s a beautiful gem of a neighborhood, full of quaint shops, incredible restaurants and a really laid-back mood. you’ll need this after battling the crowds around all of the major sites. at least we did. trastevere was our little refuge, our escape where we could grab a ridiculously amazing slice of pizza and wander up & down the alleys, stopping to admire a local artisan or bargain for a little piece of roma to bring back homa (ha! that made me laugh, sorry).

our hotel (hotel santa maria) was in the center of trastevere, and was the best little surprise we could imagine. it was referred to us by a friend who sang its praises, and she and it did not disappoint. the hotel is built around a darling little courtyard nestled in a garden of orange trees. ORANGE TREES IN THE CENTER OF ROME. amaze.

any words i come up with are incredibly inadequate to capture all that we saw.  nothing could have prepared me for how insane it was to see the inside of the colosseum with my own eyes, to walk through the roman forum with its columns still standing, to take in magnitude and beauty of the sistine chapel.  piper was clearly equally impressed, as she now refers to the colosseum as,“that old broken thing in rome.” 

on our last night in rome we ventured back to the colosseum to see it at night – it was beyond beautiful to see it all lit up, so we hung out there for a while, taking pictures while taking it all in. we walked slowly back to our hotel, piper holding my hand, stella rotating between wen’s shoulders and arms, chatting about all we had seen and experienced. we arrived back at our hotel tired, full of adventure, and ready for the next chapter of our journey.

… off to tuscany!

 

 

Filed in: wanderlust.
email a friend

« Previous Next »