2015

Posted on November 28, 2015 by rangotti

Twenty-eight years ago, the universe gave me a gift. I was given the privilege of being the mother of an amazing daughter. Since the moment they laid her in my arms, I have adored her. We are so different in so many ways, it was always a mystery to me how she understood the things she did with no help from her mother. I am a tomboy, makeup confuses me, and I am totally devoid of any ability to be stylish or match colors together. My daughter is the exact opposite. She is stunningly lovely and from the time she was a small child, she picked out her own clothes, styled her own hair and had a special affinity toward shoes and purses. A dancer, cheerleader, interior designer, my daughter is very feminine.

The challenge for me as a parent was to let her be who she was and not try to make her into me. I am a very linear, direct thinker. My daughter’s thought process is like being on a tilt-o-whirl. Her mind goes from one idea to the next, it is something to behold and I wouldn’t want her to be any other way. My prayer while she was growing up was to always let her have the space to find her own way and to always accept her for who she is.

Emerging Designer of the Year

She is one of the most creative human beings I have ever met. Whether with a paintbrush, a CAD drawing, or her own feet in dance, she has always had a way to see things in her mind’s eye that I could only imagine and she is able to portray those images through whatever artistic medium of her choice. She is brilliant and I have always been amazed and sometimes intimidated by her. She is beautiful, successful and a wonderful person.

With the birth of a daughter, at some time a parent’s thoughts will turn to the future and the day she will get married. I don’t know why it is that way, but it is. I am no different. I remember that moment, looking down at this beautiful baby, hoping that I would one day see her wedding day. I remember wishing for my daughter that her wedding would be everything she wanted it to be: a beautiful bride, a heartfelt ceremony, a wonderful husband, a sunny day, surrounded by people who love her. All those things have come to fruition for tomorrow is my daughter’s wedding day.

There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things I want her to know. There are things I have told her over and over, but she doesn’t believe me. As she gets older, I hope she will someday see herself the way that I see her. My daughter is beautiful, capable, fierce, independent, intelligent, and creative. She has a presence that shows an understanding and awareness of the world around her that I have never had. She lights up a room when she walks into it, she makes everyone feel welcomed. She is gracious, charming and elegant. She is a force to be reckoned with and a joy to behold. She is a steel magnolia. And tomorrow she becomes a bride.

Who is this man she has given her heart to? He is kind, generous, compassionate, caring, funny, smart, and he looks at my daughter with a love that is tangible. I could not have envisioned a better mate for her. He believes in her and encourages her to reach for her dreams. He lets her be exactly who she is and does not try to change her into something that would destroy her amazing spirit. He is a wonderful human being. Like my daughter, my son-in-law is also a creative person. His paintings are so poignant, so thought provoking, his talent takes my breath away. Together, their lives will be filled with emotion, beauty, color, freedom, spirituality, and romance.

So on this eve of their wedding, the joy in my heart overflows. Tomorrow, I get to watch this child that I have loved with all my heart marry the man that fills her heart to completion. It will be an honor to see them pledge their lives to each other knowing that they are stronger together than either one is separately. Regardless of details, their day will be perfect because they get to be married to each other.

first communion jessica ~So to my wonderful daughter, I want you to know that all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy and have a well lived life. I want you to believe about yourself the things I know about you. You are unique. There is no one like you. I want for you to not be afraid to give your whole heart to the man you love, it is the key to being happy in your marriage.

~To Jessica and Ethan, here is my practical advice. Love each other. Treat each other with respect. Dance around your apartment. Talk to each other. Listen. Compromise. Remember how you felt at this moment. And if you ever have a dispute that you can’t seem to resolve, get naked.

And always remember that I love you with all my heart. It is an honor to be your mother.

Happy Wedding Day Jessica and Ethan!

Love,

Robin

Letter to my older self…

Posted on February 5, 2014 by rangotti

So many people asked me to do this that I had to comply. Last week, I wrote a letter to my younger 25 year old self of things I would want her to know from what I have learned over the last couple of decades. A lot of people asked me to do the same with my older self, that is, what I would want my older self to know. Since I am 50, I decided to write a letter to my 70 year old self. I have to admit, I struggled with this one more than the last letter. Thinking about being 70 and entering the last couple of decades of life is harder than looking back and imparting wisdom on a younger Robin with a future stretching before her. I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of getting old. When I get old and outlive my usefulness, I want to have the capacity to walk off into the wilderness where I can look up into the mountains that I love and just die. No fuss, no fanfare. Just the natural end of a life well lived.

Robin,

Wow, you’ve made it to 70. There have been many times in your life that you didn’t think you would ever see this day. Yet here you are. Hopefully, you have taken care of your health and are still active. Finally, you get to have that discounted ski pass at Stevens!!! Woot!! You’ve been waiting for that for 25 years. I hope you are still active enough to enjoy it. I hope you are skiing every weekday and get at least 50 days in.

Retirement finally came for you two years ago. I hope you stayed on track to have at least a million dollars in your retirement account. It will suck if you didn’t and you have to eat cat food to survive. My hope is that you learned from the lean years of paying off all that debt incurred during your marriage and have kept saving money. It is okay if people call you fiscally conservative or even if they call you cheap. It still beats having to survive off cat food.

I hope you kept on learning and trying new things and experiences, it is how you stay young. Try not to be like some older people and get too set in your ways. Remember Matt? Remember how much you learned from him all those years ago and the fun that you had? Don’t forget that you can learn a lot about life from people of all ages, so don’t be the old fuddy-duddy who thinks they have all the answers and won’t listen to anyone else, especially younger people. Be open, listen, learn.

And don’t forget, if you are lonely and think no one comes to see you, then get off your ass and go to see them. People want you to care about their interests, they want you to be interested in their lives and what they are passionate about. Go to your grandchildren’s games, graduations, weddings… call them, listen to them, make time for them. Don’t just sit around and bemoan that no one wants to visit with you because if you do, guess what will happen? No one will want to be around you. If you want people to be interested in your life, you have to start by being interested in theirs.

The twin granddaughters are about 23 now, graduated from college. Hopefully, you kept your word and have been taking them on trips every year to show them how big the world is and that you made that same commitment with your other grandchildren you had too. I hope you took them to Nepal, Africa, Myanmar, South America and let them see some of the remote places of the world. I hope you took them diving, paragliding, cycling, and I really hope you taught them how to ski. A great graduation trip might be a ski trip to the Alps or to Whistler where you can rent a nice apartment and your old lady self can go to bed early and where the grandkids can stay up and party all night. Remember that experiences are worth more than stuff, spend your money and time having experiences with them. It is the best legacy you could leave them.

I hope you are living in a place where it is easy to get around. A nice, one bedroom condo in an urban area. Easy to clean and you can spend your time going to the theater and concerts and have adventures easily. That way you can give up the drivers license and still have your freedom. Give up the driver’s license before you don’t want to, that way it isn’t an issue for your kids having to take it away from you. Make plans for the last years of your life. Pick out the retirement community and assisted living facility you want to be in now. You’ve worked your whole life to take care of your family, take care of them now by making those decisions for yourself while you still can so that you won’t be a burden to them in a few years.

The end of your life is coming. Just like with the rest of your life, you get to choose how you face it. Face it with grace, courage, and dignity. Choose to live your life on your terms, each day giving your best, caring for the people in your life, and remembering how much you are loved. Choose to keep having amazing adventures and always be thankful for how great your life has been. It truly has been an incredible ride.

No regrets, just go enjoy the sunset of your life.

Robin

The life cycle of traditions

Posted on December 22, 2013 by rangotti

Some people, when given a sign, know exactly how to read that sign and what they should do about it. For me, the universe pretty much has to hit me over the head with a sign before I listen and change my course of action or beliefs.

When I was a teenager, I was pretty troubled. An old native American told me that I wouldn’t find my true spirit until I walked with the Raven. I didn’t know what he meant and I spent much of my life trying to decipher those words through the situations and the people around me. What I have realized is that even as a teenager, those words gave me hope. He didn’t tell me that I would never find my spirit, but that it would happen in the future. Hope is what most people need to get through life’s difficulties.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to travel around the country. Everywhere I went, when something transformative happened, there was a Raven there. I couldn’t help but remember the old man’s words. And at the time, it felt like chains were being released, emotional chains. Later in the year, I had the opportunity to go to Nepal and paraglide with Egyptian vultures. When I got back, one of my friends joked with me that my new name was Soars with Eagles. I laughed and made a joke back to him in the manner of friends teasing each other and then forgot about his comment until yesterday.

Photo by Richard A.

I have known I was a different person since I was in Nepal. Traveling changed me a lot. When I got back to Seattle, I was walking through a wooded area to the gym and the Raven story was on my mind. I looked up at one point in my walk and there, about 30 feet from me, was a gorgeous American bald eagle looking at me. He was just sitting in a dead tree and he was staring at me. It was one of those times where the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and that odd feeling that something special was happening, where my gut was churning with emotion. Finally, after what felt like hours, he spread his wings and flew off.

I have a friend who is a shaman and when I told her about it she said “I think you are entering a new time in your life and the eagle is your guide”. Again, being the scientific linear thinking person that I am, I put it out of my mind. Then yesterday, when my roommate and I were trying to figure out what movie to watch for our solstice celebration (read more below), she said “the only appropriate movie I can think of is Dances with Wolves”. At that moment, all of the signs I just wrote about above converged in my head.

I realized the tradition of the raven was over. As a story, the last chapter of is written, now all I needed to find was a way to close it out. About an hour later, my friends Nick and Sarah called and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch at Black Raven Brewery. Yeah, okay universe, I get it. Nick, Sarah and I shared food and beer and toasted to lots of upcoming adventures we are planning. It was a great symbolic way to put an end to the Raven. But just because a story ends, doesn’t mean the characters in the story stop living, it just means they need to find another story to begin. Our stories, like all the traditions of our lives, have a life cycle.

Everyone has traditions. They are a fundamental part of the structure of the lives of human beings. We have traditions surrounding all of the big events in life: marriage, birth, death, etc. We also have everyday traditions or routines like brushing our teeth or going out for an Americano. And then there are traditions surrounding holidays and special days like birthdays or anniversaries. And then there are faith-based traditions. All of them are important parts of who we are.

Since my divorce, the holidays have been very difficult because those traditions, those foundational structures of my life, were just instantaneously dissolved, there was no closure or slow letting go. Getting older has also ended certain traditions, although through a slower process. My children have their own families now and are spending holidays and creating new traditions with those families just as they should be.

For me, I think that is one of the hardest parts of entering the autumn of my life. I guess like most people, I struggle with things changing. The empty nest syndrome when combined with the loss of your life partner is definitely a time of radical change. And just like any loss, traditions can’t just easily be replaced by something else. It takes closure and time to grieve for their loss before you can start a new tradition and that process has to be respected.

When my kids were younger and I was married, holidays were filled with time spent with my children, extended family, passing around a blessing cup for giving thanks, Christmas lights, caroling, great food, lots of love, homemade pizza, decorating the Christmas tree, stocking stuffer shopping followed by lunch with my ex-husband, and many other wonderful memories. I have missed those traditions, but just like I am finding with many parts of my life, I am ready to move on.

So yesterday, it hit me. I have been trying hard to recreate traditions to replace what has been lost. But just like with a lost pet or loved one, what is lost is gone forever. I have beautiful memories of that time in my life and by trying to totally eradicate them and replace those memories, I am not honoring all the love that is inherent in them. So instead of forgetting, I should try to find a way to honor those memories (skiing on holidays seems to work well for me) and then start wholly new traditions like celebrating the Solstice. I like this idea.

So yesterday, the day of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, my new roommate and I had a solstice celebration with tasty food, wassail, a fire and lots of candles to welcome the sun and long days back into the northern hemisphere. And we watched Dances with Wolves. I also took time to honor the planet and to give thanks for all that I have.

I am an incredibly fortunate person. I am thankful for my health, a great job, a loving family, two compassionate and thoughtful children who are in loving long-term relationships, and the most spectacular grandchildren ever. I have a warm home, plenty to eat, a fantastic roommate, caring and supportive friendships, and opportunities to have amazing adventures in my life. I have the best life ever and from now on, I am going to use the solstice to celebrate and give thanks for that life.

The Solstice seemed like an appropriate time to remember the cycles and rhythms of the planet as well as the cycles and rhythms of my life. It seems like a great new tradition has been born, a new life cycle has started. Happy Solstice and welcome winter!

The 8 boxes…

Posted on December 15, 2013 by rangotti

Yesterday, I unpacked my suitcase for the first time since May. It was bittersweet, I hadn’t expected the mix of emotions it would bring. As I unpacked and put my stuff away in a new house, new room, I couldn’t help but remember my last apartment and the last time my clothes hung in a closet. I was a little overwhelmed by all the changes.

I think that not having a home to come back to made my time travelling both physically simple yet emotionally challenging at the same time. Travelling and knowing you have a familiar and comfortable place to come back to is very different from returning home to the unknown of having to find a place to live. Add on the fact that I gave up all my stuff, an act which was both freeing and yet again, ridiculously challenging emotionally, and it made coming home and unpacking my clothes this surreal experience. And yes, I found a great house and a super roommate. Now I just have to adjust to a totally new life.

For those of you that haven’t read the back story, when I gave up my apartment in May and then started traveling in June, rather than put things in storage for a year, I reduced all of my possessions from the last 50 years of my life to 8 boxes, my checked bag of clothes and a carry on, and some gear stored at a friends house (thanks Jason!). It was the hardest thing I have ever done. At least, it was the hardest thing I have ever done…until now.

Yesterday, I opened one of the 8 boxes. I had thought that it would be a fun adventure to see what I had saved. Instead, it felt more like opening Pandora’s Box. The box I happened to open had pictures of my kids, a wood bowl that my uncle made, a ceramic heart that my daughter made when she was in elementary school, a box my son brought back from Australia when he was a teenager. Similar to the experience of hanging my clothes in the closet, it was like a blast of memories rising up out of the cardboard. I took out the big pieces and set them on a shelf in my room and then closed the box without going through the pictures. I didn’t open the other boxes yet.

Today, my roommate and I are going to put up a Christmas tree. I took out the two boxes of ornaments that I had saved. Everyone that knows me, knows how much I used to love the spirit of Christmas. Those ornaments represent 50 years of family holiday memories. I have to admit, I am not sure I can open the boxes.

So what is my problem? I had this amazing experience over the past 6 months. I am a different person. I shed the memories of the past and stepped into my present and hopefully my future. I am happy and moving on. The problem is, I don’t want to go back to revisit the past at all, I want to avoid thinking about it and just continue on with my happy life. It isn’t that I want to erase it or forget it, it is all part of what made me who I am. I just want to keep moving forward. But there is one thing I know for certain, when something feels difficult and I don’t want to do it, that is the very thing that I need to do the most. The hard things show me what I still need to work on. Hmm it might be time for some brutal honesty here Robin. I hate it when I have to really reach inside for the hard emotional stuff. Okay here goes…

So I am looking at those boxes and part of me wishes I hadn’t saved anything… and that feels like a betrayal to all the people who gave things to me. For example, in one of those packing crates are the Shaker boxes that my dad made me before he died and I should feel excited to open them up. But instead, I am torn. On one hand, I have these possessions that have memories of the people I love attached to them, possessions like Shaker boxes and ceramic hearts from people like my dad or my kids. On the other hand, I have the memories and the love of the people, I don’t need “stuff” to feel that. In fact, somehow the “stuff” diminishes from that love. I guess what is confusing me is that, in the last 6 months, I have felt the love of the people in my life in a really powerful way and that couldn’t have happened with possessions detracting and getting in the way.

I guess when all the possessions in my life had been stripped away and all I had was the love of my family and friends, my whole life was just clearer and uncluttered. The love I experienced over the last half year felt like the pure essence of what we are as human beings. I want to make sure that I don’t lose that feeling in the trappings of “stuff” again. That is really what I am scared of. Because material things, even handmade Shaker boxes made with love from my dad, can never replace the time spent with the people I love and who love me. So even though I have those boxes, they aren’t more valuable than all the memories or the time I spent with my dad when he was alive. The mementos and things I have from my children aren’t anything compared to the time I have spent with them and the love that we share.

I guess I have come to understand how much of a distraction all the stuff we have really is. Obtaining and caring for possessions, working to pay for them, using them to substitute for emotions, buying things to fill voids in our lives, all those things distract us from what is really important in life which is loving the people in our lives and spending time with them. That is the greatest lesson I have learned and I never want to forget it again. That is what I don’t want to go back to. Ever.

So I guess I am scared that opening those boxes and reattaching to things will distract me from putting my emphasis on people. Today, opening those ornaments, is going to be a challenge, but I have to do it. Avoidance is never a solution. I just need to breathe, stay present, be aware and I can totally do this.

Adventure of the day…

Posted on December 3, 2013 by rangotti

Sorry for being so absent about writing this blog. I have been distracted by having adventures with a beautiful set of two-and-a half-year-old twins.

I have mentioned that for a long time I was stuck in longing for my old life back. Even though I kept plodding along seemingly moving forward with my life, my heart was still wrapped in memories of the past. To those looking from the outside, it might seem like that time of longing was wasted, but it wasn’t. Everything is a process. For me, letting go of my life took a period of grieving and mourning. It took me a while to go through that process but it was absolutely necessary to be able to actually move on. Even when I was mired in that process and it seemed like I was stuck, I have come to realize that I didn’t keep standing still and I am proud of that. I made some mistakes, had some successes, and even though my heart was caught up in another time, I kept moving forward regardless. Or maybe, it was just that my friends kept shoving me forward but either way the result has been the same. Here I am.

Today, I am packing to leave my son’s house after a lovely visit with my son and his beautiful wife and the two most amazing grandchildren in the whole world (I might have mentioned that before). Although I am sad to be leaving, this time it isn’t the soul-sucking sadness that it has been in the past where I was pining for my life back. This time, it is different. I know that I will wrap these memories up from this visit and all the love they contain and I will keep them close to my heart while I am living the life I am in right now at this moment, confident that I always have the love of my family. And I know that someday soon, Patrick, Heather, Brooklyn, and Charlotte are going to come to visit me in Seattle and we will make a whole host of new memories.

So I am heading to Boston to visit some friends and play tourist in a city that I have loved since I was a teenager in New England. Then I am heading to Maine to see my family and to do something that I never ever thought I would do. I am going to go to a party where I will see all my friends from high school that I haven’t seen in 33 years. I have had a few pangs of trepidation, wondering what to heck I am doing that for, but then I realize it is a great story collecting opportunity. And that is what life is, a collection of stories.

You see, high school isn’t for everyone and it certainly wasn’t a great time for me. Having been the victim of an early sexual assault as a pre-teen, I turned to drugs and alcohol at a very young age because I didn’t know how to handle the emotions of what had happened to me. My parents went through a difficult divorce, my dad remarried, and I just spiraled out of control. So my memories of high school and my friends memories of me aren’t the greatest. I wasn’t a very nice person. But here is the thing…I am not that girl anymore.

So I get to go back and meet these people again. I am a new person and so are they. We get to laugh and enjoy each other’s company. I will get to hear their stories of how their lives have evolved; stories of love and loss, joy and heartbreak. I want to listen and understand who they are as people. I want to know what touches their soul. It is an opportunity to make new friends all over again. So even with my moments of trepidation, I find that I am really looking forward to the opportunity. I want to see them with new eyes and an open heart and hopefully, they will be able to look at me the same way.

Then, after spending some time with my extraordinary brothers and their families, I am heading back to Seattle to see my beautiful daughter and her amazing partner Ethan and their new puppy. I am going to visit with my friends and do some skiing and spend Christmas at Tony and Ken’s beautiful home. I get to ride my bike and talk math education with Keri. I have to say, I am looking forward to being back in Seattle.

Everything is different. It is like my life is brand new. Every day is an adventure.

The best kind of guide…

Posted on November 23, 2013 by rangotti

A few years ago, the day after I took my first and only powder skiing lesson and while I was still only a comfortable blue run skier, my friend Matt and I went up to Stevens Pass where, on the first run of the day after a foot of new snow, Matt suggests we go up Seventh Heaven, an ungroomed, black diamond run. Matt, with his usual encouragement says “Robin, you can totally do this, I will stay right beside you the whole time”. We get off the chair at the top, Matt straps his boots into his snowboard and he is gone…I got down that mountain by myself solely for the purpose of wringing his neck when I finally got to the bottom. His response to me, “but you did it, and now you know you can do it again”. I swear I don’t know why I listen to that kid sometimes.

When Matt suggested I come to Nepal, his words were “come to Nepal, I will be your guide. You just get here, I will take care of the rest”. Yeah, I still haven’t learned yet. When I got to Nepal, as typical of the way he “guides” me, he starts off by getting us a bus ride to Pokhara where he asks me, “did you get a hotel room”? Hmmm…. is this part of the “you’ll take care of everything plan?”. Typically, it was like that with everything that happened in the two weeks I was there. The kid had no plan at all… or did he? I joked with him one day and asked exactly what “kind of guide he was” since he pretty left me to figure everything out on my own and to handle all the crises that came up. His answer: “I am the best kind of guide”. I am still trying to figure out whether the boy is a brilliant or just an accidental genius. Either way, once again, it worked.

But it takes coming home to truly realize how far you’ve come. The greatest gift of travel isn’t the adventure, new countries, languages, foods, customs, etc… or all the things that traveling brings. Those are all great but are only part of the real gift of travel. The real gift is returning home, forever changed. I am very proud of where I am at this moment.

So where am I? Physically, I recently returned to my son’s home in North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving (American) with my son and my lovely daughter-in-law and the two most amazing grandchildren ever, Brooklyn and Charlotte.

I have been here less than 48 hours and I am already amazed at how I feel. In the past, when I visited my son, who lives in my former marital home, I was always bombarded with memories and thoughts of how life “should have worked out for me”. I had always expected to be living in this house, happily married to the man I loved, celebrating holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with our children and grandchildren coming to visit us. I would ride past the university I went to and used to teach for and just be overwhelmed with missing the friends I had, the job I was great at, the life I loved, all of it. I would long for my past life back. I hadn’t realized how much that longing was holding me back until now.

The night I cried to Matt in Nepal, something changed in me. Maybe it was the yoga and meditation or maybe it was the stark conditions of the country and pushing myself through physical difficulty and preserving. Maybe it was the spiritual nature of hiking up to the World Peace Pagoda or up to the top of Sarankot or maybe it was the awe-inspiring site of looking out at the Himalayas which is a sight I will never forget as long as I live. Maybe it happened while I as paragliding with vultures or when I fell off the side of the cliff and was hanging by the vegetation and lost my shoes and had to walk back to my hotel barefoot. Maybe it happened through just overcoming obstacles and crises and realizing that I could face any challenge on my own. Regardless, sometime during that time, something changed.

I knew I felt different when I left Nepal and went to Barcelona, I just didn’t realize how different I was until I came back into the familiar environment in which I spent almost half my life. The familiarity of that world was in stark contrast to the person I have become. Now, I sit in this house and it glows with the energy and vitality of my grandchildren and the love my son and his wife share. I got to meet my ex-husband’s lovely and charming girlfriend and watch them interact with my two beautiful granddaughters who love them dearly. I couldn’t help but feel joy in my heart for all of it, for such a loving and happy family. It is something I never could have imagined over the darkness of the past 6 years.

I look around this place where I used to live. I have appreciated the beautiful changing seasons, the friendliness of the people, the beauty of the campus and know that I hold no attachment to it other than in appreciation of the memories of all the wonderful times I spent here. It was a wonderful place to raise two beautiful, well-adjusted children, and where I had the opportunity for an amazing career teaching high school and the start of my college teaching career. It is a place where I had spectacular friends and experiences, and where I loved and laughed and lived over half of my life.

Life is sweet, all of it, the good and the bad. Because of everything that happened, my beautiful daughter got to finish college, start a great career, and meet her amazing partner Ethan. Everything that happened gave me an opportunity to fall in love with the PNW and all the remarkable treasures that area of the world holds. It gave me the chance to reach down into the most creative part of myself and take risks in my career. It has given me a wealth of new experiences and friends that I never would have otherwise met.

I am more centered, happy, confident, peaceful, and accepting than I have ever been in my whole life. Traveling and returning home has made me that much more aware of how great a gift my life has been.

Namaste

Asking the wrong question…

Posted on November 18, 2013 by rangotti

It kind of sucks when I have been on sabbatical now for five months and just realized I have been searching for answers to the wrong questions.

I keep asking myself who do I want to be? What I have realized is that identity isn’t about my choices, my choices are going to be sometimes good and sometimes not so good, but they don’t define who I am. Identity is about my essence as a human being. That essence isn’t going to change. I am not going to suddenly stop caring about people or stop being the positive, loving, warm, compassionate, reflective, thoughtful person that I am. That is the essence of who I am and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

The other question I have been asking myself is what would make me happy. Today while I have been in Barcelona, I have enjoyed visiting two places which Antoni Gaudi was the architect. My plan was to visit Casa Batllo, Sagrada Familia, and then walk over to Parc Guell but I didn’t make it. The rain, my earache, and my exhaustion did me in before the last 2+ mile walk to Parc Guell.

What I realized at Casa Batllo was that Gaudi was a genius as an architect and also was one of the most creative risk-takers the planet has ever seen. I was captivated by the brilliance and non-traditional style of his work. I tried to picture what it must have been like to live in Casa Batllo. Nothing in our square line architecture can prepare us for how different it must have been to have a house that was patterned after sea creatures. I couldn’t decide if it felt more like a hobbit house or like something from The Little Mermaid. On one hand, it must have seemed strange and gotten old. But on the other, I can see where the family might have grown to love it. Either way, it was magnificent and certainly one of the most creative works I have ever seen. I am not sure I could have given it up to turn it into the museum it is now.

After leaving there in the persistent downpour Barcelona has experienced for the last three days, I headed to the Basilica Sagrada Familia. I stopped for lunch along the way to dry off and have some yummy jamon and queso and beer. I was glad I had the sustenance in me in order to walk the last couple of miles in the rain.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for what I was about to see when I got to the church (photos below). I figured I had seen enough Spanish churches that I would be impressed but not shocked from every sense in my body. The outside was shrouded in construction apparatus so I wasn’t impressed yet. Then I walked into the finished interior. I grew up Catholic, but left the church a long time ago. But I have to admit, in that instant, I was once again proud to be Catholic. And for the first time in what seems like forever, I found myself praying.

I could post a few of the hundreds of pictures I took, but none are going to do justice to the size and scope and the overwhelming sensory experience that is the Sagrada Familia. It effected all of my senses and was an completely immersive, emotional experience like nothing I have ever felt before. It was Gaudi’s crowning achievement. He spent 14 years of his life on the project until he was tragically hit by a tram in 1926. The project is still only 60% completed. The interior was finished and dedicated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. The exterior is still under construction.

What struck me as I stood there is that Gaudi believed in what he was doing enough to devote his life to the project. He paid attention to the detail in every curve, hyperbola, and trigonometric function. His heart is in the enormous columns that were inspired by trees, in the spiral staircases, statues, arcs and apexes, Gaudi’s commitment, desire, spirituality, and sheer creativity and inspiration comes to life in that structure. I was struck by the question of what does it take to have that level of commitment to something? I was literally standing there with tears running down my face and all that is going through my head.

That is when I realized I have been asking myself the wrong question. The question isn’t what will make me happy… the question I should be asking is what is important enough to sacrifice for? What is important enough to suffer for? It is kind of like losing weight. If it is important enough to devote hours to the gym and focus on diet, you will do it. Or getting a degree, if it is important enough to you, you will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. Whatever you will give your time and effort to, sacrifice and suffer for is where your heart is. So the question is, what are you willing to suffer for?

In my life, I have always had something I had to work really hard and put in effort for. I got a degree so I could take care of my family, National Board certification so I could teach my students well and take care of my family, a PhD so I could have a better career and teach my students better and take care of my family, paying off debt so I could take care of my family…I am seeing a pattern here. All of those things were worth working for, my family was worth working for. But my kids are grown, the husband is gone, the only person that needs me is me, and that feels different. When I had them, when I had a cause, I worked so hard. I haven’t had a cause in over a year and I have been adrift trying to find purpose for my life. But I have been asking the wrong question to find my answers. Instead of asking what will make me happy, I need to ask what will I be willing to put in the effort for? What am I willing to work that hard for, to sacrifice for? Because ultimately, where we are willing to put in the effort, that is where our heart is.

I leave Barcelona and have one more stop in Zürich before I get back to the U.S. for awhile to regroup with my family and do a little skiing with my friends. I have a lot to think about after this trip. I have a lot of unanswered questions still.

Caveat: I have about 500 photos from today. My camera battery is dead and I just grabbed a few. They aren’t the best and this was just my point and shoot not my good camera.

A new day

Posted on October 28, 2013 by rangotti

Port de Sollar, Majorca

I left Mallorca and flew to Madrid. All of a sudden, instead of being surrounded by British, Irish, Scottish, and German tourists, I have been plunged into the heart of Spain where very little English is spoken. In fact, I think I spent the entire day yesterday without hearing English spoken at all. I read Spanish pretty well, as long as I don’t try to open my mouth. The only place I got into trouble was in the supermarket when the clerk was trying to get me to give him a penny to even up my total. He was talking so fast that by the time I figured out what he wanted, he was just giving me my change and was obviously frustrated with me.

Instead of staying in a hotel, I used airbnb.com to find an apartment in central Madrid. Lovely one bedroom overlooking a pedestrian only side street. In the US, many people put shutters on their houses for decoration. In Europe the shutters actually work and serve purposes. They keep the sun out, but more importantly, they are a noise barrier against the street noises. It definitely can get loud at night. Even as I write this at 9 am from my apartment which is technically on the 4^th floor, but actually the 5^th floor and you have to climb 7 flights of stairs to get to it, I can hear the Spanish men who are opening their shops below and they are in a heated discussion about something. I love their passion. They are passionate about everything. It is wonderful.

Poseidon

Yesterday I went to the Prado museum and today went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. I honestly was so overwhelmed. There was a Velasquez exhibit at the Prado as the temporary collection which was incredible. It was amazing to see this huge body of work from an artist who lived centuries ago. I kept wondering how fast this person painted because he had hundreds of works. And they aren’t small either. There were many paintings that graced the royal palace and took up entire walls. How with the “technology” he had to work with then, such as making his own paints, did he ever have time to paint all that? In the regular collection at the Prado and the MTB hang masterpieces of not only Velasquez but also Goya, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Monet, Gauguin, Degas and many many more. Works that span 1000 years that were commissioned by kings and churches. Amazing works of art that depict the faces and emotions of people long dead as they faced the common struggles that all humans face.

Rembrandt

That is the thing about great art…it captures that instant of emotion. A scene, even without people, that uses light to give the viewer an image or a second of a glimpse into time, and it takes your breath away. Good photography is the same, it captures pure emotion, either within the faces of the people in the picture or in the hearts of the viewer. Great art just takes the artist longer to capture that essence. They didn’t have digital back in antiquity, they didn’t even have an art store to buy supplies but had to make their own. It took months of scraping canvases, painting and repainting to get it right. Masterpieces.

A House Among the Roses ~Monet

The past two days, I have been honored to stand in the same room with these paintings. I grew up in a middle class household in a small town in rural interior Maine. In my life, I never thought I would be privileged enough to be able to see works of art such these. I think of all the people who will never get to step inside a museum, who might see art from the web or a book, but never have the opportunity to travel to place where their senses are bombarded with piece after piece of some of the most amazing works of art of the planet. And from a photo, there is no way one can grasp the texture of the brushstrokes, or the essence of the painting. I ended up being moved to tears at the privilege of seeing these amazing works with my own eyes.

I am also fortunate to have the experience I get to have. There are so many people who will never get to hear to tolling of bells to greet the day, or hear only a language different from their own spoken, where they have to figure out how to negotiate without words, or try to figure out where they are on a foreign street in an unfamiliar city, to be immersed in a culture that is foreign to realize how much we really are all the same. Human.

Even on streets of Madrid with a different language and culture, emotion comes through unmistakably. Laughter, friendship, joy, grief, sadness, anger…all are displayed everywhere. The love of parent for a child, a young couple newly married, friends meeting for tapas. Unmistakable. Poverty also knows no cultural barriers, beggars, prostitutes, pick-pockets look the same in every culture. Just like great art shows emotion, we can also see it if we just take time to look around at our fellow man. Human beings are fragile, life is to be cherished for the gift that it is.

I am thankful for everything that has happened in my life that has pushed me to this place right now. I am thankful that I had the courage to try again. I truly have the best life ever and I appreciate it every day.

And happy birthday to my wonderful son. I am too young to be the mother of a 32 year old. I love you Patrick.

Stop being a sissy-pants

Posted on October 7, 2013 by rangotti

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.” ~Lemony Snicket

Me & The Luddite

I love having older brothers. I am the youngest of seven siblings. I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters. My dad remarried when I was an older teen so I also have four lovely step-sisters but I don’t know them as well. Last week, my brother phoned me after his wife told him about my blog (my brother is a bit of a Luddite who eschews technology). He called to be supportive and his first attempt at that was to tell me to stop being a sissy-pants. When I started laughing, he clarified with “or I just wanted to call and make you laugh”.

I liked candles

My family has the best sense of humor ever. I can’t sit in a room with them and come out with my sides not aching from laughing so hard. And laughter really is the best medicine. I don’t know where I would be without them because through everything, I know my family is there for me. Those roots run deep. We have had our fights. My brothers burned my hair off when I was a little girl by making some concoction in the kitchen while they were babysitting and trying to get me to eat it by putting a candle in it. That didn’t end so well for me. My sister and I traded fisticuffs over the use of the bathroom in the morning before school. But no matter how angry we might get with each other, no matter how long we go without speaking to each other, I know that at any moment if I was in trouble and really needed them, they would be there for me, to pick me up and dust me off when I get knocked down.

Payback for calling me a sissy-pants. I could have posted a much much dorkier picture

After talking with my brother awhile, he reminded me that this sabbatical was an adventure and that there was no wrong way to do it. When I told him that one of the things I was really struggling with was having nowhere that was my own, that I was tired of packing and repacking a suitcase, of not having anywhere to just feel like myself, he again told me not to be a sissy-pants. He reminded me that the challenges were what made the best stories and they are also where the deep learning happens. He reminded me to focus on what I am learning instead of focusing only on what I am frustrated with and to write down those lessons.

I have been learning about the possessions that I truly miss and the ones that were superficial and I know I can live without once this sabbatical is over and I do have a house again. I have been learning about what is really important in life…people and experiences. And most importantly, I have been learning how to focus on myself and about what it really means to take care of myself since I don’t have a home to hide out in. I have to keep myself out in the world which means I can’t afford to slack off, I have do the things that I know keep me centered, it isn’t an option anymore. This is probably the most important lesson I have needed to learn for much of my life, how to take care of myself before taking care of everyone else. I think at the end of this year that is the biggest gift I will have from this experience.

Life now is really just me and a couple of bags of clothes. When talking to my brother that fact hit me, not as an esoteric concept but finally in full brutal reality. Realizing that all the other extraneous stuff of my life has been stripped away, it was one of those moments where I wanted to say “DOH, of course that would be hard”. Once I had that epiphany, it has been a whole lot easier to accept everything and to just flow with it. It has made it easier to accept of the circumstances in which I am living, which by my own admission was my choice, I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I am blaming anyone else. This was a choice and I haven’t been so sure it was the right one until now. I guess I have finally reached the point where I accept that I am on an adventure, not a vacation, and it isn’t supposed to be comfortable.

My favorite quote is by Theodore Roosevelt. It is the “Man in the Arena” quote:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Brene Brown, in an interview with Oprah, said there are two things you need to have to go into the arena. You need someone to be there to pick you up and dust you off when you get your butt kicked, because you will get your butt kicked. And the second thing is, you need absolute clarity of values. Because if you go into the arena and you value courage, then you can choose courage or you can choose comfort but you cannot have both. If you choose courage and you have conviction, even if you fail and get your butt kicked and get pushed to the ground in the arena, you will still know why you are there.

Family vacation

So today, I have both of those things. I have family and friends who I know will be there to pick me up and dust me off when I get kicked to the ground. And I have absolute clarity of values. I value courage over all other virtues. In six days, I leave to go cycling in Spain where I am sure I will get my butt kicked. Today I say: Bring it on.

PS: I have spent the days since my last blog doing pretty well, getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising, spending time with friends and I am feeling much better. Not perfect, but better. Centered and more like my typically exuberant self. Thanks everyone for all the kind words and support.

My Rock

Posted on May 28, 2013 by rangotti

The time has come. All my “stuff” has been culled. I now have some gear stored at a friend’s house, a few boxes with pictures and mementos in my office, one bag of clothes, my bike, and my rock.

The rock in the picture is red granite. It is very heavy and it isn’t going with me, I am going to put it in my office. I found the rock on a beach in Canada one summer when I was a little girl. We were on a family vacation and my dad convinced my sister and I that the rock was really a petrified dinosaur egg. He brought the rock home and we used it as a doorstop at our summer home on a lake in Maine when I was growing up. I believed that story and told it to my friends when they came over. I remember feeling so gullible when I found out it was a rock, but I knew how much of a tease and practical joker my dad was so I wasn’t really upset about it, I should have known better. I know I probably should give up the rock, but I just can’t.

The rock and all my other possessions that I am keeping are just symbols. They aren’t what really is important in life, they are just reminders of what is important. My real rocks are my family and friends, the people I love and who love me. My dad is gone now, but the rock is a symbol of the love he had for me. He loved me enough to tell me that story and carry this heavy rock all the way up the beach, took it back to Maine, and then kept it all those years while I was growing up.

It has been really hard saying goodbye to my friends. I am going to miss them more than they will ever know. Even harder is saying goodbye to my beautiful daughter whose amazing spirit and love for the world around her has kept me going for the last 5 years. She and I have a special bond which was born in the fires of adversity. We have laughed more the last week than we have in a long time, knowing the time is coming to say goodbye. She is a really special person.

The big revelation for me was understanding that she, and my friends, are going to miss me as much as I am going to miss them. It made me feel loved. I know they are cheering me on, but I also know that it leaves a hole for them and it makes me sad. The world is a small place and although I might not be physically present, I will be connected through Facebook, this blog, and hopefully some phone calls and visits. I need my rocks in my life, even if I am far away. And they need me.

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

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