Tuesday Class Time Blog after reading Zat Rana's "What's the Point of Traveling?"

Two big points of the essay for me:

1.  Rana says that in traveling, one does not actually find oneself, but loses oneself, that one loses what he/she doesn't need.

2.  Rana also talks about not taking photographs, making a conscious decision to live and experience the moment without the interference of a camera, no longer trying to capture the moment in a photo, but in the memory, with his eyes as his "souvenirs."

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2.  I take photos, and I don't imagine that I will stop.  I want to capture moments more than places, but even places I want to capture, not so much for myself, but for the kids.  But then, likely for myself, too, to remind me of moments we had together, moments they were happy, feeling loved, content, excited.  When I was a kid and my mom got angry with us for not cleaning up our toys, and we ran up and down the stairs putting toys, clothing, everything we'd left out away, I used to sneak from the straight shot of the staircases (split-level house, so four sets of stairs), over to the other side of the living room.  There, on a side table, was a framed photo of my mom with one of my sisters.  She was dressed up (and it's surprising to me now that I can't remember which dress, though I think it was red and white), standing beside my sister, her arm on Cathy's shoulder, relaxed, smiling a huge smile.  I'd tell myself, She'll be happy again.  Her yelling won't last.

I've not consciously been making annual birthday photo books for the kids with this in mind.  Initially, it was a way to record their years in an organized, keepsake fashion.  Each birthday they get a shutterfly photobook of their year of being 6 or 9 or 10.  When Sebastian was maybe five, he said to me, "I don't want a birthday book every year, just some years so it's special."  When his sister's birthday arrived seven months later, he said to me, "I changed my mind.  I do want a photobook every year, okay?"

The photobooks have been a way for the kids to have memories since we largely don't get hard copies of photos.  And I think of the books as visiting memories and also as comfort food.  A few years ago I started putting in photos of me or of Daniel by ourselves or together, not even with the birthday kid.  One of the kids noticed and said, "Hey! But I'm not in that photo!  Why'd you put one of just yourself in?"  I told them, "Because you'll always be happy to have photos of us."

Videos I don't do so much.  Daniel and the kids record more.  When they ask me at performances or games to video them, they know now that I'll say no.  The phone gets in the way of my seeing them, enjoying them, just focusing on them.  I like watching the videos later and I'm thrilled to have them, but I rarely take them myself.

It's possible that the most memorable moments have no photos however.  The day I met Daniel, standing on the opposite side of the door of his grandmother's house in Albuquerque, hearing his piano on the other side.  Meeting each of our kids for the first time.  Sitting in a piazza at Bagnoregio Civita at lunch in August/September, having a cappuccino, no kids fighting, just sitting in the sun, grateful for the moment.

Two weeks ago, when Daniel had some kids skiing up north, and Mary and I were here in Viterbo, Sebastian called one night to say good night.  When he said, "Hi, mom," I could hear the tears in his voice.  I rushed to the living room, where the connection was better, to listen to him talk (why is it that all kids are most chatty when it's time to go to bed and I'm ready for sleeping?).  He talked about that morning, how Connor hadn't wanted to go back to the Sella Ronda, but everyone else did, so they went, and Connor was okay with it; how they had so much fun doing a black, doing some jumps (I know there's some ski term for this); how they were faster doing the Sella Ronda than they had been before; how Connor went to sleep and he and Hannah and Daniel ate dinner and had a really nice time, talking, doing trivia, hanging out.

The teariness was still there a little bit.  I asked him, "So, love, what's wrong?  You sound teary."

He said, "Nothing's wrong.  You know how sometimes you're so happy it makes you cry?"

I have seen Sebastian teary like this when he talks about Mrs. Mirabito, his third grade teacher, because he loved her so much that he once called her mom at the end of the day.

Or two nights ago, when I went into his room to say good night, and he was sitting there on his bed, a white paper in his hand, which I immediately recognized because of its folds: it was a Christmas note that I'd put in his stocking, a poem of sorts, with a list of images of him here in Italy.  He looked teary, and I thought, Oh, golly, what did I write that upset him?  What did I do?  So I sat down beside him on the bed, and we read the images together, and we laughed a little, and we appreciated him for a moment and his many ways of being.  And then I said goodnight and told him to go to sleep.

There's no photo of that moment or of Hannah's walking down the hill from soccer in her Zeus sweats and socks, telling me stories of Veronica and Vanessa and Alessio, and my realizing that Hannah is actually more socially aware than I realized; or of Connor running down Via Saffi most mornings to catch up with walking shuttle 1 (often Hannah and I), out of breath and proud that he caught up no matter how hard he is breathing; or of Mary when she had us all sit on the floor after dinner one night for five minutes turned thirty to tell us and show us the steps of making her skirt, and Sebastian and Connor even asked her questions.  These are mine to keep.  And I know that they are, in some ways, more special than any of the photos I take or the photobooks the kids keep on their bookshelf in the bedroom at home.

But still, I'll keep taking photos.

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1.  One loses what one does not need, Rana says.

Hmmm...I find this one tricky because it's hard to know, as we just discussed in B block, what's changing for one when one is in the middle of something.  Quinn said that when she was home at Christmas, people asked her, "What's your favorite place there?  How have you changed?"  And she thought, I'm just myself.  I haven't changed.  I didn't come here to change.  So she was thinking, I'm not losing myself here or finding myself.  I'm just me.

On the one hand, I agree with Quinn.  I'm me; the kids are the kids; Daniel's Daniel.  We are all pretty much ourselves here in Italy as we would be at home. 

But I also know that seeing or feeling or recognizing learning or change often happens later. 

So Quinn might realize years from now how her year here affected her. 

And we might, too.