I'm having a Dex day and I'm unable to sleep. It's pushing 2:00AM and here I am, writing. On my Dex days and the day after, I take Ambien to help me sleep. Tonight, that isn't working. At least I'm not Ambien shopping this time (yet) but I am eating cookies (bad).
Earlier today, William asked me why I took so many grand trips. I had to think about it to give him an articulate and well-thought answer. "Because life is today; life is now. I hope I have many, many years ahead of me. But who knows? Who knows how much time any of us have? And as long as I can do this, it's important to me. I want to see and experience everything-- from my Utah back yard to Europe and everything in between. It matters. I want my daughters to be raised not remembering the first time they were on a plane, or went to another country, or to their first ballet, Broadway play, opera, symphony, good cinema, or museum. I want it to simply be part of who they are as people. I want them to know that the world is big. People live very different lives. The world is diverse and they should appreciate it and explore it.
I think my answer resonated because a few hours, we all had finalized our trip to Italy-Greece-Turkey and Croatia, with the girls and I stay behind an additional two weeks to visit Northern Italy and Switzerland. Done deal!
I grew up with an intense interest in life outside of California, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Oregon. For whatever reason, I was most interested in New York City (which I visited the first time when I was in college and then countless times since then) and Moscow. I had such a desire to visit Russia that I was almost obsessed with it. I had to see the Kremlin and GUM and the Stalin area buildings. I wanted to see the Bolshoi. I wanted to visit Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and visit the Hermitage, and Peterhoff, and Marinski Theatre. In eighth grade, I started pulling books off the shelf about Russian history and culture. I couldn't read enough about the larger than life characters: Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great (my hero), the Romanoff Family, Peter the Great (a nut, but a genius), Stalin (the Anti Christ, more evil than Hitler), Lenin, Nakita Kruschev, Dostoevsky (who I read endlessly in college, or so it seemed-- hello Crime & Punishment three times!). Tchakovski. Nitche. So many that I could keep writing and writing.
I went to Russia the first time on vacation in July 1999. White Knights. It was amazing. We were in St Petersburg. Two years later, we went back to Moscow, Vilikiy Novgorod, and Borovhichi. We were there for a week to pick up Morgan. I'm not sure I put the camera/camcorder down for more than a few minutes. We went to the original kremlin in Novgorod. It was a beautiful city. The country road from Moscow to St Petersburg was fascinating. I cried when I left Russia. I wanted to stay longer and explore more. I went with Bob on my third trip for a week. Yekaterinburg-- on the border of the Ural mountains. We went to the area where we could put one foot in Europe and the other in Asia. We stumbled upon one story after the next that carried mostly Cerruti, Chanel, Prada and Dior. And lot of jewels. We had the most amazing mushroom soup ever. We saw the cathedral that was erected over the home where the Romanoff family was executed. We saw more churches. We ate great food. We flew home.
