What were you grateful for this week?

Travel friends who appreciate me. 

What was the most challenging part of this week? 
Allergies!

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week. 
I wrote the kids nice notes this week.

Tell us about your week! 
Open your eyes, and see what you can with them before they close to you forever.

I stood this week on the rooftop of a bell tower overlooking what felt like millions of red Tuscan rooftops and gripped the metal cage boxing us all in. As I pressed my forehead to it and watched the golden light cast hazy shadows over the old, beautiful buildings, this thought came into my mind.

It’s a line from “All the Light We Cannot See”, a book by Anthony Doerr. Interestingly enough, the title of the book has also been in my thoughts. It’s an idea in itself, an implication that there is light unseen, but that doesn’t make the light any less there. There’s something hopeful, comforting about that — and motivating too. That there is light to seek, that everything is more than just what you see, that every person is magic inside.

It makes me feel swept up and wonderful inside. On that rooftop, I came to understand my own kind of parable. It took climbing 413 stairs to see that view. And I mean, the city from ground level was spectacular. But there was a light that I couldn’t see from the street, a light that could only be seen by climbing.

In all of the best experiences of my life, I have never had the luxury of being able to take my time. In each case, I knew that eventually what I was experiencing would come to the end. In the past, this would have kept me from taking advantage of the time I had, to avoid dissolving when my time was up. I spent so much time worrying — that I’d get hurt when it was over, or that it wouldn’t be worth the view in the end — that I let a lot of opportunities pass in and out of my skies like a comet.

But now, I have learned to seek the light we cannot see. It takes a little faith to do it — specifically, faith in myself and my dreams. I have learned that my instincts are leading me into big and beautiful adventures, full of new friends who love and appreciate me for who I am, statues and paintings of the most beautiful human bodies constructed by artists’ hands, cow tongue?? Maybe??, accordion music in the streets and on the metro, tall skinny pine trees, learning to be comfortable in front of a camera, unexpected kisses, romance & love letters, twirling, sitting by a big glass window watching a lightning storm, words and words and words and words, Florentine workshops that are definitely more ethereal than temporal, and hopefully, seeking out that secret light inside me.

If you’re reading this, I want you to know that it’s not enough to just be in Italy to really see things. You’ve got to go out and see them. And it’s the same for you. There is never going to be enough time for you. Open your eyes now, before it’s too late, and see everything you’re surrounded by. Really see it. There are so many of us walking around with our eyes closed, and so many of us content not to seek more light. I’ve read that it’s possible for a body to be full of light, so become full. Open your eyes to what’s already there that you just don’t see.

When you get to the end of your life, I hope a million images are stamped to the back of your eyeballs, moving like cinema tape across your mind. I hope there’s faces of dear friends, of family. I hope there’s mountains, valleys, sunsets, sunrises, stars. I hope there’s puppies and Christmas lights and breath rising in a fog and sun hitting a snowbank. I hope at the end of it all you have someone who owns a lot of your heartbeats, who made you feel less alone, to be the very last thought in your head.

I am lucky. I will have the Matterhorn, and Michaelangelo’s David, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and Rainbow Row, and Alfama, and Sintra, and the beach in Portugal, and the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame, and the Duomo di Milano, and the Rome temple, and Venice in the rain, and the view from the bell tower in Florence, to keep me company as I leave this world behind me.

I hope when that day comes, you will feel at peace with what you have seen. I have made the decision that I’m going to.