Bella Italia - shopping in my mothers shoes.

My mother told me that I would love Italy when I was 18. Did I listen to her then? Of course not. Who believes their mother knows anything when you are 18! My mother went to Italy for the first time the summer that I was leaving for college and came back raving about the city of Rome, the beautiful churches, the fantastic shopping - something that my mother held a master's degree in- the lovely people, the shear joy of exploring new territories etc. That was my mother's first major worldwide trip. She ended up seeing more than 90 countries in her lifetime. And loved all of them. She started thinking about travel at her own grandmother's knee while reading the National Geographic.

I have inherited her love of both travel and shopping. I know that I have instilled a love of some of these adventures on my own children. It is amazing to me the influence that our parents have on us. Even when we sometimes try our best to be nothing like them, we/they seem to be there in funny little ways that we don't even think about. For instance, I was looking at pictures that my daughter took of my in Venice. I was standing in St. Mark's Square, smiling, with my hands in front of me at the waist, exactly like so many photos I have of my own mother at roughly the same age and we are even wearing almost the same jewelry. Certainly not done consciously, but there is her subtle influence. There is another photo taken at dinner in Padua and I noticed it because I have a photo next to my desk of my mother, which was taken in China during the late 1970's, and we are both holding our eating utensils in exactly the same way! I wonder if one of my own daughters will discover a photo years from now, with something similar and if they will recognize the similarities. I wonder what their reaction will be - pleasantly surprised or a little dismayed that they are turning into their Mother!

I found myself thinking a lot about both of my parents when I was travelling. Part of it was because I was lighting candles for them in every church that we visited -and we were in a lot of churches during our short stay in Europe. We averaged at least two a day in Italy. But the other reason for thinking about my Mother in particular were all of her stories of her wonderful adventures. I found myself wondering as Katie and I toured Rome if my mother had shopped along the same streets? I know that we visited many of the same sights and it made me smile to think that I was walking in her footsteps. Maybe an angel named Sara guided us to that shop with the beautiful gloves in so many lovely colors? I was sorry that I didn't have the chance to see these sights with her, but so grateful that I was able to share them with my own daughter.