on art, life, and movement
beautifully messy recap of what my mom and i got up to in Europe, with a healthy sprinkle of existential dread thrown in (this is me, after all)
Dear Weed-ers,
I’ve been sitting on this one, been struggling to string thoughts together. In the weeks that I’ve been drafting, I’ve dealt with my silly little perfectionist gremlin. And this is true even as the whole point in the weeds is to give myself a chance to be untidy and imperfect.
The backdrop is that my Mom had never been to Europe, and when I knew that I would have some funding to be abroad in the 2023-24 academic year, I immediately knew I wanted to gift her a European spring through France, Italy, and Germany. Having done some European travel before, being multilingual, and going on family vacations my mother planned for us growing up, this felt very doable. But no, turns out it’s actually quite difficult to plan a two-week itinerary through three countries, six cities, an array of different cuisines, and vastly different histories to grapple with.
Less travel guide and more diary, this is mainly an excuse to use some of the great photos my mom and I took, and to dig into a cheeky little archive of memories and musings. It’s a little all over the place, very much not linear. But in the spirit of learning to tune into a stream of consciousness voice, here are some highlights!
When my mom arrived in Paris, she stayed awake all day as we went to the Musée Rodin, the Eiffel Tower, and our Seine river ride. The Rodin museum isn’t underrated, per se, but because it’s not all that close to other tourist locations, it gets forgotten about. And the collection doesn’t rotate really, so once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. But the museum is still a lovely experience with its bright, airy feel.
Indeed, we saw a lot of art. I loved a special exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay that featured work by Nathanaëlle Herbelin displayed alongside impressionist artists that inspire her. There was this painting that I forgot to take a picture of but that still haunts me, called “Being Here is a Splendor,” which features a woman grumpily taking a shower. The work captures the ambivalence of learning to take pleasure in everyday annoying things that we have to do like clean ourselves so that resentment about those things doesn’t accumulate on top of anger about the bigger things (ongoing war, high grocery prices, a warming planet). It’s the postmodern condition.
Italy is obviously home to a lot of Renaissance artMy tastes skew toward French impressionism, Austro-German expressionism, and mid-century abstractionism. But Michelangelo’s David is sort of life-changing, as was learning from our guide about how to read the frescoes in the Vatican. I was texting my sister, who went to art school for a year, and she also helped me understand how colors were used and how portraits can tell stories about their subjects. It was a welcome reminder of the ways that art and art-making changes meanings over time.
The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich was also really well organized and incredibly informative. It’s the city’s contemporary art museum, and among their special exhibits was one about space and power in urban developing projects like affordable housing construction in Mongolia and strategizing around water access in Ghana. It was also SO cold in Munich, so being indoors was a welcome reprieve.
Mom and I layered leggings under our jeans and wore three layers on top every day we were in Munich. I kicked myself for not grabbing my beanie on the way out of Paris, but was glad I didn’t pack my cottage-core linen dress. We also had to bundle up on our daytrip to Monet’s home and gardens in Giverny, where things were not *quite* in bloom yet but were still quite beautiful. This was Mom’s favorite part of the trip: well, except for Florence.
We did two walking tours on our second day in Munich. The first provided a general overview of the city, and the other focused on the rise of the Third Reich. It was interesting to essentially walk the same route twice and hear about the layers of history in these places, especially because so much of Munich had to be rebuilt after WWII. And our guides were really amazing and informative. Same is true of our guides in Florence, Rome, and Augsburg!
In Florence, my mom had her first Aperol spritz, which she had with little chocolate cheesecakes. That afternoon was such a sweet time. Like many other 20-somethings, it has been an unexpectedly challenging gift to figure out what an adult relationship with my parents looks like. One of my anxieties leading up to the trip was having to acknowledge that dynamic, and the reversal of me taking care of my mom so she could just revel in all the sights and sounds and smells.
But at this cafe, we sat for a couple hours talking about love and life in intimate ways that I don’t remember having done before. I am my mother’s daughter in that I, too, cannot sit still. It’s why I train for half marathons (and now I guess marathons, since I signed up for the 2025 Paris Marathon!). So for the both of us to sit with one another as we basked in late afternoon sun and slowly sipped our beverages: thinking about it now makes me a little emotional, and people who know me will get why. I felt really grown-up and proud of having built a lovely life that I’m excited to share with other people.
I’m so grateful to have been able to do this with my mom and that we could afford it and that she took off work and that my life is flexible enough to accommodate opportunities like this.
But it was also tiring, as travelling always is.
The trip dramatized the fact that I am always grappling with the push of wanting to maximize a whole day, and the pull of needing slow mornings and wind down time. It culminated in anxiety in Florence, and an annoying cold in Rome that made us miss our visit to the Coliseum. I felt stupid for falling apart and felt like I had ruined my mom’s trip and felt that I failed at the goal of taking care of my her rather than have her worry about me. And so then I felt more anxious, and then part of me just wanted to go home, not just back to Paris but to Boston. I went back to Boston 10 days later, so that waiting period was hard but writing about (and through) it really helped.
I’m two years out from finishing my PhD. I’m having a lot of existential feelings about it. When I dreamed of academic life, I didn’t realize how transient it would be. By the time 2024 will be over, I will in 3 different apartments. We regularly spend extended periods of time in unfamiliar places to look at old papers and to network. With the job market the way it is, many people end up hopping around for years in the hopes that a job eventually materializes. Thinking about this too hard exhausts me.
This mobility is touted as an advantage because you get to see the world and meet interesting people along the way. But now that I’m watching friends graduate and buy homes and settle into careers or relationships, my own mobility often feels uncomfortable and ungrounded and alienating even. I know that temporary discomfort is part of the growth blah blah blah. And maybe I need to keep working on accepting that nothing is ever stable, and that growth requires movement.
And yet, after such a rich experience, I’m trying to let myself be slow. A phase where I quit whiplashing around trying to do everything and then trying to do nothing because doing everything wore me out. This is a recurring refrain it seems; it’s not the first time I’ve expressed this desire.
But it is nice to feel rooted in a place, to know the running paths and the bus system and where your friends live and the libraries and the burrito place where I most certainly will be picking up dinner tonight. It is nice to feel like you can invest in a place rather than feeling strange. It is nice to cultivate a sense of abundance where you are, rather than running around collecting it from everywhere else.
If anyone wants to come find the wildflowers among the weeds, I’m game.
As always, thank you so dearly for your eyes and ears! In my effort to be still and slower, I’ve gotten through probably a dozen books in the last couple months, and my thoughts will appear in a the next installment of “sprouts”. If you feel so called, feel free share this post with a friend or leave a one-time tip! Thanks for giving me a reason to show up and live out a version of my little authorial dream. :)
Cana<3
This sounds like an amazing trip! There is so much art in Europe I’d like to see, but I know I’d feel quite the same. I agree that a life of transience is mostly over rated. Thanks for sharing your journey:)
back with another beautiful post!! <3 the weeders