perspective.

It's all about perspective.

This summer I decided I needed a bit of a change, and really what I mean by change is I needed to build on my previous experiences.  I needed to grow.  In high school I started to grow through an amazing outdoor organization for young adults called Adventure Treks.  I was fed the dogmas that I attempt to express today, which have been important elements in my life: 

1. Adventure Treks taught me real communication.  Although cell phones weren't quite as prolific as they are today, social media was on the rise, & the "cool factor" stemmed from what kind of phone you had & what song was on your MySpace profile.  Not at AT.  You were cool for being you, which is unfortunately quite rare these days.  I just brought my personality flair & some "reaching out" techniques & I got to truly know people.  Who needs to hide behind a phone anyway when you can just be you at AT?  I think I just put this into perspective for you...

2. Adventure Treks taught me about community & respect.  It may sound cheesy to someone who doesn't have the AT background, but community is an indescribable element of AT that forms fast and forms strong.  It is almost like a large family unit & with that comes respect.  Respect for your friends in the community and respect for yourself.  With group gear & small living quarters, there is no room for negativity & selfishness.  Some of the individuals I met in my years at AT are people I respect & venerate the most.  They are real people with real perspectives.

3. Adventure Treks taught me about pure happiness & being humble.  AT was the first time I truly realized how lucky I was.  How many 14-year-olds get to travel for 16+ days, climb live volcanoes, glissade down snow-covered peaks in mid-summer, & white water raft without parental supervision?  (That is not a rhetorical question... very few!)  I was & still am a lucky kid & with that, I learned that not everyone shares these amazing opportunities & it is important to be sensitive to all sorts of diverse people around me with different perspectives on life.  

Although Adventure Treks taught me way more than that in my 3 years as a student, what it did not teach me was how much background work went into making the "adventure of a lifetime."  As a student you have this perspective that AT is magic.  No I'm not kidding... AT just transpired into this incredible trip that took no effort to plan or organize & was just filled with amazing students from all over the world.  With a wave of the wand, a flick of the wrist & an Abracadabra... boom, a mountain summit & a perfect sunrise to go with it!

But not really.

This summer I definitely experienced a new & unique perspective... I interned in the Adventure Treks office.  It's funny because I remember walking into the "AT barn" on my first day of work, looking around & thinking, "what are all these people doing on computers... I mean what kind of 'work' can they actually be doing?  They are all probably just on Facebook!"  But they were doing work. Real work that takes the whole year to plan.  Trip logistics, permits, regional director plans, travel information, waivers (all 47648653743 of them), outfitter communication, unaccompanied minor details, trip photos, welcome packets, social media strategies, t-shirts & hats, food, rental vans, health history binders, application forms, birthday cards, phone calls, pay checks, Treks Checks, graduation packets & much much more.  Honestly, that's not even the half of it. 

It's not like I expected to waltz into a room full of magicians, but I just never realized what really went into making an AT trip successful.  Dock told me I was the first AT student to actually work in the barn, which gave me a very unique opportunity because I still understood and felt the surreality that is AT.  I can explain the importance of evening meeting & still get goosebumps on my arms, I can still picture the wicked dance moves kids had when retrieving items from the "bin of doom," I can still hear Bob Bailey recite, in complete accuracy, lines from "Shrek" as the Gingerbread Man, I can still see Haley's face as she paddled our canoe backwards on the Clearwater Lake, I can still feel the tears in my eyes as I left AT for (what I thought would be) the last time in 2009, I can still tell how long a 3 minute shower really is, I can still remember laughs I had with Haley & Jenn Tanner over kidney beans, I can still smell Ramen Extreme & Oatmeal, I can still feel the "natural mattress" of sand on the Olympic Coast, I can still taste my very first AT pineapple that grew straight from the ground, I can still see smoke spewing from the crescent of Mt. St. Helens, I can still recall practicing head stands in the British Columbia with Niki Gaeta & I still CAN'T explain why I am so in love with Adventure Treks, but I am.  

2007

2008

2009

I learned a lot this summer from some incredible co-workers with some varying perspectives:

Perspective 1. Emily taught me to go for it & that decisions are never easy.  She taught me to be myself & she helped me act like a total goofball in my attempts to YOGA.  She also accepted me as her "right hand wo-man" & taught me her ways. 

Perspective 2. Joan taught me selflessness & how one person can be so loving, giving, & special.  She taught me (& Emily too) how to best approach a decision & how to conquer it & also that FSU has some awesome Alumni (tell anyone & I'll deny it... just kidding) & that Talenti bars may be the death of me. (Meow)

Perspective 3. Jan taught me how to be 24 & professional & that using headphones in the office may lead to a paperclip throwing fight.  But really he fed me some rad technology/systems knowledge.  

Perspective 4. Holly taught me the parent perspective & how hard it is to give up your child for any period of time.  I remember her telling me she missed the "pitter-patter" of her son's feet when he woke up in the morning & it hit me that I never thought my mom & dad would be "child sick" while I was away, having the time of my life, at camp. 

Perspective 5: Stacey taught me that sometimes not everything works out, but that with a little self-determinism and personal strength you can do anything & be anyone.  

Perspective 6. Dock taught me that working in an office can be pleasant & accepting & that no matter your age, you have a place with Adventure Treks.  He also gave me a sense of importance that I am truly grateful for.  

So I guess what I am trying to say is thank you for such an eye-opening summer.  Thank you for letting me indulge in my summer camp obsession.  & thank you for EVERYTHING!!

Adventure Treks may not be magic, but what transpires within each individual trek is truly magical & can only be understood when under its fantastic spell.

~Ciao-Ciao

spontaneity.

There is a well-known expression, “not all who wander are lost,” but sometimes you just are.  

This week, my mom & I flew to St. Louis to visit my grandpa after his heart surgery.  We spent the 3 days showing him the much-needed love & hanging out with other family members until returning home to Stuart. 

On the way home, our flight to Chicago was delayed & therefore, our connection home was missed.  If you know the Harvey clan at all than you know we have had zero luck in airports lately, stuck in a land my mom likes to call “airport hell.”  In the past 2 years, every storm across the country & every issue a plane could have left us in another lovely airport hotel.  (Shoutout to AC for providing Marriott love when the going got rough & the airport wasn't able to help a sista out).  

Anyway… here we were, “Mommy & Rachele together at last without those icky boys” stuck in Chicago for the night with a 9:20 am flight.  After the initial disappointment of landing in Chicago after our flight home took off in front of us, I came up with the most brilliant beyond brilliant of plans.  What if we took advantage of this sucky situation & spent the following day exploring the city?  Make lemons out of lemonade, right? 

Now I know everyone approaches their moms differently because moms are known to self-destruct at any time, especially when under unnecessary stress, but for my mom, you just have to work that pros list, mix in a little chutzpah, smile uncontrollably, & make her laugh.  It only took me 4 hours to work my argument until she was calling American Airlines herself to change our flight to 6 pm the following day.  She may have whined along the way in her little exasperated struggle that usually gets me to stop heckling her, but I didn’t budge, & if I hadn’t, this blog wouldn’t exist.  

When moms go rogue take 1.  

Of course when I called AA at first, a woman answered, who could smell my fear & lack of domineering chutzpah, & told me changing our flight to a later departure time would cost us $200 a person.  I hung up feeling defeated after fighting my mom for 4 hours to simply consider the idea of “spontaneity,” but I convinced her to use her feminine wiles to change their minds.  The truth is… my mom’s got talent.  I am pretty sure she could smell the fear on the operator and he had no choice but to give the woman what she wanted.  6 pm flight, no charge, plenty of seats, badabing badaboom.

We ate a deep-dish dinner at Gino’s Eastside to maintain our figures & then woke up to a day in Chicago.  We began our spontaneous adventure with an architecture boat cruise through the city, a trip down memory lane for my mom & a practically brand new memory for me (I had visited Chicago once before circa 1998, but due to recent budget cuts in memory & in iCloud storage, I have very little space in my brain for vacations pre-2001.  They gotta be there somewhere though, right?).  

Anyway, the water cruise was beautiful & the city has buildings like no other.  Apparently after the 1871 fire that Ms. O'Leary's cow started, Chicago created an architecture competition to rebuild the city.  Therefore, it is a relatively new city that grew right alongside Lake Michigan.  The buildings tower alongside the river that snakes through the heart of the city & what is even more special is that a walking path has been preserved all along the river for pedestrians & joggers to enjoy.  

After the end of the tour, we walked along the river walk & up to the street level on Michigan Avenue where we explored.  The eclectic architecture between modern, classical, & impressionism was fun to look at & the size of everything around us was much larger than anything we’d ever see in Stuart, obviously.  Fun Fact: the only hill in Stuart used to be a landfill…  

Once we walked up & down the “Magnificent Mile” a few times, we crossed the river toward Millennium Park to see “The Bean.”  This strange curvaceous structure is fairly new to Chicago, but is an interesting sculpture because it reflects the view of the city & yourself & it is shaped like… you guessed it, A BEAN!

Our walkabout Chicago was short-lived, but definitely a positive compared to being stuck in “airport hell” with a displeased attitude.  We felt like Ferris Bueller for the day… skipping out on reality to a day in the city.  Maybe we didn’t have a random parade to “twist & shout to” or a visit to the impressionist museum to stare at tiny dots for hours, but we did have our spontaneous outing that was 100% out of character… maybe not for Ferris, but for us!  

I have known my mom for a little over 21 years now, & I will admit she is pretty fantastic all-around, but specifically what I can say about her is that she can plan.  Whether it is a safari in Africa, a RV adventure through Alaska, a Spring Break trip to Costa Rica, a ski trip to Colorado, a summer getaway in Europe, a tour through China, a road trip up the east coast, a casual visit with Daniel, or my Bat Mitzvah in Israel, my mom has an itinerary planned out & sent to family, friends, pets, the police station, & any acquaintances in the tri-state area.  She is more organized than most people I know & can plan a trip like a ninja on steroids.  Her keen sense of travel is what has made my childhood such a perfect adventure & has given us all such wonderful lives.  

So… I guess what I am trying to say is that my mom has always been a planner.  This, of course, is not a negative, but is an attribute that I believe highly describes her motivated self.  That is why this spontaneous layover in Chicago was a wonderful surprise to me.  I have to admit I did not think I’d win the argument, but I guess that is what is great about my mom… she always puts myself & Daniel & Scott first because she loves seeing us happy.  

I don’t remember where I heard this story… it may have been a question Daniel asked or just some oral tale passed down among knowing mothers, but I was told that a child turned to his or her mother once on Mother’s Day & said, “why isn’t there a kids day?”  The mother than replied with, “because every day is kids day.”  & it’s true.  How lucky are we kids to have a day devoted to us almost every day of the year?

But today is her day.  Happy Mother’s Day to the most devoted & wonderful MAMA BEAR around.  I know I have written posts before about how lucky I am to have a mom like mine, but sometimes she just goes above & beyond… like all the time really.  I love that you can laugh at yourself & your stupid questions, I love that you call me “Baby Bear,” I love that when you smile your face does too, I love that you listen, I love that you are sensitive like me, I love that you have specified “off duty” times of the day, I love that you recycled that vest that you loved so much (you know what I’m talking about), I love that you like to travel, I love that you can talk to anyone & to walls, I love that you have chutzpah, & I love that you love me (PS: Everyone else out there who is reading this should be SUPER jealous that she is not your mom because she is awesome & you’re missing out!!!).  

I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU LOVE ME! (& it is possible…).

-Ciao

pictures.

I have been having a blast the last few days snapping pictures of some of my favorite people!  Just look at these beautiful people! 

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Let me know if you need any pictures done for graduation, or applications, or for fun, or for just a good 'ole smile!

~ciao