Growing Up Savvy Posts

This right here is a departure from our usual Friday posts where I share our extraordinary moment. There have been many moments since last Friday but they can all wait to be shared later. Shortly. Another time.

Evan and I are dutiful citizens—we recycle, vote and care about the economy, geopolitical crises, etc. Like most people, we want to leave a better world for our children to live in. Perhaps, this is all backwards. Perhaps Carlos Slim had it right when he said that while it is important to give your children a better country (world) to live in, it is more important to give better children to your country. So from now on, I will ask myself what should I do to ensure that our opinionated, determined and very stubborn three year old grows up as an independent and empowered adult who cares about the world. Maybe you will ask yourself the same thing. Maybe if every parent asks themselves this very question we will indeed leave a better country to our children because we will leave better children to take care of the world.

An experience is sometimes more valuable than a tangible item especially if the experience touches your soul. I wrote a few years ago about the difficulty of choosing a gift for the man who has everything. As the years pass by, I realize how important our time, time together and time with our family are and that those are the ultimate gifts. Evan’s birthday was Monday and we took the day off in pursuit for some cultural and culinary exploration to celebrate his special day.

We chose to visit The Barnes Foundation having never been before and hearing wonderful things about its new home on the Parkway. The museum is architecturally very interesting and the art collection is remarkable. Hundreds of Renoirs, Cezannes, Picassos and Modiglianis to fill your eyes and mind with … to look at and linger trying to understand the magnitude of talent a person must possess to create something so extraordinary. I was not very familiar with the work of Chaim Soutine but was very impressed with his style and the emotion he was able to evoke in his works. His use of color reminded me of Marc Chagall, another beloved artist, whose works I saw en masse in Nice in 2006 and again in 2008. I liked it so much, I saw it twice.

Having treated ourselves to such a dazzling display of movement and color, we set out for a quick yet satisfying lunch of ramen at Cheu Noodle Bar where tradition sits side by side with modernity. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it hit the spot, so to speak. Thoroughly refreshed and reinvigorated we returned home to help the girls with their lunch and see them off to naps. The day was different than it used to be before we had kids but just as satisfying. As for the art and my company, they touched my soul.