Back

From Verona to Cinque Terre | Day 83 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Mar 24, 2023

There is not much to say about driving from Verona to La Spezia. A day of moving. Still, it is a day well lived.

My daughter Silke and I walked the dogs in the Parco del la Mura, a beautiful park in Verona on top of the old city wall, enjoying our daily morning conversation, the flowers, the other dogs, and the sunshine. We went to the organic shop for vegan yogurt and tofu and walked back.

I feel privileged to be able to walk every morning for at least half an hour with my fourteen years old daughter. I believe teenage girls need their mothers much more than our society appreciates and that the way we raise children in institutions, pushing them to grow “resilient,” “mature,” and “independent,” is all just a huge hoax tearing families apart, numbing and dumbing down emotions that are pure, true and natural. Even necessary.

Every morning, we adjust and align. And I am grateful for the lovely relationship I have with my teen girl.

In the afternoon, we arrived in La Spezia at a camper parking, which wasn'nt a very sexy to stay for the night before visiting Cinque Terre. In the industrial end of the harbor, we went for our evening walk, looking at container ships and the light in the water, again talking and enjoying our family community.

Interestingly, there was a small exhibition sharing an element of the post-Second World War history of transporting the survivors of the holocaust to Israel.

We were happy to learn, yet it is still not fair to only mention the Jews when talking about the horrors of the Second World War. So we talked about that for a bit.

What else? Not much.

We like the not much days. Just being together, eating rice and broccoli, walking in the sun or the dark, staying in a flow state, aligning with each other and the big universe. To the best of our ability.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

# 83 of my 2023 writing challenge - Read them all here

Unschooling and Parent consulting, conversations, blogposts, and podcasts on family life and learning

Hi, I'm Cecilie Conrad. I'm a trained psychologist, mother of four, radical unschooler and full-time traveller. I have lived with unschooling for over a decade and help other families find their own path – whether it is about homeschooling, unschooling, or the bigger question of how you want to live as a family.

I offer guidance, conversations and talks. I call my work grandmothering – not coaching in the traditional sense, but presence, professional insight and concrete help navigating motherhood and finding your way home to your own values.

Am I the right person to help you? You can book a free discovery call, and we'll talk and figure it out.

Listen to my podcasts

I share my knowledge and curiosity about family life and learning in my two podcasts.

Da Ladies - cover
self-directed-podcast

Read my latest blogposts

Walking back home through Krakow one last time, I contemplate the concept of time and whether it is flying. I carry a liter of laundry detergent fro…Read more
Welcome to Europe, Gypsie The first morning after seven months in Mexico and the USA, I woke up in my van somewhere on Montserrat Mountain. The w…Read more
When we arrived to the big house at Baja, we had to kick ourselves hard to remember how great this is - even when the temperatures are about 10 degre…Read more
We were excited about going to the next place. As always, of course, but this time, we would finally meet again with friends from the castle experie…Read more
Do you also want to evaluate at the edge of the new year? I want the statistics: How many museums, how many cities, how many beach days, where did we…Read more
Arriving in Tijuana. The most overwhelming thing was the wall. Oh, my good. I have to say it. It is crazy. Cra. Zy. Double metal fence construction o…Read more
We canceled the plan to go out on the ocean to swim with the big fish because we are exhausted from being "the tourists with the dollars," paying and…Read more
We needed to buy gasoline halfway through our trip and arrived at a gas station that was out of electricity. Therefore, they could not pump the gasol…Read more
It is very hard to take good pictures of dolphins, especially if you are at the same time trying just to enjoy the moment and save some hours in the …Read more