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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

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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.

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