Finally, I have the time to put pen to paper to reflect on a wonderful mother/daughter trip and probably the best trip of my adult-life. I am so grateful to have had this fantastic opportunity!!
I have just spent 3 weeks with my college-aged daughter in Spain and Morocco and we had the time to rekindle our already-good relationship. However, as one can imagine, the thought of spending 3 weeks 24/7 with a college-aged-post-teen-age young woman, who has very definite ideas, likes and dislikes can be daunting, and although I didn’t give it a thought whilst preparing for the trip, I must say that on the trip, we both discussed the fact that it could have been a huge challenge but we loved the time together to just BE! To relax and sleep when we wanted to. To eat what and when we wanted to. To have the opportunity to spend hours in shops learning about, and trying the fragrant herbs and spices in the Souks in the Medinas of Fez and Marrakech, or to even to go H&M in Malaga or little Spanish boutiques in Torremolinos to find outfits for New Year’s Eve with no-one hassling us to ‘hurry up!’
Life without deadlines was bliss (other than needing to be punctual to avoid missing flights and trains in foreign countries) Sheer bliss!
What started out as a trip to Spain to help pack up my daughter who had been studying in Seville for the first semester of her junior year, and then to help get her installed for the second semester in Barcelona 3 weeks later, turned into an amazing adventure for us both. We had always wanted to visit Morocco and due to the close proximity of Southern Spain to Fez we decided to explore the mysteries of Morocco before beginning her next semester.
I certainly had a great deal of trepidation about being away from Scenterprises for 3 full weeks, stemming from the fact that as a business owner of a fledgling fragrance marketing company which has started to gain traction and which I am so excited about, I did not feel that I should be away that long. However, I justified my fears by internalizing (and …substantiated by friends and colleagues) that ‘nothing REALLY happens during the holiday’s’ and the thought of “when else will I ever have the opportunity to have 3 weeks’ carefree vacation with my daughter again?” And of course the biggest fear was being away over the Christmas Holidays and needing to generate business in an awful economy. As a friend of mine says OY VEIGH!
However this past year I resolved to follow the principals of Eckart Tolle and Gina Lake which, in a nutshell, is The Power of Now and Living in the Now...which means living TODAY and not in the past nor the future. Thinking about the past cannot change it, and to worry about and plan for the future won’t make it happen the way one anticipates it to, and so with an incredibly positive attitude about my new-found freedom, and being so grateful for the blessings in my life, and for the opportunity to spend time with my daughter and experience new horizons, I booked the trip and planned our itinerary.
I arrived in Seville on Dec 19 and this tall, beautiful, head-full of amazing curls intertwined with her signature-turquoise-blue color pashmina scarf tied' boho-chic' around her neck came flying into the airport to meet me. Her wonderful big smile soon turned into tears as we embraced and clung to each other, neither one of us wanting to break the moment with trivial words of welcome. We then explored the delights of Seville and drank Agua de Sevilla - a fantastic concotion of pineapple, rum, vodka, champagne (!)...and watched the flamenco dances and singers!
We stayed in Seville for 3 days, drove down to Cordoba stopping at Carmona and then Malaga to pick up a friend and then to stay in Torremolinos for 5 days – where it rained pretty much non-stop The car and my driving on a stick shift was yet another story! (for another blog!)
For someone who has been in the Cosmetic & Fragrance Industry for the past 30 years, and who is now offering Multi-Sensory Custom Perfume Experiences, I was eagerly anticipating our sojourn to Morocco and excited to experience the sensorial delights I have read about for years. And what an experience it was!
From a multi-sensory standpoint, the Souks or markets in the Medinas of Morocco are extraordinary. One’s senses come alive and are constantly delighted – the "ooooh’s" and "aaaaah’s" are well deserved.
Our actual pictures will be posted on Facebook soon, and I shall also describe in detail the amazing fragrances, ingredients and impressions of the extraordinary scentsory aspect in a soon-to-be-published article in a fabulous magazine.
Happy New Year, (and this one has been really HAPPY thus far!)
Scentfully,
Sue
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