Thursday Things #118
The Italy items edition.
Every other Thursday, I share a handful of good things I'm loving, reading, watching, listening to or just discovered. AKA the random good stuff we’d talk about over coffee or text if we had one another’s phone number. I'm glad you're here!
Let’s call this the “items that saved me in Italy” edition of Thursday Things, yeah?
I was 100% determined to fit everything needed for the two weeks into a backpack and carry-on. Nevermind that everything included an out of town wedding, international work trip, a nice outfit for new work headshots, and a couple days exploring Venice on my own.
Wonder of wonders, I did it. And let me tell you, when I carried my carry-on up and over 72 bridges to get to my hotel in Venice, I nearly cried with gratitude. (Not exaggerating on the bridges or the tears. 😂) I had barely slept in over a week, was really sick, and had just stepped off a train that didn’t have AC into the maze of Venice—so there were other factors at play to be sure. But for real real, the carry-on was the. right. choice. A few of the carefully chosen items came in clutch time and again over those two weeks, so I’m sharing them here!
First, a short-ish note because many of y’all have asked about the trip + said you want to see and hear more!
1) You’re very kind.
2) I’ve been quiet about Italy, processing with friends but unsure how to string words together that live online. There are hundreds of pictures / videos on my camera roll, but sometimes the pixels that are captured don’t tell the true, whole story, you know? The scenery is beautiful, very true. It was the most exhausting and expensive week of my year, also true. That both/and has brought a lot of cause for reflection, as did the laughs of irony with friends over paying to work 8:30am-2:00am every day during a retreat. Because both/and, right?
Only sharing one but not the other feels dishonest, so I’ve stayed silent, sentence by sentence drafting something and then hitting backspace until the blank page appears yet again.
But every time I open my camera roll, I see the pixelated surprise of Venice and I smile. The history of Murano tells a story in snapshots, the shock of color in Burano brings instant delight, and I think it every time: I want to go back to Venice one day.
Both/and. It’s really all of life, every time, isn’t it? There’s always more to the story, a thousand words or more behind every picture. So I’ll keep drafting and backspacing and looking for a way to tell it true, to tell it slant, to share a glimpse of what was without bypassing either side of the camera — because even in the behind-the-scenes, there is still beauty that takes your breath away, still laughter that surprises and flowers that stun just as much as Michelangelo’s David.
I’ll keep stringing words together, and if there’s a post of some sort down the road, I’ll share it with you here. But for today, if you feel the tension of publicly and/or privately navigating a both/and, I just want to say: I see you and I’m proud of you and it’s complicated, isn’t it? You’re holding the weight, holding your tongue, holding kindness and integrity together. You’re doing your best and you’re trying again when you stumble down a road of more than one thing. You’re looking carefully, determined not to miss the goodness along the way, even if it’s harder to find, because you know it’s guaranteed to be there.
Goodness and mercy are literally chasing us down, in the both and in the and, and so they have to be ever-present, behind the metaphorical camera and before, beside us every step and with us in every season. 1
That’s a ridiculously convoluted sentence that will probably make zero sense unless you’re right there in the thick of it too, but we’ll leave the backspace button alone and let this one breathe.
Onto the good things, Italy-item edition?
(There are always good things.)
P.s. Everything below is very conveniently on sale this week so YAY for that.
I think these shoes are magic.
Oh, I laughed real good after clicking purchase on a pair of Dr. Scholl’s sneakers, especially because Italians are just flat-out fashionable and these are, well, not exactly that.
But then I walked 50,000 steps around Venice over the course of 2 days and I declared my past self to be a genius because my feet were FINE. Sore, sure, yes of course because 50k… but also, magically, very okay.
Meet my new lots-of-walking-around-a-city shoes. They were worth every penny. (Here’s the link — they come in several colors and fit true to size.)
(Also Venice is literally sinking and in many places overflowing so the extra platform was an unexpected soggy-sock saver on more than one occasion. If you’re going to Venice, be prepared for puddles.)
5 stars from me.
Please allow me to sing the praises of this crossbody bag. (I got the Saddle Brown color.) Adjustable strap, two outside pickets, two inside pockets, large enough to hold my phone/sunglasses/wallet/passport/little extras with room to spare . . . it went with pretty much every outfit and cost all of $20. (I’ve used it at least a dozen times since. Big fan.)
When everything doesn’t fit in the carry on, get this.
That weird gray pillow on top of my carry-on? It’s stuffed with pajamas, two dresses, and a full day of clothes in case they unexpectedly checked my luggage at the gate (they did) and lost it (they didn’t, praise God). It may not be cute but if you’re gonna use a neck pillow on a long flight, it might as well be holding extra clothes! This is the one I purchased, but there are several options available online.
It’s real random, but it’s good.
LOL. So you know how Thursday Things is “the random good stuff we’d talk about over coffee or text if we had one another’s phone number”? We’ve got messy in-process honest words, magic shoes, a bag I’m absolutely going to use until the strap breaks, an empty travel pillow and… a wall charger?
Hello to the randomness, but for real I already told multiple friends with upcoming international travel about this adapter situation, and so of course it goes on the list of Good Things to pass along to you!
Look how nifty this little guy is. Ps there’s also a USB port on the side.
A lightweight life saver.
This is my first time in the world of shirtdresses and I’m here to say this saved me once in the Italian heat and twice since being back in Alabama where it is also one millionty degrees. (It looks like it’s currently sold out, but check your local Target. Or maybe give these separates in the same fabric/color a try? There are also maxi dress/long sleeve versions now that fall is, apparently, on the way.)
We’re back-to-back on Thursday Things emails warning me the draft is “near email length limit” so here’s where we wrap up the random goodness.
Thank you for being here for all of it. 💛
see Psalm 23:6, Psalm 139:5, Hebrews 13:5, and on and on and on thank God