0
0
“This has to be a scam. No really, it can’t possible be real.” I reread the beginning of the email at least a dozen times before I was able to regain the ability to blink. “Congratulations! You have won the Santa Fe Art Immersion Weekend. You have been randomly selected out of more than 40,000 entries. Lucky you.” Lucky me? You’re not kidding!
The New Yorker in me leans slightly towards being a skeptic. I’m optimistic and hopeful, but I also know how far on either side the pendulum of luck can swing. The day that I won a coveted spot at the NASA Tweetup to see the last shuttle launch, I remained in complete disbelief until my credentials were actually in my hand at the Kennedy Space Center. Up until that point, I kept waiting for the follow up email stating that there has been some mistake, and that I was mistakenly contacted. Even afterwards and up until I felt the rumble of the launch deep in my chest, I kept waiting for someone to look at me with a raised eyebrow and shout, “Wait a second… you’re not supposed to be here!” Receiving the email about the Santa Fe Art Immersion Weekend sent the same teary eyed feeling of wanting so badly to believe that it was true, but knowing I won’t completely believe it until I’m there, in person and filling my senses with wonder and awe.
If I had won the trip at any other point in my life, I would have been over the moon! I’ve longed to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum for nearly 20 years now, and have admired her work for even longer. The range of her work, from her larger than life floral paintings to her abstracts, to the markings of her beautiful lines of charcoal first took hold of me and never let go. During some of my most challenging times, I’ve fled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art just to spend a few moments sitting in the presence of her paintings. (They do, however, like to move them around from time to time, which always irritates me much more than it should.) Winning this trip now at this exact point in my life, though, was beyond just mere luck or chance; winning this trip now was as if Georgia herself sent me a handwritten note asking for my daughter and I to pay her a visit.
A month or so before I stared at my computer screen, rereading the congratulatory email, I had made the decision that I would take my daughter on a road trip. Santa Fe, specifically for The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, was actually the place that kept tugging at my heart, eventually making me give in and turn our our visit with friends in Texas, into a full-blown cross country adventure.
My daughter and I started talking about our trip, plotting places we want to see. We spent a good deal of time talking about the really challenging part, funding, and brainstormed ways that we could actually afford to make a trip like this possible. I’ll be the first to admit that things are tight, and I struggle. The decision to take this trip now wasn’t made because I had great financial windfall bestowed upon us by any means. I could feel it resonating in my bones as something we had to do. It was almost like this trip chose us, and it was my job to figure out how to make it happen. Deciding that this adventure was going to hold an important role in my book gave it even more purpose and made me even more determined to make it happen, though, I wasn’t sure quite sure how.
That’s when the email arrived.
A travel stipend to put towards our airfare and rental car, a few days of resting in luxury at the EXACT hotel that I had hoped to “splurge” on for one night, fine dining one evening, and passes to area museums all were included in the prize. The best part? The part that sent me into a teary eyed, goose bump inducing frenzy? It also included a visit to The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum as well as a VIP tour of her home and studio. Perhaps Georgia herself had a hand in arranging this unbelievable opportunity for my daughter and I to share together because the very next morning, when our daffodils finally opened, all I could see was this beautiful flower as if I had been looking at it through her eyes.
Yes, this trip really was going to happen, and Georgia had taken care of Santa Fe for us already. From the moment I decided that we would travel, this trip started leaving a trail of important life lessons about hard work, dedication, creativity, adaptability and taking chances every now and then. My daughter will get to know our country, and even our Earth, a little bit better by experiencing firsthand the beautiful differences of her landscapes, cultures and history. She will have the chance to appreciate the wide open sky at night, the flatness of the desert plains and the views from cliffs along the Pacific. She will experience small towns set far away from any city limits with the contrast of the high energy of Disneyland. Natural wonder and man made wonder. Worldly cultural influences and hometown charm. She’ll get a taste of what I love so much about this world; the never ending beauty of a world in constant contrast. I don’t know exactly what she is going to take away from it all, but I know that it has already started to have a positive and powerful effect upon both of our lives.
Much of our expenses are now covered for our Santa Fe portion of our trip thanks to this incredible opportunity that we’ve been blessed with, but keep your eyes open in July as we will launch a few of our original brainstorming ideas to help us get from Texas to California!
I would like to send a very special thank you to the sponsors of the trip that I am beyond blessed to have won:
Luminaria at Inn and Spa at Loretto
You might also be interested in reading:
20 Things About Me: Kelly Schwark
Kelly, this is awesome! And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person!! I wish you and your daughter a wonderful, wonderful adventure!!
Aww… thank you, Kristin! We will, without question, have a wonderful time! We could spend at least a week exploring each location and still only scrape the surface. When prepping her for our short stays along the way, I’ve likened our road trip to an appetizer… just a bite of each spot to whet our appetite and expand our tastes. Personally, I think it will awaken a love of traveling in that kiddo, and I can hardly wait to see where her explorations take her years from now!