STOP 1 | Philly with Olga: the unexpected sabbatical motto origin

Using the word “sabbatical” may be misleading: some people link it to schools, to gap years, to 1 full year of break. I intend it as 3 months of pause from my daily duty.

I met Olga in Costa Rica. Despite me being a social protagonist of that Intrepid trip with a lot of positive vibes shared towards others – people who know me will not believe it – I usually may not create solid long-lasting connections with other people. With Olga, it was different, probably because both of us are crazy under different aspects. We stayed in touch since January 2021, we tried to organize some vacations in the past, but our schedules were completely differently. Almost as a joke, while talking about my “sabbatical” she suggested I could drop by Philly. I had never been to “Philly”: I only remember the city for 2 reasons:

• The Mondelez cream cheese
• The NYC-Philly car trips from the protagonists of How-I-Met-Your-Mother

I fell in love: I fell in love with the City, a walkable mid-size city on the US East Cost, I fell in love with the mix of new and old of downtown and last but not least I fell in love with Penny, Olga’s adorable dog. Over the last couple of years I’ve become scared of dogs: I love them, I grew up with one – Willy, RIP – however two of them bit me, so I’ve been more suspicious. Penny was a beauty and she almost cried (can dogs cry?!) when she felt I was leaving. Here’s is Penny.

We spent hours and hours on the couch with me petting her, she also cracked my nuts while driving one day: it was not intentional but painful. Well, probably I haven’t met the woman of my life, at least I hit on a female dog, does it count?!

Philly stop was unexpected for many many many many reasons, but probably the most exciting one was the ideation of my sabbatical motto. I believe it happened naturally during our chat while driving home from airport – a really quick trip that Olga made it last double of time as she didn’t look at Google Maps. Don’t even remember if it was conceived right when we took the wrong route, but it was a natural joint effort: take life as it comes. We cannot control every single aspect of our life and probably we should start stopping doing that. Let’s take life as it comes to us, let’s focus on what we can control and leave the rest flowing by, let’s take action only when needed. Planning too much may be harmful sometimes.

Take Life As It Comes became the subject of two very very very beautiful and modest paints we did. Obviously mine is the worst out of the two and the background of this blog. I need to say, when with Olga, my creativity sky-rockets.