What's in your box?

This past week I went on a family vacation (first one in over 15 years) in Carmel. It was really fantastic despite the fact that my dad didn't come. But I know I left my mom with lots of wonderful memories, and time spent well with the family is supremely rare for me, as like for many of you - it's a complex relationship.

Carmel isn't really known for having a nightlife, so we spent each night watching movies. While I don't necessarily endorse the "Me, Myself, and I" nature of the book, Julia Roberts really made "Eat, Pray, Love" pretty easy to watch - damn her!

Yes, you have your extremely deep and photogenic location shots in some of the richest, most moving places in the world. And there was a scene where the editor pulls a box from under her bed filled with baby things that she's collected all throughout her life for the day she would have a child. Julia Roberts' character admitted to having a similar "box" but it was filled with national geographic magazines and NY Times travel section articles for places she wanted to travel to.

I don't really have such a box, truth be told. But I definitely have plans, things I collect from my life experiences that I hope to give my children at just the right time to catapult them to the next inspirational landing - in order to give them a sense of home, of wonder, of the collective global experience. I have cute vintage dresses for if I'm ever blessed with a daughter. I have a plan for them to attend Stuyvesant High School like I did. I hope to send them to Bergen, Norway for an exchange program. I will bring them with me to do Habitat for Humanity in Hawaii where 80% of the population live in poverty. I will always talk to them in sentences peppered with foreign expletives.

I guess this is my "box". I wish for my kids to have the amazing experiences I've had, but at a useful time in their lives, so that when they're my age, this is all under their belt already and they can take that next step, broadening their horizons even more than I have. That's what's in my box: a few dresses and a sense of the global community. It's I guess my way of passing down a sense of optimism and eradicating ignorance and misunderstanding. What's in yours?