Let’s just say Spring was a busy time for me at work. From April 17 through May 25, I hosted 11 in-person roundtables for senior design leaders across six cities: NY, Chicago, Milwaukee, SF, LA and Seattle. It’s been a year since our community returned to a mix of in-person and virtual sessions, and as of June 27, I’ve hosted over 280 sessions for these fabulous leaders.

Though sometimes it’s overwhelming, I genuinely love what I get to do: Hold space for smart, kind people to connect and learn. But there’s a tradeoff when it comes to travel. My husband is a wonderful dad who always crafts “adventures” for the girls when I’m away, and I’m so grateful for that. Though turns out it’s impossible for me to be in two places at once.

Just ask Ella about that. I’m not sure if it’s because we spent SO MUCH TIME together during the pandemic or what, but for some reason, Ella has become less tolerant of my travel. Starting in October of last year, when I hosted a Fall round of sessions like the Spring one above, Ella started getting sad when she knew I was traveling for work.

I’ve tried lots of things: Letting her know in advance. NOT letting her know until the last minute. Counting down the “sleeps” before I get home, which is almost always just two. Reminding her of all the things she’ll get to do while I’m away. What we’ll all do once I get home. Bribing her. Always reassuring her that I’ll be right back.

While she allows it and does her best to put on a big girl face, the tears leak out every time. We FaceTime and text while I’m away, and by the time I get home, she acts as though I never left. She’s a tough little girl. I felt the need to document this because I hope, as happened with Zoe, one day soon she’ll move past feeling sad. In fact, Zoe’s completely unfazed. Plus, surely this (along with lots of other blog post topics) will be fodder for some fabulous future therapy sessions.

For my own part, I still love seeing the Earth from the sky.

I wish the same feeling for my children some day, to understand that perspective in life is so important. Sure, both have been on plenty of planes, but honestly they mostly look out the window only with prompting, between iPad moments. Some day they’ll get it.

Anyway, my Spring travels went well. For every city, there are tons of details to arrange and wrangle, people to please, planes, trains and automobiles to endure. But this time, I decided to try and add in a few moments that I would enjoy. Here are just a few tidbits worth sharing:

• In NYC, I played tourist for one evening (which I never do, shame on me) and went to the TKTS booth in Times Square and got last-minute tickets to see &Juliet on Broadway. It was incredible. A jukebox musical that explores the “what if” of Juliet NOT killing herself when she finds Romeo dead. I’ll leave it at that, but if you can go, do it.
• In Chicago / Milwaukee, I got to stay with one of my best friends in the world, whose house (which they built and is gorgeous) I’d never gotten a chance to see. In addition to getting some family time, we went to a lakeside dinner, shopped in some cool shops, and attended a volleyball game for her talented daughter. I also got a private tour of the lovely Mount Mary University and enjoyed lunch with their senior leadership team, one of whom is in my design leader community.
• In LA, I got to explore the Arts District, where I hosted dinner at Girl & the Goat, which I highly recommend. Yes, there’s one in Chicago, too. Yum. And it’s quite cute down there. Another of our leaders has a studio down there, and I got to see how the artists work and live.
• In Seattle, I literally spent one night, so not too much to share but I did take some cool pictures from the sky. And we hosted a dinner at Aerlume, which was also delicious. I got to watch the server craft the coolest Old Fashioned I’ve seen. To be fair, I don’t drink them so I have no idea what it tasted like, but to watch him burn the wood on top to fill the glass with smoke was pretty fun.
• In SF, I took a random selfie to send to the girls, well-lit from facing the window, with a slightly messy hotel room behind me. One perk we offered to the leaders in our community was a headshot photo from Headshots.com. Basically, they teach you how to take your own picture, then you upload and they edit. Below is the before and after of mine, and though I didn’t exactly follow directions and the edges around my hair are fuzzy, it’s not too bad:

And so, hopefully it’s now obvious that a) this travel for work is a lot of work and, at least for this last round, it was also fun, and b) as Daniel Tiger always says, “Grown-ups come back.” If you have a small child who’s not convinced, watching that episode worked like a charm with a little Zoe to get her OK with a babysitter, which she passed along to her sister–though if Ella gets sad during my Fall travel round, I’m bringing that episode back out.

Thanks for indulging a post about me, for the benefit of my children who will eventually get to read this blog. Zoe is begging for the URL, but if you’re reading this, please do NOT be the one to share it. For now, enjoy a few more pics from my travels. And Happy 4th of July (yes, I’m still blogging about May)!