Coming Soon

Someday, when I have a regular keyboard and a computer that likes to take my pictures I am gonna tell you about the Brasserie with the magical musical clown car door.

I will also tell you about the woman with an Edith Piaff voice, bad teeth, expensive jeans, and good omens.

I might be persuaded to share a few little tidbits about the daily flirtations and warm smiles meted out by the locals here in Paris.

I hope you will be patient and come back when those stories are properly cooked and ready for consumption; for, like all meals made in Paris, they should only be prepared with the best ingredients and served in a leisurly fashion.

Reason Number 12 to See the World

The people are unbelievably beautiful. The women, the men, the babies. This may just be Paris, but as soon as I can upload pictures....watch out. They arent great pictures; but the people are exquisite!!!!

PS Polite Notice (as the English say) I will continue to overuse the exclamation point as long as I am in Paris, so you better get used to it!!!!

Reason Number 329 to See the World

Strong ankles. I have been traveling a week and my ankles and calves are strong-like-bull from all the walking!

I seem to think this means that I can eat whatever I want-I am sticking to this concept until my clothes tell me otherwise. Or at least till I leave France and Italy.

PS I am getting better at this French keyboard, so longer posts will follow soon.

A Pause

I want to tell you about London...and I really want to tell you about Paris....even though I just got here. But it turns out that French keyboards are not laid out like ours. So, until I find an American keyboard, or I am not too tired to figure this one out, it will have to wait. or "until i find qn ,ericqn keyboqrd; or i q, not too tired to figure this one out; it zill hqve to zqit!"

Let me just spit this much out: never try to tell me not to go to Paris because I have already been there before. Paris is like home, wrapped in heaven, covered in chocolate mousse. That is the kind of thing a person can never have too much of!

PS. The one thing I like about the French keyboard, is that the exclamation point is a primary key. That says a lot about a culture, dontcha think?!!!!!!!!

Taking the Blinders Off

While crossing the street in London:


Where we would normally look right.



Where we would normally look left.

But whatever you do, don't do what I do: step off the curb, looking straight ahead, and hoping for the best.

Granted, I am still in one piece...but I think it could only be a matter of time....

It's just that these English are so bloody intimidating and I find that I don't want to look like a tourist, so I just walk....then about half-way across the street I start giggling, a little maniacally, at my own stupidity.

I don't know if its the English, or the utter absurdity of finding myself half-way around the world on a trip that doesn't quite know what it is yet, but I haven't settled into my own skin. It is as if I'm walking around with blinders on. Unlike in New York where I found myself chatting with everyone I encountered, here I am stubbornly quiet. Though that may be because I am afraid I'm going to start talking in some weird British accent...you know the way you do when someone at home is playing around with an accent, so you just jump in. But these people aren't playing....they really talk that way.

So, I am finding ways to take deep breaths. I found this magical place in the middle of the financial district.



This sign intrigued me, so I followed the slim corridor between two huge buildings to find a little courtyard with a tent in the middle of it, with stained glass windows. The doors to the tent were open so I went in and found the most beautiful little sanctuary for meditation. So, naturally, I meditated.



Each of the windows in the tent had the word Peace in a different language. And the room glowed with warmth and serenity.



So, while the financial district of London, buzzed around me....



I sat in....




Later, I went to St. Bartholomew's Church. My friend TJ informed that he would not respect me as an enlightened human being if I didn't check it out. He said it should be on the list of things to do right before I went back to the states. But I thought it best to assure myself of my own enlightenment by seeing it on the first day of my European journey.





Well, it was one of the prettiest churches that I have ever been in. Ancient and warm and full grace. I stopped to take a picture the tomb of the prior who first headed the church.



Well, as you can see, it was more like the back side of his tomb. This isn't a great picture but the silhouette of his head was very intriguing. As I stood there, one of the men who runs the church stopped to tell me that right where I was standing was where pilgrims used to come to be healed by the energy of the great man who started the church whose bones, they have confirmed, really are within that wall.

I got chills. Just last Sunday, my friend Shane had called my trip a "pilgrimage" and I was struck by the word. I couldn't picture myself in that light. Pilgrims have an aura of devotion, of such deep intent. Yet, there I was standing where pilgrims had come for hundreds of years. There I was, another pilgrim, who in a weird way, is looking to be healed by the gift of a vision, of clarity about my life, my purpose. So, again, I stopped and meditated.

One more spot held my inner attention yesterday. Out of the blue, on a non-descript wall in central London was this plaque:



Nothing around this sign holds an ounce of mystical power. But I thought it best to stop and open my heart to the possibility that my heart, too, would be "strangely warmed" by the site. I'd like to say that angels spoke to me. But not much happened. Though I did smile a lot at the prospect, the promise that our hearts can be warmed, opened at the oddest times and the most unlikely places.

And so, today I'm gonna take the blinders off, look right, look left, look up and down, chance looking like a fool who doesn't know what she is doing. That way, I probably won't get hit by a taxi-cab, but I might be bowled over by divine inspiration.

Safe Landing

Well, I made it to London. After 6 hours of xanex soothed flying, and years of dreaming, I touched town in rain soaked England. I got off the plane, wound my way towards customs, stopped in the loo, and balled like a baby. It just happened, I started crying as soon as the door closed. I didn't see it coming...wham....sobbing. The stalls were very fully enclosed, like little water-closet caves...so I felt free to just let it go.

I thought, "what in the world am I crying for?"

"I'm here!" I answered.

I'm finally here.

My "World Tour" Stop Numero Uno: New York City

I have been trying to piece together the relevant bits of storytelling that would convey to you the magic of my first couple of days on this journey. I have written loads and loads of intricate spider webs narrating each encounter that has happened since I got off my plane in NYC. I've decided to spare you the detail, and to offer you tasty morsels, little bites that will hopefully make a satisfying meal in the lovely kitchens of your brains.

Flying over the country I was presented with the opportunity to purchase a movie for my individual viewing pleasure...I adore Delta Airlines.... there were many fluffy pieces like, Enchanted or August Rush. But I decided that I was going to watch Ma Vie En Rose, the biopic on Edith Piaff. Only days before I flew, a friend of mine that I will always think of affectionately as "Mr. Barolo, yes that's spelled B-A-R-O-L-O", or Mr. Barolo, for short, said that I should see the movie before I went to Paris, to whet my appetite, as it were. So, despite the fact that I was a little nervous about the depth of emotion I knew the movie would stir up, I ordered it up and immersed myself in the love affairs of Edith Piaff and all her reasons for a broken heart. It's a tragic story. No doubt about that. But at the end a reporter sits down with Edith and has the following conversation, or something like it:

Reporter: Do you pray?

Edith: Yes, because I believe in love.

Reporter: What advice would you give to another woman?

Edith: Love.

Reporter: What advice would you give to a younger woman?

Edith: Love

Reporter: What advice would you give to a young girl?

Edith: Love.

Well, I was a wreck.... here was a woman who had no reason in the world to believe in love, but she had dared to anyway even after life had tried to break her faith over and over. I was thankful Mr. Barolo had suggested I watch it, but a little unsure that that was the emotional tone that I wanted to set on my trip....was I inviting love or heartbreak into my trip?

For the next three days, I met up with various friends from long ago and different pockets of my life. It is something else to reconnect with people that I studied acting with in college 18 years ago, or shared my first apartment with. Once upon a time we knew each other’s dreams, we walked the streets of Chicago late at night and talked about what we were going to do when our "real lives" started. Now we are all somewhere around 40 and securely ensconced in our "real lives," we've had and lost and found loves, we've followed certain dreams, and abandoned others, we've learned how to walk around in our own skin, and we all talked about the process of having our skin change and age. It has been a deep blessing to touch base, with all these voices from the past, as we all navigate into the future, into the next dimensions of our lives. Love, for all of these old friends, has blossomed again, in fresh new ways, just like plants come back to life in spring after the long winter.

Jamie Harrold was the first old friend I saw, first thing Friday morning & the first thing he said was, "Is this the first day of your world tour?"

I said, "It's hardly a world tour, Jamie!"

"I know," he said, "but I like saying that, it feels right."

I realized over this weekend that Jamie is one of the few souls I know that has always wanted the people around him to shine just as brightly as he hopes to shine in this life. And his unending enthusiasm and glee for my "world tour" has made him the perfect sort of river guide between the safe shores of Seattle, to the unknown journey that I depart on tomorrow in Europe.




While out at lunch on day one I got a call from the Seattle Children's Theatre and was asked to do a show that will bring me back to NYC in the fall for three weeks. My New York debut! I adore working for the children's theatre and the miracle of having work come my way on first day of my trip was a clue, as Jamie pointed out, that I was meant to travel just now and that all would be taken care of at home while I was away.


I have also been reconnecting with my 10-year-old niece, Melina.






























In the last two years since I saw her, she has developed a keen sense of humor and the eye of an avant-garde artist. She took pictures in Riverside Park, and we people watched. I started reading her the second book in the Madeline L'Engle series, a favorite of mine that I began with her a few years ago. Love, love and more love.... for this young soul who is a part of me, part of my family, and a connection to the book which had filled my heart so long ago, now was fresh and new as I passed it on to Melina.

Melina's Shots:








Each encounter with all these friends and my family here, and even with many strangers that I chose to chat with as I waited for someone on the street, all these people have felt like great gifts, as if each held keys to the doors that are opening into the mysterious world that awaits me on my "pilgrimage", as another New York friend coined it.

Each of these miracles, each new open door was made possible, I know, by daring to take the first step outside the comfort zone of Seattle. But they also happened because of a promise that I made to myself Friday morning as I waited to see Jamie in Union Square. As I stood there with humanity swirling around me, wondering what my trip would be like, what Jamie would be like after all these years, I began to fold my arms over my chest, anxious, wary. Then I thought about Edith Piaff, and I took a deep breath, and in a sort of prayer, I released my arm and made a vow to myself that I won't cross them again the whole time I am traveling, so as to remain as open hearted as possible.... It’s amazing how many beautiful things light up your day when it's approached with your hands comfortably at your sides, instead of barricaded against your heart....I made a choice that moment to invite in love, and should heartbreak also happen, well that's the price for really loving isn't it? Sometimes. But my heart would break even more if I lived the next three months and beyond unaware of the beauty around me because of fear. With that vow, that prayer, I chose love. I can't wait to see what happens next!