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!

Sweet Home Seattle.

Let me tell you why I moved to Seattle, you know, the home I just left for three months.





When I was around 20 I went with family to visit my stepsister in Seattle. When we went to Pike Place Market, a huge covered open-air farmers and craft market in downtown Seattle, I literally stood in the middle of the aisle and wept. The color, the life streaming by me in all shapes, colors and sizes, the sound of vendors, eager tourists, and locals buying their groceries all soaked into my heart and woke it up in a way that at that tender age of 20 I had only encountered one other time, and that was shopping in the little patisseries and markets in Brittany when I was an exchange student in France at the even more tender age of 14.

Apparently there is something about the way a culture shops that really turns me on.



Though, its not really that, its not consumerism in action that sets me a-tingle. It is the parade of humanity out to discover and to nourish themselves, it is the vibrancy of foods and goods put on display all shiny and bright, it is the flood of information that washes through all the senses, bringing them to complete attention that makes me happy to be alive.



Do I shop at Pike Place Market for my groceries now that I live in Seattle? No, but I do enjoy a visit every so often.

Ironically, it is the ability Seattle has to create a safe and nourishing environment for solitude that has fed and nourished me for many of the last 12 years. I have, in essence, been “finding myself”. This was possible because Seattle demands very little of its residents, not like New York or Chicago, where I'd lived for 5 years in my early 20's. In Chicago, I always felt like I was fighting to stay in my own skin, mostly because the city was so stimulating that I couldn’t settle enough to know who I was and what I wanted, all on my own.

In Seattle, one tends to be overcome with the energy and beauty of the land, but the people pretty much keep their distance. There is no great swell of humanity that accosts the inhabitants of Seattle when they walk out of their houses, and so when you live in the Pacific Northwest you are free to make your own energetic choices & I have used much of my time there to reach deep inside and to learn what it is that I needed to know in order to go out into the world again.

I have felt, at times, a bit at war with myself. The girl weeping in Pike Place Market was all akimbo inside, I think, because she understood that it was going to take 18 years to reconcile the parts of herself that were afraid of the world, that did not want to be seen, those tender feelings that made her want to hide from the very life and energy that her soul and heart were drawn to fought with the adventurous side that yearned to dive into far away places and cultures, into the sensual pleasures of different foods, smells, the feel of the sun on her face at exotic latitudes, the way the ocean smells on far away shores, the smiles on foreign faces.

It seems that I had to buy a house and make it into a home that had all the stability that the homes of my divorced parents’ did not. I had to sink into walls and gardens over which I had control, I had to learn how to nourish myself, to fall in love with my life before I could even think about letting the rest of the world in.

It is interesting to me that the life and vibrancy of Pike Place Market called to something deep inside of me, drew me to live in the city six years after I had first visited it, and then provided the shelter I needed to find firm footing within my skin so that now I can leave Seattle and soak my senses in the vibrancy and life of the wider world.

As I embark on my journey I feel as tender as I was that day I stood in Pike Place Market 18 years ago, but I am not scared. I am excited to open my heart to the miracles and love that await me, for I feel certain that many unexpected beauties lurk around each corner of every building and being. I feel ready to be bathed in the light and color, sounds and smells, the smiles of yet to be known faces. But I no longer feel akimbo; as a friend of mine is fond of saying, “I’m okay with it.” I feel ready to stand firmly in my own skin, I feel ready to meet the world and to look it squarely in the eye.

Reason Number 547 to See the World....if you are from anywhere that doesn't bank in US Dollars

I was shopping today at H & M in Harrold Square in NYC, trying to find a couple of cute tops to coordinate with my slacks for ease of travel. I was shopping in New York because once I cross the pond everything is going to become twice as expensive. While standing in line for the fitting room, I met three sisters from Cork Ireland. They had flown over for the weekend (two nights, three days) to shop for clothes. Apparently, the dollar is so weak that it is cheaper for them to fly from Ireland to NYC to shop at H & M and Macy's than it is to go to London or Dublin. Not that I don't think you can put two and two together, but that means it is cheaper for them to buy three plane tickets from Ireland to America, hotel rooms, and three days worth of food in one of the most expensive cities in the USA than it is for them to take the train into Dublin for the day to buy clothes. WOW!

I took a deep breath, found my shirts, and resolved to buy memories and not things when I set off for Europe next week.

The Soothsayer was Right

I love accents. Ever since I was a kid I have listened to the way other people talk, whether they are from a foreign country or from right down the street, and if I hear a sound that I like coming from a word I've never heard pronounced that way, I immediately put that sound into that word, wrap my mouth around it and speak it right out loud. This can seem a little rude, I imagine, and some people have thought I was making fun of them, but it is uncontrollable....

Learning how to speak in other accents is, to me, like digesting the best chocolate mousse in the best restaurant in the world, the sounds melt and warm and excite me all at the same time. I traveled once to Australia with a dear friend, who I think may have come close to throttling me because of my constant repeating of what everyone said. The Australian accent is hard, very very hard, for me.... and for a few brief-shining moments after copy catting everyone in Bellingen Australia, I had it down.

Those were proud moments indeed.

So, you can imagine the pure rapture that I had when a Wise Woman, who is also an astrologer, Gretchen, told me on Sunday last that this was the perfect time for me to travel and that accents were going to be an integral and important part of my trip. In fact, she repeatedly told me that learning accents might be at the heart of why I am supposed to go to Europe right now.

This was like angels coming down and telling a chubby kid who is often mocked for her size that the only way to turn into the beautiful creature she dreams of is to sit down and eat everything in sight.

Now, you may or may not believe in astrology, and I often say that I use it not as prophecy, but as a great tool for meditating on things that may or may not be happening in my life. But when I stepped onto the plane.... I mean, when I literally took the first step onto the aircraft that was taking me from Seattle, WA to New York City and the first leg of my trip, the man in front of me turned to talk to his wife who was following behind me and out came the most beautiful Yorkshire accent you have ever heard. Think "Wallace and Gromit", or "Chicken Run", or "All Creatures Great and Small". I learned the Yorkshire accent for a production of "The Secret Garden" at Seattle Children's Theatre a few years ago and those sounds in particular are some of the most delicious to me and there I was, moment one of my grand adventure, being swaddled by them.

So, I'm happy to report that I began my journey contentedly mumbling to myself as that couple and their two sons sat in front of me on the plane and bathed me in "somats" (something) and "oy"s and big round vowels and rolling "r's and I knew right then that my blessed friend Gretchen, the soothsayer, was right: This is the perfect time for me to travel!

What "Bon Voyage" Looks Like

Some of my best girlfriends got together and had a bit of a Bon Voyage fete at Oliver's Twist, here in Seattle.....The owner's four year old daughter turned to her mom and apparently said, "They all look like they love each other." As the hub of the wheel, the only one who knew everyone at the table, I felt so cared for and left the evening full up with love, laughter and camaraderie to carry with me on my voyage.












And my sweet friend Jake made me this picture of Love and Luck!



All adventurers should be so nourished when they set off!

Reason Number 1,236 to See The World & Reason Number 11 to Stay Home

The Italians are offering travel incentives to us poor Americans whose pocket books have been ravaged by the Bush administration!