What's on the Menu?

It has been more than a few weeks since I have written something here.

You might have noticed that already.

This summer has been a wee bit strange and mercurial. There's been a whole lot of wonderful and a fairly steady stream of hiccups in the flow of my summer frivolity. Things like broken water heaters, overflowing toilets, lice, identity theft, disappearing gardeners who took my check but left the garden a mess, my computer almost crashing under the weight of all my travel pictures, and a flirty mcflirterman who didn't really mean it...or he did....but then he didn't.

Those are, obviously, the hiccups.

On the other end of the thermometer are wonderful weekends out of town, connecting with long lost friends, dancing, a heck of a lot of sunshine, new family in town, visitors from out of town, spontaneous healings, and the joy of telling stories from my trip....which has kept me from writing about my journey.

It has taken me all this while to sort through my photos. Isn't that a strange part of travel? Reviewing the pictures, looking at it all again from the safety of your couch, culling out the snapshots that you hope will evoke the feel, smell, taste of a place long after you've returned home and traveled through the time and space of your "regularly" scheduled life?

And now I have a week before I jump into the mayhem of what I think will be six months of steady acting work which includes three weeks of performing in New York City and my first ever one-woman show (before you get the wrong idea--those are two separate projects). So I feel called to write...to try and send some of the stories that I have been promising you out into the cyber-world before I sink into the theatre for a while.

Where to start?

There are so many little stories. Little tapas sized tales. I could tell you a handful of those.

Then there are some real juicy, rib-eye steak kind of stories. Maybe I should tempt you with one of those, give you something really satisfying that keeps you coming back for more. Then if it takes me a while to write again, you won't mind because you'd still be full from the story you read a week ago.

Then there is the ONE, the piece de resistance, the story that, dare I say it, really does feel like it encompases the whole enchilada. But I don't think I'll go there yet...not sure I can in this format, actually. In fact, that is what much of my summer has been about, feeling out how to tell THAT story, the one I won't tell you yet. The one that has changed my life. Because that story really needs perspective, back-story, history.

So, I guess that answers the question really. I'll start with the appetizers, work my way up to the main course. Probably sprinkle in a bit of historical perspective, and then, when the time is right, maybe I'll spring the prize on you.

Seriously, I know that's a darn lot of lead up. But there is no other way. You and the story, deserve it.

Where Am I?

I have been back in Seattle for 10 days or so. That's a day for every week I was gone, come to think of it. They say that when you end a relationship it takes something like one month for every year that you were together to recover from the break up. After 10 days home, I feel like I am finally recovering from the end of my "world tour".

My jet lag hung on for over a week. Concentration only now seems to be speaking to me again. And last night was the first time I did not wake up and wonder where I was.

It is strange. I never woke up on the road and wondered where I was. Not once. Despite the regular change of local. But here, in my house, the bed that I have slept in for 5 years has felt totally alien, exquisitely comfortable, but alien. It is as if my body came home on the 29th of June, but my soul is only just now arriving.

I am excited to get down to the business of telling you stories, sharing photos. I just have to shuffle through the logistics of returning to a house and job that I have left behind for three months. I had to get my hot water heater fixed almost as soon as I came off the plane. My computer decided it didn't want all the photos from my trip and then decided that it really wanted 3 different copies of all those pictures....that's a lot of memory...so now I have to have my computer repaired, before I lose all my pictures. I have to turn my teaching brain back on & figure out how to teach physical comedy to 5 middle school kids. I have to stop driving over the curb when I turn corners. The dog needs to go to the vet and the yard needs to be unearthed from the morning glory that seems to have eaten everything in sight.

As mundane as all that sounds, I really am finding some comfort and even wonder in it all. It relates to a promise wrapped in a wish that I had while I was on Iona. As I was contemplating what my trip was about and what it is I want to manifest in my life from this point forward, well, That point forward technically, I looked over to see a couple walk down to the beach. Without thinking I said out loud to myself, "well, that's one thing. I am done being alone. I am finished being lonely." I thought I was talking about romance.

But as soon as I returned to Seattle, after a lovely week in New York with my brother and his family, to the lovely house that blesses me with it's shelter and warmth, and to my two fantastic house-mates, Cora and Alyssa, something had shifted. I realized how much love and family and support was jam packed into my life. As I have slowly started visiting friends and family the connective tissue is stronger, more solid. I feel no lack. I feel only blessings. I feel surrounded with love.

I have not felt lonely or alone for even a second since I left Iona.

So, where am I? It would seem that I am Home.

Re-Entry

Today is the day. The day I finally go home to Seattle, the house, the pets, the wonderful friends and roommates, bills, work, an overgrown garden, driving, my own bed.

I have been in New York City for the last five days, hanging out with family, in a city I know. So, it is like I have still been traveling, but not, home, but not HOME. It feels a little bit like I have been re-entering the atmosphere gradually, re-acclimatizing myself to the familiar, fighting and reveling in the pull of gravity, i.e. easy access to the internet and long non-international calling rates calls to friends.

So much happened on the journey of the last 10 or so weeks that I haven't been able to share with you yet, but I think I have conveyed the truly miraculous wonder and daily experience of having my heart opened more and more by the beauty and wisdom of this Earth and the people who live on it. This trip was everything I wanted it to be. It was expansive and expanding. And I go home tonight feeling as if the work that needed to be done, the work that called me to travel at this time and to those places was done.

It was easy work.

Re-entry to the everyday of "normal" life, that's the challenge. Keeping the heart and mind open and expansive amidst the people and places I THINK I know, is, perhaps, even greater work. And by "work" I mean, "privilege" and "joy", as well as, an endeavor to be diligent in pursuing. I don't expect this to be "hard" work, but I know that it requires presence and stillness and curiosity. It takes the courage to approach the daily existence I left behind with the same sense of adventure and joy as I approached the world on my European trip, and without preconceived notions of what my daily life is, who the players are. Every friend, aquaintance, co-worker I encounter at home deserves to be met with the same curiosity I afforded strangers on my trip. Each day, deserves the same wonder. It is my hope that I can stand in the kitchen of my house, or the classroom I will teach in and say with the same sense of awe that I held in my heart while standing in the coliseum in Rome, "I can't believe I am standing here. How amazing. How lucky!"

Some Statistics

Well, while I continue to struggle with technology, unable to upload photos until I get back to Seattle it seems, I thought I'd share a few interesting numbers from my trip.

Countries Visited: 6
Towns/Cities Visited: 36, give or take a few little villages I passed through
Beds slept in: 26
Types of Shower Faucets: At least 20, who knew there could be so many ways of turning on water and making it come out of a shower head.

Modes of Transportation that got me from one town to the next....doesn't include inner city stuff:

Planes: 6
Buses: 19
Trains: 25
Ferry Boats: 5
Tour Buses: 2

Pairs of shoes that had to be replaced: 2

Numbers of emergency pedicures, that made it possible to be in close proximity to anyone else: 1, should have been 2
(and by "close proximity", I mean in the same room, nothing more....don't get any funny ideas now)

Suitcases that had to be replaced: 1

Digital Cameras that had to be replaced: 1

Number of calls home: 3

Number of different keyboards I had to try and figure out because the keys get all moved around: 4

Number of times relative strangers, if not outright strangers, proclaimed their love for me: Well I was in Italy 10 days, so lets say: 25

Acts of extreme Rudeness (someone elses, not mine): Well, I was in Italy 10 days.....Just kidding: I'd say, approximately 12

Acts of extreme Rudeness, my own: 2 that I am aware of.

Acts of Extreme Kindness (someone elses, not mine): At least 47.

Small but brilliant acts of kindness: Hundreds

Number of times I said outloud, usually to myself, "I can't believe I am here": 5

Number of times I shed tears because I had realized "I was here": at least 15

Number of miracles personally witnessed by me: 55ish, unless you count the simple fact that the sun rises everyday and things like that, then: countless

Days I couldn't believe my good fortune: 70

Days I wanted to go home; 0

Days I was sad that my trip was over and it was time to go home: 0

Random Things I Love About the United Kingdom

1. Many places don't have top sheets on the beds...and I mean nice places, with great down comforters and feather beds. The fact that they don't bother with top sheets makes me feel better, because I always put one on my bed, but it disappears immediately, and I always think, "why do I bother, I should just go without a top sheet." Now that I know the English and Scots and Welsh go without their top sheets, I'm gonna start going without.

2. They have a tv program here called something like: Trees That Made Britain. It's all about cool trees and why they are so important to this country. It treats trees like celebrities. There is nothing wrong with a country that elevates it's trees to star status. Except maybe what this guy is talking about....

3. There is this big-wig politician here named David Davis, conservative as far as I can follow, who just resigned his post as a way of protesting the way the governments seems to be systematically taking away the civil liberties of, well, everyone. This happened the same day I said to myself, "geez, there are CCTV cameras everywhere in England." And they are, almost everywhere you go there are cameras watching you. That's just one little part of it, it's a wee bit 1984 around here. So this guy resigned to force a new election, where he will run again in hopes of proving that his constituents are as fed up with the governments antics as he is. You can read more about it here. Why can't I imagine that happening at home?

4. Scones.

5. The accents. It's like a symphony of music everywhere I go. I've begun to get a feel for what accent belongs to which part of the country, which is exciting. Though people from Bristol and people from Ireland sound strangely similar....

6. It's green everywhere. Okay, not everywhere. The cities can, some of them, feel like strange black holes where the color green has been banned. But maybe that is because there is so much green everywhere else.

7. I was in a pub the other day being flirted up by the five guys who were having a wee tipple and had invited me in as I walked by. They were perfectly harmless and very funny and among them there was a guy who worked on the ferry, two fishermen, one builder, and the last was a world class weaver. He weaves cloth that is sold all over the world ("Very top drawer stuff." imagine that being said with a Nottingham accent, which means the "r"s become "w"s.) That's just not a combination of blokes I think I'm likely to meet anywhere else.

8. From almost everyplace I've been, except the big cities, I can get up, walk out my door and walk through stunning fields or mountains or right near the seashore. There are trails that link all the towns, whether you have to climb over a mountain or through a field full of sheep poo (speaking of...why the tourism board doesn't hand out complementary boots to all visitors is lost on me), you can walk from anywhere to anywhere thanks to the handy dandy signposts that guide you through wilderness and forest.

9. The pet names total strangers have called me: love, my love, duck, duckie, pet. Better watch out, I'm bringing that back with me. Hope that's okay with you, eh Duck?

10. Digestives....thank goodness I don't know where they sell these yummy little biscuits at home. These after dinner-what-we-would-call-cookies can be plain, or covered in chocolate (milk, white or dark), some have caramel, I'm sure there are other kinds, but I kinda got stuck on the Dark Chocolate ones and pretty much settled in right there. If you live in America and know where these little delicacies are to be found, DO NOT TELL ME!

Okay, I'm gonna go eat a digestive now.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I want so much to tell you the story of Iona, of my time with... interaction with....what do you call it when an island almost literally speaks to you, when the Earth answers a call....I guess I'd say, my conversation with Iona.

But this story has visual aids that cannot be accessed on rented computers.

This story and you deserve the whole shebang.

So let me tell you this: The Earth Is Listening. The Earth Is Talking. All we have to do is remember how to speak the language. It is a romance language. It has everything to do with Love.

I assure you I have not gone off my rocker, but something so amazing has happened that I find it staggering to believe....in fact, when it happened I almost fell over, and had to stumble to a seat.

Enigmatic, Yes?

I am home in two weeks. Then all will be revealed.

"Strange Travel Suggestions Are Like Dancing Lessons from God." Kurt Vonnegut

A while ago I received an email from a dear friend family friend, Judy. She told me I should go to a place called Iona off the coast of Scotland. She hasn't been there herself, but a friend goes there and has reported an intense spiritual energy and connection to the place. Somewhere in the haze of my memory, I seemed to have heard that somewhere else, and my guide book happens to say the same thing. So, following Kurt Vonnegut's implied advice I decided that I would make Iona a part of my trip. As it turned out through the twists and turns of scheduling from the road I was able to book two nights on the magical isle for this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Fortuitously, these happen to be around the full moon, which seemed right. And they also happen to be very near the end of my trip, which seemed even more right.

After I booked Iona, I worked backwards and found someplace to stay on the island right across the water, The Isle of Mull, for the three nights before hand. That is where I am now. If I walked outside I could stare across the water at the beautiful Abbey on Iona, one of the many Christian churches erected prominently on old Pagan pilgrimage sites so that the church can show the world who they think is boss. That's okay though, spiritual energy, when it's really clicked on has no boundaries, no names, and we can all sit together and commune with it whether we are under a stone temple or sitting next to an oak tree by a well.

I have not gone across the water yet to Iona. I feel that I want to look at the island for a few days. I feel as if I am preparing myself. I want to take some time to journal and to remember this trip as it has been up till this point. Then I want to go across the water and step into what I feel will be one of those profound doorways from "what was" into "what will be". Don't ask me to explain that, it is just an intuition, I don't know what it means or what it will entail.

What I do know is that as I drove from the ferry dock that brought me to Mull to the little town I am staying in that houses the ferry terminal for Iona, my heart started to ache and open and tingle.

Then I got another strange travel suggestion. The innkeeper where I am staying, Jillian, said while holding a little pamphlet, "Well you should take this boat to Staffa while you are here." I didn't know anything about it, but I thought, why not, I have three days on Mull and not a lot to do. So, I went this morning.

I must go back to a third travel suggestion that three people gave me right at the start of my trip. They all said that I had to go to The Giant's Causeway when I was in Northern Ireland. That strange place is a mass of hexagonal rock formations that stick up out of the earth for miles around. The pictures of it look breathtaking. So when I was in Northern Ireland I kept trying to go. I got The Paperboys interested in going. We kept talking about it, but could not get there. At one point I thought about going by myself on a bus, but my suitcase prevented it.

So, I had to let The Giant's Causeway go. I was gracious and zen about it, but deep down, I was kind of disappointed. No, I was really disappointed. It was the one place on this whole trip that I'd really invested an interest in going to and I didn't make it.

So, today. I got on my little boat bound for Staffa. As we set off the Captain told us of the wildlife we would see and about the massive cave that Mendelssohn wrote a symphony about, but he mentioned nothing else remarkable about the island. And off we went.

As we neared Staffa I could hardly believe my eyes. Can you guess?

The whole island is made of the same geological, hexagonal formations as The Giant's Causeway!

I was stunned. I thought, "this can't be, there's only one place in the world with those formations, isn't that what all the guide books said.....? "

Then the ever-helpful captain came on the speakers again and told us that this island was made out of the same geographical formations as The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

It was confirmed....someone, something, somewhere was nudging me where I needed to go and I am so glad I listened, because at that moment I could feel how this whole trip has been a series of dancing lessons and somehow The Giant's Causeway, that particular hexagonal splendor of the Earth had simply sent me out in a spin and patiently waited for me to find my way back....not to the same place on the dance floor....but never-the-less, we made it in to each other's arms safely and with ease, as if I'd known the steps all along.