Even though February was a dreary month, I did get out for some spectacular hikes. If I am here another winter I definitely need to figure out better footwear for the snow and ice hikes. I have loved the Brooks Cascadia trail runners that have climbed mountains and descended canyons with me, but they just don’t quite cut it in the wet snow. Things are starting to thaw here and mud season is coming. I have been forewarned that it will not be a pretty sight. Just the name “mud season” sounds bad. Continue reading
Category Archives: Musings
Happy and miserable at the same time…
“The truth is, I am free, I am happy, I am healthy and I am utterly miserable.”
George Bernard Shaw wrote this in a little play called Too True to be Good, and I have no trouble at all relating to it. The statement seems like a conundrum, two opposites of reality. How can I be all that great stuff and miserable at the same time? But it has been my emotional state for the last month.
Darling Lenox on a snowy night
Road trip in miniature (Part Two)
Rockport, MA
After a hearty breakfast and playing with the resident B&B dogs we walked into town and browsed in the seaside shops and contemplated the views and philosophized with an artist that thought my divine feminine girls were as “beautiful as the pom poms on my hat were happy.” It was so very quaint, quiet and cold, though the sun was shining with welcome. Continue reading
Road trip in miniature (Part One)…
Susanna, Audrey, Alicia and me
My daughters arrived by plane and the laughter, stories, and excitement have been palpable to all around. The dynamic of being with three lovely young women is so enlivening. I don’t want to go to bed, I am so awake, who wants to sleep? I don’t want to miss a moment. So I sit up and write while they sleep. Continue reading
Room-tripping
I love finding a new spot to write, to read, noticing the way light reflects off the walls from a new perspective, even if it’s just sitting on a different end of the couch, or in a new corner, a different chair, a spare bed, a pile of pillows. It helps me to create an open heart, discovering the way candle flicker affects certain rooms, the walls, my eyes, my psyche. It’s important, this change, this seeking for new inspiration, this finding when something works, when it doesn’t, this listening and really hearing, when music touches and lyrics sink into the heart. I melted into a pile of sentiment this morning when hearing a random song, How Can I Win? on my iPod shuffle from the old musical The Good bye Girl. I heard the lyrics like I had never heard them before.They were for me, today, for now, for my truth. 
How can I learn to trust enough
And to stop believing all I hear are lies?
Open my heart but just enough
To keep an open mind but never close my eyes Continue reading
Make-believe meandering at the Mount
Ms. Sparkle is back. The moon has changed or something because I’m back on track, feeling positive, happy and being productive. As I was coming out of the Shakespeare & Company office I saw three people in the lobby looking lost and curious and I asked if they needed any help. We chatted for a while, they were tourists and had been to Lenox years ago and saw the company perform when they resided at the Mount. I told them about the shows in performance now, waved my arms in direction of the theaters, mentioned that I was on my way for a walk to the Mount and fluttered a cheery good-bye. 
Elephants, beavers and birds, oh my!
Is there a difference between meandering and wandering? Without looking it up in a dictionary I am finding myself defining them in my own terms. Wandering seems to be stumbling about without purpose, seeking and lost. Meandering, as I have been experiencing it since last April, has become an exploration of sorts, not from a place of being lost, but from a place of new adventure. Those are my definitions anyway as I am struggling this week to not feel lost. Some change has come over my days in that I am no longer feeling “meanderest” but astray and wandering about blindly. I am hoping this is a temporary condition and am combatting the aura with writing, reading, walking and mundane tasks that need to get accomplished like taxes and bills. There is an unsettled rest about my week, as I am recovering from an intense two weeks of teacher training in the Shakespeare & Company Month-Long Intensive here is Massachusetts.
Les Girls…
I am back in Lenox, MA after spending a glorious three weeks in Seattle with my girls for the holidays. I must say that as much as I love being back on the East Coast, the strings of my heart are pulled west by three special women. It is hard being away from them. There is nothing quite like having your own kids. They know me inside and out, they love me unconditionally, they get all my stupid jokes, know the same movie quotes, have similar tastes and we adore being together.
Susanna, Alicia & Audrey
Why can’t a man be more like Robert?
I flew back into Seattle for the holidays with an email from an acting friend burning a hole in my inbox. He sent me a list of wonderful, wacky things we could do if I had time to hang out. I can’t tell you how unusual this is! To have a man ask me to do anything other than go out for food and drink is unique and so refreshing. No, this wasn’t a “date” but I do wish more men were like Robert to have this creativity in their dealings with me. And he even gave me choices! I have lived in the Seattle area for 17 years and yet only a few of the places on his list had I been to previously. Extraordinary! Continue reading
A Pictorial Toast to 2012
As this year ends, my heart is bursting with thanks for the amazing journey I have enjoyed and shared with you all. There has been an incredible 7500 views (from 79 different countries) of my 87 blog posts. I have fallen in love, with my country and Canada, the mountains, the sea, the National Parks, so many people who are now irreplaceable friends, country music, dancing, writing, sharing Shakespeare with youth, acting with open honest people, a canyon, a pond, mountain tops, fringe boots and above all myself. I go into 2013 a braver, more empowered, confident, sassy, flirty, fabulous female. Here are just a few photo memories to relive but there are so many, many more that I could include of the amazing world that has embraced me this past year. May our 2013 bring more love, more encounters, more adventure, compassion and peace. Happy New Year my friends!
Yosemite NP, California in April 2012…the beginning. Continue reading
meanderest 