Another full year flies by with many new homes, hikes, plays, friends, family and surprises. What a lucky girl I am, in love with life, my girls, and the next adventure around the corner. Looking back as I dream forward. Happiest 2015 to you all!
January…
February-March… Continue reading
I know, I’ve abandoned you, my sincere blog readers, as I got busy with life. I have missed writing and sharing with you all. I’ve been in Lenox, Massachusetts working for Shakespeare & Company and seeing so many of my goals come to fruition. I found a “map” that I created last February of all the hopes and dreams that I had at the time. When I unpacked from yet another move 7 months later, there it was, and four of the six things I had schemed about had come true already! These were things that I hadn’t expected to see happen until many years ahead.
Private Eyes at S&Co
So many firsts today! First time in Vermont, first time seeing a strutting wild turkey, first time at a maple sugar shack, first time to eat “sugar on snow” with pickle and donut thing, first time driving over a covered bridge, and first time to buy a homeless man a cup of coffee. A day beautifully spent.
Bennington, VT
I headed north from Lenox, MA, destination Vermont. The state has held a secret fascination for me since I was young and watched White Christmas every year on TV during the holidays. “Vermont should be beautiful this time of year, all that snow….” But the state somehow eluded me until this month. Continue reading
Kayaking on Lake Tahoe, CA
My boss introduced me to a group of people as the “Intrepid Lori Evans.” He meant it in the most complimentary fashion, but I reacted inside to the word intrepid. It spoke to me of stubbornness, a bulldog that bites and doesn’t let go, and had whiffs of the USS Battleship Intrepid in it somehow. Does anyone want to be referred to as a battleship!? Not this girl. I don’t want to be some huge aircraft carrier that plows through water and breaks down the icebergs in its path. Continue reading
Benedict Pond, MA
Strapping on my yaktrax I hopped out of the car to meet my old friend Benedict Pond (see my post On Benedict Pond). Always in pulling into the parking lot and seeing the pond, there is a familiarity of bonding, of shared experience, of connection. Yep, the pond is rather human to me, a living, pulsing ecological beauty, with life throbbing around her thick frozen top. Interesting I see her as feminine when her name is Benedict. Continue reading
My boots fitted with yaktrax worked wonders!
As most of you know, we have been having quite the chilly, snowy winter in the Northeast and March came in like a white lion. I am not complaining, I am fortunate that I can “work” at home. Right now I am off contract and keeping busy with writing, reading, hiking, art, auditions, and classes, nothing where I have to be at work at 8am every day. So when it snows, I can stay home and bake, or sing and play ukulele. I am fortunate. But I miss hiking so I recently pulled out the yaktrax that I got for Christmas and hit the trails. Yes, it’s cold, and yes, it’s worth it. I even found a message written in the snow just for me…. Continue reading
The beach down our street
I am back to Lenox, MA after spending a month on Long Island directing Shakespeare with young people. It was such wonderful, happy month, learning new skills as a director, establishing old ones with confidence, and being with 2 co-teacher gals that are fun and talented. The school we taught in put us up in a wonderful cottage a half-mile from the ocean and I was in heaven getting to walk on the beach 3-5 times a week. Continue reading
The Hamptons
“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky.” (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
I am in love with this photo. I took it last week on the beach down the street. I have it on my computer desktop, I stare at it, get lost in it and feel so pleased with it. Rarely does that happen with photos that I take. I am not a photographer, I snap pictures with my iPhone to document my life, to please myself. I do not labor over taking a shot, but I just point, shoot and move on. Continue reading
(Independence Pass, Colorado)
This world is far from small
And her heart is the center of it all
And there’s a river that runs through hills, and it’s never still
Listen closely to the sky
And it’ll show you how to dot life’s I’s.
And don’t be afraid if the girl decides to run
It’s half of the fun
This song by the Josh Abbot Band hit me right between the heart-strings.
In a hotel parking lot in Aspen, Colorado I met a man who made me feel beautiful and ugly. We had exchanged a few sentences two days earlier in the hotel jacuzzi and now as I was leaving the hotel and loading up my car, out he strolled rolling his suitcase. He asked where I had been, we chatted about our Aspen experiences, he told me I am beautiful and asked for my phone number in case we should ever cross paths again. Continue reading
In 2013…I danced with a 75-year-old Norwegian prince in Sun Valley, Idaho; drank beer with a track-hoe driver in Wyoming; exposed a friend to the ridiculous joys of miniature golf in Wisconsin; rode a cowboy’s horse down Main Street one evening in Colorado; watched the waves of the Pacific coast with the ghost of my ancestors; hugged 700 year old redwoods in California; made pancakes over an open fire with my mom and sister; fell in love with, and in, small towns across the states; mourned the loss of John Denver in Aspen; spent a weekend at a most special niece’s wedding in Oregon; hiked deliciously beautiful mountainsides; was treated to meals, drinks, couches, pillows, and connected conversations with so many friends old and new; taught/directed Shakespeare and opened metaphorical doors for kids from 11-18 yrs old in Massachusetts. Life is wonderful and the song playing over and over on my iPod is Jason Mraz’ Life is Wonderful…
The highlights start with time with my girls…
meanderest 