Category Archives: Travel

Strolling the streets of Paris…

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Stroll and stop. Our day was cafes, crepes, fondue and meandering on cobblestone streets. All of this ancient architecture brings out a mystical magic to our walking as we drop into cathedrals on a whim, where music soars inside domed ceilings, candles flicker against carved statues, and organs are wielded by a Phantom of the Opera.

And the pièce de résistance of today…a magical bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. There I was surrounded by my favorite things, cozy nooks, stone walls and history that inspires me to dream. I could have stayed all day. 

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore

I was snapping a few photos to remember the moment when a very nice employee gently told me, “No photos please.” I felt a little guilty that I was so engrossed in my experience that I missed the signs that said no photos. But I am glad now that I have my contraband to remind me that the world of books, authors and the people that love them are my bliss.

The Seine, Notre Dame and another cafe

We walked back to home base along the rushing, muddy Seine in more rain with time for a nap before a cabaret tonight at historic Lapin Agile.

Lapin Agile Cabaret

The cabaret was iconic, a sing-along of sorts, in a gorgeous neighborhood, with nine throaty singers and musicians sharing traditional French songs and encouraging us to sing along. I knew only a few songs but the atmosphere was delicious which reminds me of a book I admired today…”Women Living Deliciously.” That is my gift of the moment. 

Je suis arrivez…

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Our room with a view!

I fooled the customs agent with my peppy “bonjour” because he responded quickly in French and I stupidly froze in my jet-lagged state and smiled out a “pardon je suis American.” He laughed, shook his head good naturedly as he stamped my passport with a wave. 

I found the train to Paris eventually, bought a ticket from a machine and boarded a crowded, slow train, sitting backwards but going in the right direction. A win! Paris today is gray and rainy.

My daughter Susanna met me outside the train station and walked me to her air bnb to drop my luggage. With a change of shoes (my feet were tired of my boots), off we went to L’Orangerie to see Monets water lilies and walk through the Tuileries (public garden) in more rain. 

It was time for sustenance, lunch? dinner? who knows, with the time zones I’ve traveled. We wait in a line outside of Angelina’s, recommended by a friend that said, “Get the hot chocolate!” It is adorable inside with chandeliers, wall murals and the hot chocolate thick as pudding!

The evening we spend back “home” playing games and going to bed early after a hot bath. Vive la France! 

Through the one-way door…

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“I like your boots!” There is no way the attendant could really see my boots under the steering wheel and dashboard, so I said, “I wonder that you can even see them.” His response, “Oh, I’m very observant,” and if words could contain a wink, his had a big, slow one. Welcome to the parking garage! 

I was a bit stressed about whether I would find a parking spot as the website kept warning about the limited spaces available, so I am relieved to be at the airport and through security with a wink.

I grew up watching Disney movies, one of my favorite being Lady and the Tramp. There was always one scene that scared 5 year old me, where the demure cocker spaniel was captured by the janky dog patrol and put in doggy jail. The cast of characters in the Pound was sweet, knarly and sad, their one dreaded fear was being taken through the One-Way Door– the double set of doors from which no canine returned. I felt a bit like that today in the long security line for my flight to Paris. All went so smoothly, but the colorful cast of characters around me were frustrated and complaining, kids were whining, their humans haggard- everyone dreading the One-Way Door. But all looked good for me, I just need a tan as these photos show. I am sickly pale and will welcome some color on this pasty white skin. 

Why don’t people wear dresses anymore? So far, I’m the only person I have seen in this busy airport in a dress and I’ve been here three hours. Not that I am in a fancy dress,  just a black plain drape, easy to wear and with my boots, quite fun.

The only other thing of note thus far on my Bon Voyage day – the women’s restroom smelled like cigarette smoke. That was the first time, in all the airport bathrooms I’ve appeared, that someone actually had the nerve to break the rules and cop a  smoke in the stall. 

I’m happy to be on my way. Jet Blue will fly me overnight and I hope to sleep well and wake up with some semblance of a brain to catch the train into Paris. It has begun, bring on more boot-lovers, not boot-lickers, we’ve had enough of that in the news.

Leaving on a jet plane…

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The sun is brightly shining on my snow-dusted neighborhood. I am far from the LA fire zone –that sad, horrible catastrophe– and here I am flouncing off to Spain feeling extremely fortunate. Yes, flouncing, because that is what you do when you are privileged to bounce over the ocean on JetBlue to a new country filled with history and mystery. I want to record this flounce if for no one but my mom who is no longer able to travel and brings out her maps to follow me along on my trails.

So Mom, here I am, not headed to the airport yet, but nervously packing and unflouncing the wrinkles from the blazer you gave me for Christmas before I balance it in on the “to go” pile. Thank you for the Christmas lovelies and for wanting to follow along so that I can share with someone my absolutely wonder-filled life on the road to foreign lands. Come along and hold your breath around those cliffs that drop off to oblivion, and get ready to yell, “Slow down or stop this car and let me out!” Yes, now we can laugh about that drive from your cabin to Lake Tahoe, but it was not so funny when I was sixteen. This time I have my daughter in the passenger seat, we’ll see how she does with my Grace Kelly Hitchcock driving. Your view from the rear window can be safely contemplated from the comfort of your La-Z-Boy.

(My brother tuning up the Buva Cruiser, me, at 15 years old and my sister, the forebearer of the keys. Before long I’ll be testing my mother’s nerves on the curves in that tiny Toyota)

Wintery-spring poetry time…

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It’s still feeling like winter here in the Berkshires. Not enough green, or warmth, or flowers. But I keep writing and sending thoughts for the reasons I wait and anticipate the coming of color from under a buff beige blanket. Why do you stay? 

Why I Stay- (based on a line from Morgan Farley’s poem of the same name) by Lori Evans

Why I stay, because spring is coming and sunshine and flowers,
Because it’s not really a choice, I am here with nowhere else to go.
I stay for horses, for romance, for beauty and beavers,
For cowboys and evergreens and mountain streams.
I stay for stars in a lightless sky and the hope of seeing the northern lights.

I stay for love, for daughters and adopted sons and sisters and ukuleles,
Because the hope of more adventure is within my soul always beating.
Why I stay has nothing to do with deeds and everything to do with possibility,
The anguish and joy equal in their coming and going.

I stay for the pizza and Netflix and the walk to the bookstore,
For the smile in a puppy’s tail wiggle that makes mine join in.
Puppies! I stay for puppies and kittens and pumpkins carved by kids, 
And painting, and color. 

I stay for color! For washing everything
In color, in rainbow butterflies of fabric and clothing,
That makes me feel gorgeous and sassy and bold.

I stay to be bold, to find firmness in my mind and my flabby body, for breath,
And aspiration and a person I might help and brighten.
I stay for words that can lighten a load and frighten the gloom from the door
That’s shut.

Why I stay, to say, “HEY! You know me—we met ten years ago and look
At us now!” I stay for surprises like inside a Kinder egg, little bright toys
Of delight from unexpected corners. A note from a student,
A gift from the wind, a tail slap from a beaver saying,
“Here I am, wait for me, don’t go yet, I want to see you.”

I stay to be seen.

Dinner with Alfred…

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In the structure of my days I find myself and lose myself. I find myself on the blank page as I scurry the pencil around the shapes of words. Words that beckon to the woods, the ponds, the stars, the sky reflecting pool…and this week to Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, ten minutes from my home. The park is swirling with paths, ponds, birds and wildlife. The ponds are decorated with beaver huts, gnawed trees in evidence as they work to reinforce their homes for the winter. Bright green ferns are sprinkled amidst shy mushrooms and purple flowers are shining here and there. Yesterday bright pinkish-red prickly bushes flamed out of a brown cattail backdrop.

As I tripped among the tree rooted path around a beautiful calm pond I kept thinking, “Where are all the beavers that make these intricate huts out of twigs, that chew down these huge trees with their little grinding teeth?” I want to see a beaver! I have lived here fifteen years and have seen only two in that time, swimming in a lake far from shore.

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Echoes of my mind…

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After spending a week writing and being in the presence of twenty-one amazing women in the Taos high desert I  am working my way back across the country through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee to North Carolina where I will hole up, like an outlaw, with my daughter for a few days.

Things I ponder on the road at 80 mph…

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Tiptoeing the backroads to Taos…

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Photo by Andrea Scher
Somewhere in Kansas

I am on my way to Taos, New Mexico from Massachusetts. I don’t have the time to stay more than one night at any given place but I also want to experience slices of life along the way. Freeway hotels, though convenient do not speak to me of neighborhoods, animals, and family, so I choose to drive off the thruways and find places to stay away from the conveniences of fast food and cookie cutter hotel rooms.

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White Mountains or bust…

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This trip in the spring almost didn’t happen. I used Hotel Tonight to make an online reservation at a New Hampshire hotel and the morning I was to leave for my two days of bliss, packed suitcase by the door, I thought I better call the hotel and make sure they had my room reservation. You guessed it, they had no record of my name or room. My cat paced around the suitcase worried about my departure while I spent the next three hours rebooking, cancelling, waiting on hold to get to real people to tell me what the issue was. After all was said and done Hotel Tonight had cancelled my reservation because the hotel I booked would not honor their reservation for some reason. They did NOT email or inform me of this important information or in any way let me know this was happening, so I would have shown up after five hours of driving, only to be turned away. And now I had to find a new place to stay under pressure as the clock ticked my vacation away. Hotel Tonight refunded the charge of my non-existent reservation (5-8 days later mind you) and gave me a half-hearted apology. This was so unacceptable and such a rotten way to start a vacation, that I will never book with them again. So be warned, book direct and save yourself the hassle. 

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Wayward winter…

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Hello my dear blog readers. As we start to thaw from our winter’s gloom here in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, I thought I would wish the winter farewell with one of my favorite explorations of the last few months. 

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