Such a busy year.
A year that seemed to grow and grow. A year that took me on more planes, trains, and automobiles than I had ever imagined. And tonight, as Chuck Berry gears up to sing in Time Square, memories of 2011 flicker and glint behind my eyes.


On a sunny day in Rome, I wore a white dress that fluttered in the wind as I rode over cobblestone streets on the back of a rented Vespa. That dress and that Vespa took me to the Sistine Chapel. There, my husband held me while I stood crying taking in the majestic images Michelangelo spent his life perfecting.

In France, I wandered quietly through my beloved Luxembourg Gardens. Here, I did as the Parisians do:  I sat on a willing bench, took up a book, and read in deep breaths, as chestnuts fell to the earth around me. It was at this moment that Autumn blew into the Parisian streets.

I rode the elevator up to the Chase Tower Observatory in Dallas, Texas. I stood in the angled window, my feet and forehead pressed upon its enclosed precipice. Here I beheld the flat prairie land, which is wrapped and laced with ribbons of cars. It reminded me of when Kurt Vonnegut said "I want to stay as close to the edge as possible without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." Funny, the closer to the edge of the world I've stood, the more centered I've become.

Sometimes it is what we do not do that teaches us something. I didn't reach Spanish shores this year as I had hoped, but I found that places come to us when we--and they--are ready. And that's the exciting part: discovering where those places will be each year.

Life changes quickly. Moments disappear before we have a chance to recognize their beauty. It is my hope that in this grand adventure we call "life on earth" that this next year will be a blessed year for everyone.

Blessed...
with more courage and stamina to keep walking, or run when needed;
with more boundaries and wisdom, to shut the door and rest;
with more reciprocal kindness, to deepen our understanding of being human;
and with more joy and laughter, because the road is long.

The new year approaches, hour by hour. I am happy to see 2011 board the White Ship and sail to the Undying Lands in the west. Without letting the past go, we cannot open ourselves to the new.

Yes. The clock tells me that its time to say goodnight to my laptop and celebrate the ringing in of 2012 with humans. I may be a New Yorker, but I plan on doing it the southern way: wash my hair, prepare some black-eyed peas for New Years Day, and put on a nice pair of heels.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Falling into winter is an emotional time. Some even shudder when "the holidays" are mentioned early in the summer, and then when they actually arrive the third Thursday in November, we find ourselves feeling all kinds of crazy emotions, and wandering around breathing heavily like lost, little badgers. << MORE >>

It was hot…. so hot that make-up was just an idea—an intention that evaporated in mid-air like a Moroccan mirage. And I was plump…. fifteen pounds more plump, and I felt fleshy in my clothes as I walked through the streets. It was hard to believe that it was our last full day in Venice. We had arrived on Friday and now it was Sunday. “Just wait till you see it, “ my newly-wedded husband had told me on the train. “It’s magical. Surreal. There’s nothing like it.”<< MORE >>

There are wild raspberries here along the river in Naples, New York. They stand quiet and unseen around the underbrush. It takes a special wisdom to notice them. I regret to say, I don’t always carry that wisdom. << MORE >>

A French couple visiting their daughter in Manhattan is sitting a few tables away. The daughter speaks about “les Amèricains qui mangent rapidement dans la rue.” It’s late afternoon and they order drinks as they would in a French café: une bièrre, un thé, un café. They are taking comfort in their own traditions, stealing a moment to sit and assess the day. “Ici, tout est la vitesse,” the daughter says. The father, pouring his beer very carefully and making sure there is just the right amount of foam in the glass, says that this kind of fast-paced life is now found in Paris. He’s witnessed more and more Parisians eating in the streets… even while walking! The mother offers that maybe it’s the Americanization of the world—to accept moving at rapid speed at the cost of a good meal and sanity. They all nod. “Peut-être… oui, peut-être…”<< MORE >>

I think it began a few days ago when I rearranged the apartment: the first foray into a season of change—a season that would begin a marriage. We felt a bit out of place, lost even. As freelancers, my fiancé and I were both finishing up major jobs, and our thoughts and conversations drifted often into the management of the everyday, the transition of things, the renovations of the apartment, our future work, our finances. We needed to stop. We needed to just feel “new.” We needed a beginning.<< MORE >>

It’s been a long day. Work lasted sixteen hours. When I’ve had a day like this, I think about Efresina. Efresina was one of seven children born high in the Apennine Mountains in Eastern Italy. She lived in a snowy little village with mountain light and winter gales. From October to March it would snow, and just inside her humble home without heat or running water, there were four pairs of shoes. << MORE >>

My mother and I know how to play spatial Tetris. You give us a bag to pack, a trunk to fill, a closet to organize, cabinets to clean out, and we can bring order to just about any place. This is where we are similar creatures. Where we differ in our genetic family tree (other than my seemingly unique desire to skip across the world like rocks on a pond) is that I am not as attached to objects. They do not give me an emotional feeling that signals to me who I am. Sometimes I’m envious of how setting up home can make her happy, how it adds salve to life, creating comfort. Life is more raw to me, yet valuable just the same.<< MORE >>

Ideas of what I could or could not write pile up in my thoughts. I am grieving the death of my grandfather, and at the same time mixtures of prose float in and out of my mind, blending into a mirage of something expressed without form and detail. I look out the windows at the snow covered rooftops and mailboxes. Undaunted New Yorkers clad in rubber boots push past each other, to and from work, to and from home, to and from the bodega, the coffee place, the restaurant on the corner for lunch, to and from. Ice Cream pops into my thoughts. I smile. I’m thinking about ice cream. My grandfather used to sing out with an puckish grin, “I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice-cream!” This was his motto regarding the cold, creamy confection, even though his body was laden with insulin dependent diabetes, and he rarely had the full-on sugared version. No matter. He still sang about ice cream.<< MORE >>

Hello My Galavant Readers, A few weeks ago, The Galavant Girl Blog found itself in major technical difficulties due to new programs and updates with Blogcast. Thankfully, those at Blogcast have been working very hard at resolving the problems, but unfortunately, I am unable to publish entries without problematic coding. Maybe it's a good thing it fell in the holiday season, while we eat ourselves to the brim and spend time with those we love. In the meantime, I thought I would take this opportunity to give you guys a little heads-up on what is to come this year at The Galavant Girl:<< MORE >>