Travel Companions Are of the Essence

1. Stella Nicole Patri (1896 - 2001): Bookbinder, Warrior, Grandmother, Provocateur. Traveled to Florence during the great Arno flood, helped salvage thousands of water-logged books. Trekked through Japan well into her nineties. Never swayed from her belief in me as Writer. A good lady to take along.

2. Ernie. Can you ever get enough Sesame Street? I think not.

3. The Madonna.* Glow-in-the-dark and magnetized. A tchotchke from Julie and Gaby to aid in my post-surgical recovery in October. Healing aids are now no less needed. Plus, those girls have known me at my darkest, when I was only just crawling out of the box o' fear I'd built for myself, and learning to be in life again. Julie, forever my inspiration as erstwhile travel writer for The Berkeley Guides. Gaby, my first post-box o' fear road-trip partner — Jacksonhole, Wyoming, remember that?

4. Yoda. A gift from my first love, and stealth Star Wars-fan, Jud Smith. Back before George Lucas sapped Yoga's cuteness with 2nd trilogy overkill. I don't care. Let the Force be with me, please.

5. Le Petit Prince. None other than the interplanetary traveler himself. May I meet a desert-flower, tame a fox, be bitten by a snake (maybe not that), and return home knowing what home is.

6. Me. When I still walked through the world in wonder. And dressed like a Hampelmann.

*Not pictured: A postcard of the Madonna that dear Rosemary brought back for me from Italy. Two images slide back and forth, depending on your angle: 1. the Holiest baby of all babies clutched to her chest; 2. eyes cast downward, as if she's looking at me in the most loving way I ever saw. A comforting talisman, light to pack. Plus I wanted Rosemary close by. What is it with me and the Virgin Mary, you ask? Why, my model for life between the sheets, natch. (Hear that? The sound of a thousand throats clearing.)

Comments

[Posemary]

This is interesting to me. I have a postcard like the one I gave you. I am seriously slipping in my
religious practice -- it never even crossed my mind that it was the Madonna in the picture! I just saw her as a nice, comforting angel. Truth is though, I suppose it doesn't really WHO she is but THAT she is.

[Lilan]

It was the baby-holding thing that tipped me off. And me not even baptized. Get thee to the church, oh lapsed Catholic, thee!

[Julie]

So glad the glowing madonna is traveling with you. Oh, remember when I was young and traveled a lot and wrote and it didn't matter that all I got paid was a $65/day stipend to cover food and motel and when I got free motels everywhere, I blew the money on massages and fancy food in beurre blanc sauces? Thanks for reminding me to be inspired by the old me. We're both all of these us-es, hmmmm? The ones that traveled exotically and with abandon, and these newer, older selves that engage with the world in a different way. Perhaps no less adventurous?

xoxoxoxo!

[Lilan]

I know, can you believe the things you, I, did? And yes, we are all these us-es--your adventure no less major, in fact far more major, than mine. Go mama!