I've just returned from a magical trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. If you're not a fan
of the west, a trip to an outdoor spa about an hour north of Santa Fe on Route 84,
will change all that pretty quickly.

For a mere $17 for the day, at Ojos Calientes, you can dip deeply into hot and tepid
pools of arsenic water and just detox, let all of your stress flee from from you, and begin restoring yourself. There is a wet sauna (steam) and a hot sauna. My personal favorite was the mud pool. Like kids at play, you gather around a tall urn of chocolate
colored mud, dip your arms in and splatter mud all over your body. You take your fingers and get mud that's thickened around the urn's rim and apply the thicker mud around your eyes and over your face. Then, lie in the ample sun beneath towering rock formations and let the Gods dry the mud into your skin. Wonderful. Once the mud begins to crack, or you wake up, you jump into a pool of muddy water with a pebbled floor to wash off and head to several other detoxing options.

It rained while I was there. No problem. We sat in front of an outdoor fireplace and warmed ourselves.

To relax and unwind, go west my friends, go west.

Musing In A Pre Dawn Sun

In the midst of upheaval and just the scariest time of my entire life - it helps to notice tranquility and beauty where you find it. Often, it's right in front of my eyes out here, if I can lower the volume on my mind's daily musical revue of old negative tunes and its favorite playlist of fears.

This morning, just before dawn, the sun splashed a soft reddish hue across the farmland I drive through around this time nearly everyday. I am still adjusting to not being on MetroNorth barreling into the ugly tunnels beneath Grand Central Station. It's funny what you get used to.

This morning's pre-dawn light was just so beautiful, that I really noticed it. The sun softly stroked the countryside, making it red. Yes, red. I had never seen a red like this before. A crimson red with sheaths of pink running through it here and there. Glorious. There is no color in any spectrum of man's paints that is the same. Inviting and illuminating, this unusual hue engulfed white barns, silos and fresh and still-bare, post winter fields in a hazy splendor. I didn't want the sun to rise and replace all this with what would be, in comparison, the harsh glaring light of day. I preferred this lighting. It reminded me of the morning or afternoon sun in Italy's Chianti region. It was warm and protective. You could disappear into it, or at least hide your bruises inside the deep shadows it made with ease - sort of like pulling your bed covers over your head and sinking into a place more inviting than its alternative. I could have stopped the day right here. Next time, I'll stop long enough to take a picture of splendor, for you and me.

It's Spring Now

March 20, 2009.   It's finally Spring.   It doesn't feel like it outside, but it feels like it in my soul.

I've been stuck, stuck, stuck in my life now for over two years, nearly 3.  Shaken to my core.  I lost my job back in March 2006 and what a ride this has been.

Figuring out who I am without all the trappings I had built around myself in network television news. AND making friends with extraordinary people of every possible category. In the end, a journalist is an observer of who people are, what they do, why they do it and how their decisions impact everyone else. This journey is perfect.

At some point, I realized I had embarked upon a Spiritual journey - one not about what's around you, but what's inside of you. One not about what other people or even you think, but about what you come to know. And you have to accept that many, many people are completely frightened of walking your walk, with good reason. Spiritual transformations, at least the ones I have knowledge of employ pain and unbridled fear to get your attention and then force you to calm down, breathe, and move forward no matter how scared you are in order to mold you anew.

I had to work through remnants of serious anger, over having to battle cancer, over being denied what I had earned, etc. You eventually develop the will and the strength to turn all that noise off and that's when you figure out you have been handed a great gift - the freedom to design the rest of your very life. YES, you have to think positively. You have turn from negative thought and persist at being happy and turning around even deep despair. The positive approach is the only life affirming approach. You have to think: Wow! It's like lots of beautiful open road unfolding before you in the Tuscan countryside. But, before you press the accelerator, you need to translate the road signs.

So much has happened. And believe it or not, out here in the middle of Amish country where horse drawn buggies mingle into traffic with Jeeps and Fords, I am finding exactly what I've wanted since I was a child.... a way to satisfy my need to be deeply involved in international humanitarian drives. Out here, It turns out , there is a plethora of global humanitarian organizations. Who knew? People here believe in saving some corner of the world.

This week, I met a lovely Vietnamese woman who was a cinema and television star in her homeland and lost absolutely everything in the 1975 Fall of Saigon. She is a beautiful and elegant and strong woman who found her way to Hollywood and rebuilt her life. But her pains and her losses still cause her to pause often in the telling of her story. She implored her audience to go deep inside themselves in times of despair and find a way to BELIEVE everything could change tomorrow. I listened to her intensely. I hope everyone did.

In the circles traveled by a New York network television producer, you do not get to know much about the kinds of lives everyday people live or have any everyday people's number in your blackberry, unless you want to interview them for a story. This walk into my soul has changed all that. One of the first bits of Spiritual direction that came through for me when I first got here was to try to know and understand a wider group of people. I've met incredible people. Titles are not exchanged or talked about really. Conversations are built on something else, somehow.

At Costco's this week, I ran into a marvelous woman rather down on herself. She runs a house cleaning business but really wants to launch herself as a personal trainer. She certainly has the body for it, but she's afraid that that is just something someone like her can not actually pull off. She is scared. I am hoping to be a source of courage for her. We ran into each other in the prescription pick up line. I spoke to her, drumming up a conversation - something I love to do. You just never know who you'll meet. She immediately said, "You're not from here." First glancing around to make sure no one overheard her she said, softly, "The people here do not open up to people they don't know. They are nice people, here. Don't get me wrong. I've been here 18 years, but they don't start conversations with strangers. Are you from New York or something?" Yes, was my answer. " I figured as much. I'm from Brooklyn originally." she said. And I responded, ' And yes I hear it in your voice." We laughed and walked together and ended up talking to each other for over an hour and a half leaning on the jeans display just short of the aisles of cash registers that were just going to have to wait for us today. We agreed that New Yorkers are often misunderstood, thanks to a few really obnoxious folk that get outside the city limits, act up and make life hard for the rest of us. My new friend and I just automatically bared to each other our perceived personal worts. It dawned on me that, back in the city, hanging out in my circle, this conversation would never have happened. I shopped at Whole Foods not Costco. I had to smile. A journalist needs to know "real people". I used to complain that the major networks did not, often enough, interview "real people". There was more concentration on the politically powerful and the monied suits. A journalist, a writer, a storyteller needs to know and be able to really connect to everyone's story. Another gift of this journey.


THIS NOTE FOR FOLLOWERS:
 I still have my Joe the Cobbler story to publish here.  Budget constraints associated with technical problems have delayed that.   But,  it's Spring. Things are thawing.

BUTTERFLIES DIRECT

Friday,  January 23, 2009.  CONTINUING THE JOURNEY:

 The response to my first posting couldn't have been better, at least from friends kind enough to log on and read and resist being cheerleaders.  I am encouraged.  Today,  I'm going to offer a veteran traveler's tip for a terrific getaway - a tremendous bed and breakfast I've found on my journey. 

But first, this momentous aside.  We have a new president of the United States, and though I would have sworn it couldn't have happened, this nation did indeed, on Tuesday, swear in an African American man as chief commanding officer, the president.  A man not wealthy, whose roots are in Kenya and Hawaii and the working class communities of  Chicago is now president of a nation that for so long was perfectly comfortable, and within its legal rights, in denying the most basic human rights to people with skin tones not white, and especially if black. 

 I can remember my mother pulling me, a tiny thing, away from a water fountain one hot August day in front of the courthouse in downtown Salisbury, Maryland.  A child,  to me it was hot outside and I wanted a cold drink, that's all.  As my mother pulled me back I saw the sign that said, "whites only".  Nothing takes these memories away.  But, I celebrate President Barack Obama and I celebrate the Americans that turned away from those who mocked him and elected this man president.   I'm giddy with gladness and profound hope.

And Secondly,  a  Joe Update:  It is such a privilege to turn on a camera and in so doing, capture part of the soul of a remarkable, everyday man.  What a gift my work is!   After I resolve a technical question,  I'll post Joe's story and let you know where to find this man you'll wish had a shop in your neighborhood.

TODAY'S FEATURE:  THE KING'S COTTAGE

 It's  a bed and breakfast that would make Martha Stewart swoon.  Let me tell you how I found it and why you should.

I am a traveler.  Writers and producers have to be.  Characters and stories don't always just show up on your path as you go about your daily routine.   I'm also a parent, lucky enough, to have twice been through the college search routine.  You traveling here and there and wait

for that gleam in your kid's eye that says this is the one.  So, all in all, from Beijing, China, to Seattle, Washington, and from Canada, to the Florida panhandle, to former plantations in Mississippi, I've stayed at a lot of places.

A few years ago,  my youngest son decided to attend Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and join their football team.  It's a great college and football was to rule my life from late summer through winter once more.  F&M was a few states away.  This veteran traveler again needed a place to stay.   This time, I  longed for a comfy living room, a fireplace shared with other guests that would lessen the lonely part of being a single mom on a mission.  I hoped for books to read, cordials at night, and a wonderful breakfast maybe with innkeepers who might become friends over the next four years.  I wanted elegant comfort that was cozy enough to feel like home and not the proficient but icy splendor of the big hotels my assignments generally led me to.   

From inside the  F&M parents' guide,  The King's Cottage jumped off  the page at me.  Staring at the ad's promise of a hot bath in a vintage tub,  I booked a room.  You must allow yourself this treat.

 The King's Cottage is a vintage mansion standing at the corner of King and Cottage Avenues in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.   Just the exterior excited me.  It is grand and welcoming - bearing a bit of an early 19th century white Spanish stucco, with its graceful bay windows and patio doors trimmed in a deep majestic green.  In spring and summer, flowers encircle the house and its grounds.   Amenities abound.  There is a personal touch everywhere, even before you walk through its front door, located on the side of the house and away from traffic.    

Once inside, the first floor of the inn embraces you.  The living room fireplace roars when the temperature outside chills you.  The innkeepers, Ann and Janis, greet you as if you were long lost friends.  They were as excited about the prospect of my son coming to F&M as I was, and ready to make me feel at home and introduce me to Lancaster.  Charming.  Genuinely refreshing.  Instantly, you are so much more than a guest.

The dining room tables sat set for the next day's gourmet breakfast.  A grandfather clock chimed.  They gave me a tour.

There are eight superbly decorated rooms, cleverly bearing the names of royalty :  The King; The Queen; The Princess;  The Duchess;  The Contessa;  The Duke; The Majestic and, separate from the mansion, The Carriage House.  They've earned their titles.

 I had entered another time and the stresses of life began to instantly dissipate.   Each room was immaculate and with different color schemes, offering a twist of the modern and the past in the most elegant of fabrics, rugs, furnishings and appointments.  Not a detail is missed.   A writer,  I was particularly taken by the choices of  journals placed quietly in each room inviting your comments and greetings.   Stunning Amish quilts hang here and there throughout the inn.  There's even a gift shop.

  Shortly it was time for High Tea - a tradition I adore.  For tea, the innkeepers led me into The Florida Room, a sun room gracing the front end of the mansion.  Here, each afternoon as the grandfather clock strikes four, guests gather for tea, dessert and conversation.  Without fail, the travelers discover what they have in common.   But unlike me, most visitors to The Kings Cottage are couples getting away for a romantic weekend.   Many call ahead for flowers, gift baskets of candies and local treats, or rose petal baths.  Progressive thinking corporations book the entire inn for business retreats.

I just needed the serenity the inn offers, to get to those football games, and have a charming place to embrace me when my son went off to either celebrate victory or recover from defeat with his friends.   A relaxing drive just three hours south of New York City, The King's Cottage is a divine find.  Amish buggies trot along the highways and roadways here.  Everyone seems rather endlessly patient and courteous.  It's a real change from my beloved Manhattan.    

Gourmet breakfasts offering a variety of tasty fruit dishes as the first course, followed with swedish pancakes or mandarin orange french toast or belgian waffles or ham and cheese crepes or mushroom and red pepper frittatas served with apple glazed Lancaster sausages or bacon, and a variety of muffins or scones, start your day.   Then the innkeepers help you set up your tours, offering suggestions of things to do and places to see across the bucolic county, if you're not headed to a football game.

  They welcome you back at High Tea and help you find just the right location for dinner among an eclectic array of fine restaurants that might surprise an urban traveler escaping to the countryside. 

  For four years, whenever football or a parents' dance or whatever brought me to Lancaster,  I chose to stay at The King's Cottage, to soak in my favorite vintage tub and to soak up all that royal treatment.

 Treat yourself to one of the finest experiences this veteran traveler has found anywhere on the planet.   

 

Stories Along The Way

I am a writer and filmmaker on a journey, cataloging what happens when you leave what you know in search of what you don't.  On this page, I will offer stories of encounters with mostly ordinary people  I am meeting along the way.   I've interviewed Henry Kissinger and won Emmys for my journalism,  yet  I still find the ordinary aspects of a person's life and drive to be fascinating.   I find most people gracious with much to offer their fellow man,  even if it's just a smile that warms a moment.   I hope reading my stories informs and enriches you.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009.  It's early afternoon.  Coffee cafes, attract all sorts of interesting people.  This time of day they seem to draw in people of letters.  Educated, wise, seasoned veterans either retired or transforming their lives.  I rushed in today, found my favorite wide and soft easy chair untaken, and tossed my laptop and tote of books into its cushions to claim it.  I surmised my things should be safe there long enough for me to run five doors down in this small suburban hub of shops to make concrete my plans with Joe, the cobbler, to shoot a profile of him on Friday.  My sense that my things would be safe grew out of a knowingness about the characters I tend to encounter at this cafe.  They are lovers of the words either scored and wed with melodies playing in the background or those on printed pages that pull them into a different universe.  Just then, one of those characters walked up to the small chess table next to my comfy chair.  Without introduction, none seemed needed,  I asked the gentleman wearing a tweed sweater and calm expression if he would act as sentinel over my things, just in case.  He agreed with a deep smile and a deeper understanding.  We didn't know each other, but we did.  We were in love with some of the same things.  How much so I would not learn until later.

I dashed to Joe's.  I wanted to confirm our plans and get back to my work and finish a few assignments before a promised snow storm materialized.  I could hardly get inside.  Joe's tiny shoe repair shop was brimming with customers.  I was so pleased for him, my face lit up.  Behind his counter,  I could see Joe noticed.  In the midst of a depressed economy, people fix more shoes than they buy.  Joe and his wife Helen were just swamped with people anxious to get shoes and boots and leather bags and jackets they had brought in before the Christmas break.  Joe had closed the shop until today.  He needed the break.  There he was, soft blue gray eyes peering through glasses hooked onto his nose, but nowhere near those glittering eyes.  It wasn't quite noon and his fingers were already stained with shoe polish.  He rushed about, trying to please everyone bearing a ticket stub or making a request.  I took a seat on the small bench provided for waiting customers.  I didn't want to interfere.  I am a writer.  I wanted to observe.  My perch was perfect.  My mind records and records the scene playing out before me.   At times, dashing between his back room and the front counter,  Joe  would stop and take deep breaths to control his own anxiety.  He wanted to please everyone.  That's never easy, but Joe is good at it.  A man sitting next to me on the little bench tells me Joe is the only cobbler he knows of in the region.  Yes, I say, cobblers we seem to be losing.  I think,  wouldn't Dickens be surprised.  I wait and watch.  The man beside me had left a shirt with leather patches for Joe to fix.  It's not ready.  The patches are too far gone.  Joe wants to take his time with it and make whole new patches from scratch and then repair the shirt.  The man gasps with surprise at the offer.  This he didn't expect.  Sure, is his answer.   My expression tells Joe not to worry about me.  I'm fine.  He returns to his back room where he bends leathers to his will.   

Helen, Joe's wife and partner, runs the front desk for a time until things slow down a bit.   I engage her and our conversation morphs into a long woman to woman chat about children and the virtue on taking on debt to properly educate one's children, until this nation once again commits to educating more than just the rich.  Joe resurfaces.  New customers arrive.  My mental recorder is happily consuming information.  I remember my computer and the stranger.  I snag Joe's attention.   Luckily, the store has emptied for the moment.  He remembers me and our agreement.  The shoot is on and my boots are ready.  Friday will go well.

I return to the cafe.  My appointed sentinel is still on guard.  His name I find out is Ed.  I apologize for the length of my absence and ask him if he is a professor, sharing my perception of this very tailored man.  No.  He was a radio broadcaster for a number of years.  Oh my, I think.  We smile at each other deeply.   Before, I dashed to Joe's, amid my request that he guard my possessions,  I ,  out of cards, handed him my resume which I thought he was unusually interested in.  Now, I understood.   "You still have the pipes, sir." , I said.  He laughed with pleasure at a compliment only someone in our industry would likely understand.  He said he  was "just"  in local broadcasting, deferring to my network television credentials.  I stopped him.  "Don't say just.  What is is and that was your domain.  I'm sure you served your audience well."   He accepted my view.  After broadcasting,  he worked at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in nearby Middletown, Pennsylvania, right through the near meltdown there back in  1979.  I and every journalist alive at the time remembers that moment.  Ed didn't get into that story, but said on point.  "I thought I could only be in what's considered creative fields,".  He said, "But I found out I could be creative in a technical job."   The journalist in me wanted to know more.  I suggested to Ed that there is a book inside him.  Telling all he knows about that tremendously scary time seems an idea he discarded long ago.  But, I discovered besides a love for coffee cafes, books, broadcasting and cobblers, we had one other thing in common. Turns out he graduated from Franklin and Marshall College, just as my son did last May.  

  Now, Ed  is retired and a self-proclaimed "cafe rat".   I laugh.  It's a term I've not heard before.  I tell him I a writer planning to profile Joe the cobbler.   My new friend lights up.  He is a big fan of Joe.  "He does much more than just fix shoes you know.  Joe makes shoes fit the needs of  your foot.  He can do this."   I ask Ed if he'll be hanging out here Friday morning when I'll be filming Joe.  He is pleased and says he'll try.  I explain that people don't really know what they offer others, only the recipient can tell me that.   Friday promises to be a good day.  I hope Ed comes and is not camera shy.

Butterflies Direct