​Don’t meet your heroes
They say
But what if
One chilly winter’s day
You do meet your hero
The Drew Barrymore
Star of the screen and
Descendent of theatre royalty
A woman who
You have watched literally hundreds of times
On repeat

And she takes the time
During her busy show
To hear your story
That you loved Ever After
That you had leukemia
That your sister was your stem cell donor
(In the moment you actually said bone marrow donor
You’ve never used that phrase before
Oh tongue tied brain!)
And suddenly Drew is sitting right beside you
Holding your hand
And staring into your soul
With her magical sparkly eyes
And telling you about light and mirrors and reflecting back what we see
And you think “ohmygod I’m going to have a heart attack”

And your sister
Who was right beside you
For hundreds of those viewings
Is sitting beside you
And Drew asks her for advice on how to be sisters
Because she is raising two daughters
And you and your sister laugh
Because even that very morning you were incredibly annoyed with each other
Although now you’ve learned not to pull each other’s hair out
(At least not physically)
And your sister says,
“We fought every day as kids!
You have to learn to listen to each other.”
Haha, funny now
Look at us now
Sitting here in matching red tones
With our long hair and smiling faces
Mum’s work friends wonder if you’re twins
(My god that made you crazy when you were younger
I’m older)

How many times have you watched
Those magical sparkly eyes
Playing Danielle de Barbarac
And you think what was it about that film that moved you so?
The costumes!
The script!
The cinematography (the shot where Danielle realizes something has happened to her father)!
The fact that Danielle is a book-loving girl who is
Good at sports (apple throwing, running, climbing trees, swimming in rivers, mud wrestling, sword fighting)
Adept at homesteading (growing food, foraging for truffles, bread baking, bee keeping), and
Unafraid to speak truth to power (saving loved ones and quarreling with royalty)
Whose bestie is an effeminate male artist
Whose fairy godmother is Leonardo da Vinci (who builds flying machines and walks on water)
All while wearing pretty frocks and princess hair
And she has wings!
And battles with Angelica Houston
And survives childhood trauma
In a world where conundrums are solved with a quick game of rock paper scissors
Where you can punch a rotten stepsister in the face and she gets her comeuppance in a vat of purple dye
Where you can save the prince from the bandits
Where you can go to the ruins at Amboise
Where chocolate is a savored novelty
Where you rescue yourself from the lecherous baddie
Where the prince realizes he has been a pig headed idiot
And, even though you’re just a working girl who pretended to be fancy
He chooses you because of who you are at your core
A book-loving girl who is good at sports and homesteading and speaking her tongue
In 16th century France
Accompanied by a gorgeous George Fenton score
And where the whole entire point (gentlemen)
Is just to LIVE

But in the moment of sitting next to
Drew Freaking ET-Ever-After-Josie-Grosie-Charlie’s-Angels Barrymore
You can’t articulate all of this
So you show her your “breathe, just breathe” tattoo
Your childhood love and grown-up life’s motto
Inked into your left wrist
And Drew loses her mind because
She also has a “breathe” tattoo on her left arm
And she takes the time to take a photo
And she is so kind and warm and empathetic
And days later
You still can’t process it all
It must have been a dream
Or a fairytale
And you are thankful thankful thankful
That your hero was everything you’d hoped and more
And you head out into the cold winter's afternoon
With a glowing heart
Ready for the next adventure.

I arrived in the US
Twelve years ago today
It’s strange to think of that person
Landing in the freezing cold at Denver Airport
Clutching a folder thick with immigration paperwork
Feeling excited and scared about the next adventure

In the twelve years since
I’ve been married and divorced
Survived cancer
Had my heart broken
Lost two grandparents
Lost six friends to cancer
Been in two choirs
Moved 7 times across 3 states
Lived with 5 different people
And survived NJ Transit

I’ve worked a lot of jobs
Second-hand bookshop and farm volunteer
Babysitter
Receptionist atop fancy glass towers
Broadway usher
Teacher
Vocal coach
Writer
Actor
Fake patient
Stage manager
Director
Podcast editor, and an
Operations/staff assistant

I’ve done the Artist’s Way twice and
Built Filmed Live Musicals
Written and performed a cabaret
Written a book chapter 
Spent hours in the archives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 
Performed in Colorado, New Jersey, and New York
In plays, musicals, and immersive shows
Seen a show in every Broadway house
Taken class at Broadway Dance Center
Played flute and ukulele and piano

I’ve run, quite a bit
All around Fort Collins
Brooklyn, West New York,
Astoria, and Harlem
6 marathons
4 half marathons
And a handful of races

I’ve traveled to Acadia State Park and Atlanta
Salem and Boston and Washington DC
Traipsed around Connecticut
Honeymooned in the British Virgin Islands
Did a road trip from FoCo to New York
I’ve been back to Australia three times
And London once

I’ve frequented farmers markets
And made my own yogurt
Grown arugula and spinach and basil and chives
Strawberries and raspberries

I helped raise a sweet and ridiculous floof of a puppy
Learned Spanish and Danish
Learned to bake cheesecake
Learned to manage my depression

I grew my hair out again
Started eating meat again
Started morning pages again
Got my first tattoo
Tried contact lenses and
Finally got my drivers license

I’ve had my heart ripped out of my chest
I’ve been held and taken care of and spoilt rotten
I’ve met, and become friends with, some of the most extraordinary and beautiful people
From FoCo, Brooklyn, Carteret, Astoria, and Harlem
MSK, front of house, MasterVoices, SP land, and, of course
Buck’s Rock

And today, on the anniversary of my moving here
I performed a two show day
With a group of people whom I utterly adore
With a lead actor whose cast albums I have listened to on repeat
In a rarely performed musical by a composer whose work inspired my life path
With friends in the audience

And tomorrow I’ll direct a musical with a cast of sweet and precocious kidlets
And the next day I’ll start rehearsals for a new project with MasterVoices
And I think
It’s taken twelve years, but I’m finally doing the thing I came here to do
It just took a little cancer, divorce, gestures-at-the-world-in-2025 detour to get here

I think about what I want from the next chapter
To live on my own
To travel, and keep exploring my glorious city
To visit all the museums
To fill my days with music and theatre and writing
And delicious food
And time with friends
And glorious books
To keep tripping the light fantastic
And being so very thankful
That despite *everything* (again, gestures-at-the-world-in-2025)
I’m here.

​Oh how I love running in Manhattan!
I could run along the Hudson
Or the East River (trickier with all the construction)
But today I stick to the center(ish) line
The middle way where
There is a green corridor of parks
From Harlem to midtown
Start outside my front door
Trace the perimeter of Jackie Robinson Park
Run up the hill on 145th
And mercifully down the hill to
St Nicholas Park
With its steep sets of stairs winding through the trees
One of the trees has fallen across the path
Carefully step around
Marvel at its size
And the storm that took it down
(You watched the lightening last night
Through the window from your bed
It was an extraordinary show
You think Abuela and Abuelo and the other angels are having a particularly good night of bowling)
Keep running across 125th
Morningside Park
With its pond and wide open field and
Views to the cathedral
(And more stairs)
And then to the grand dame herself
Central Park
Entering through the upper most reach
The North Woods
Then turning around
And running it all in reverse
Down the stairs into Morningside
Past the ducks
Past 125th
Along St Nicholas
Stay on the outside to avoid the stairs
Enter at the tennis court to run around the playgrounds
Past the fallen tree
A few steps ahead of you
A squirrel crash lands on the pavement with a shocking
THWACK!
Ohmygod, did that squirrel just drop dead?!
You pause to look at it
“Are you ok little one?”
The squirrel doesn’t move.
Should you do something?
The squirrel still doesn’t move
Oh god. It’s dead.
Suddenly, it raises its little head
You realize you are probably frightening it.
You take a step back
The squirrel regains its breath
Darts into the undergrowth
You breathe a sigh of relief
No squirrel death today
You keep running
Out of the park and
Past the church that looks like a castle
Up the hill to 145th
Back down the hill to Jackie Robinson
We’re in the home stretch now
Keep pushing until the app tells you you’ve made it
And then cool down by walking to 153rd where there is a water fountain
It feels damn good.

A guided run with Coach Bennet
Along the Hudson
On a gorgeous spring day
The blue of the sky
The green of the park
What are you proud of
When you run?
The fact that I can
The fact that I do
How much fun it is
Just me and my runners
My headphones
My running playlist
The way I feel at the end
It’s been a little while since I ran longer than 5km
And here I am
6.43km feels easy
I feel like I could keep going

Marathon training has officially begun
A sweaty 5km around Yankee Stadium
Discovering gorgeous fairy dens and
Feeling glorious

I was at Sloan for a vaccine booster
And I thought I'd see if Kim and Dr P were in
These two amazing, phenomenal women 
Spearheaded my treatment 
And saved my life 
How extraordinary to be able to say
TEN YEARS!!! 
Kim asked, how does it feel? 
Like a lifetime...
But then,
I'm running the marathon again! 
How good it feels to be running 
With Fred's Team 
To be giving back 
Saying thank you by passing it forward 
Thank you thank you thank you.
I got into the elevator 
And sobbed  
All the way down to the street. 

At the hospital
All the staff were in a good mood
Happy for Friday
Each of my techs was an immigrant
(Immigrants, we get the job done)
Indian, Chinese, and Polish
The first shared how his family have a group chat where they say good morning, good night, and
I love you
Every single day
The second told me I was too young for menopause
(I know)
The third said I have a beautiful heart
I’m thankful my dear friend was with me
I’ve gotten so used to going on my own
It was a relief
To share the burden
After all the poking and prodding
Soup dumplings

The seasonal pictures on the screensaver
Today blue lupines and orange red tulips
A pink orchid that reminds me of abuela
She had beautiful orchids
I wish she had shared her knowledge of how to tend to them
I wish I had asked
The nurse wipes down my arm with an alcohol wipe
Puts the cannula in
Flushes the line with saline
I can taste it
It’s comforting and
Bizarre that I can taste something in my vein
At my request, the techs play show tunes
The machine pings and clangs and whirs around me
Taking pictures of my insides
Michael Crawford and Colm Wilkinson and Idina Menzel sing in my ears
I am thankful for modern medicine and
Thankful I have access to it

Today I am 39½-years-old 
Some of my cohort are anxious about 
The Big Four-Oh 
But I almost didn't see 30 
Every year post-cancer
Is a victory lap 
And today I ran 5km 
And got a couple of vaccine boosters
And went to work 
Hung out with some friends and
Came home and made pizza 

I'm not exactly where I hoped I'd be 
At this point 
On the Path of Life 
There is a lot of pain
In my heart
(and right now in my body, courtesy of the aforementioned vaccines) 
I didn't expect or want to be divorced 
My sweet puppy lives on the other side of the country 
My career is... frustrating 
I haven't slept properly in 2 months because of the goddamn pipes 
There are many complicated factors that are 
Making Things Hard 

But I'm thankful I get to be here at all 
When it's really hard 
And I'm crying from the hurt 
I try to return to the breathing 
The in, the pause, the out, the pause 
Repeat, repeat, repeat until... 
The absolute privilege of 
Being Here.