I booked the trip to see Deborah in concert
We met through my podcast
I interviewed her about The Golden Cage
A beautiful two-hander musical
About freedom, restriction, and art
We started chatting every other week and
Became friends
Sharing stories and hope and inspiration to
Do the thing(s)

I decided to travel light
Just a backpack on
The Amtrak up north
Zipping through freezing cold air
Past fields covered in snow and
Frozen rivers and lakes and waterways
The bliss of the quiet car
And a seat to myself

A chance to see my life-twin
My prima guapa Rachel
And Christopher and Paul
And fur-nephew Jake
The joy of being snuggled up with a fur baby
A canine-shaped weighted water bottle 

Four hour lunch at the sushi train
With Rachel and Nina and Susannah
Laughing and dishing tea
Devouring salmon and rice and beef and
Mochi sprinkled with sesame

The loveliness of cooking a meal at home
Peeling and chopping apples
Stirring sauces
Sitting together

The delight of seeing DHC in concert
Her extraordinary musicianship
“We’re all a little out of tune. That’s how you know it’s real.”
The concept of "eclosion"
The process of becoming, of expanding latent wings
Deborah’s deft use of the loop pedal
The way her harp can play classical and jazz and blues and folk and original compositions
A piece of paper woven through the strings turns it into a percussion instrument
Watching Deborah sing and play
Her joy and skill and dexterity
I want to do that
What if Eurydice could have played the lyre?

Heading to a cheese and wine party
To celebrate a birthday
Meeting lovely new folks
Who chat passionately about film and tv and
Are excited for the Oscars
Laugh over film hot takes
How very dare you not like The Lord of the Rings

The next morning
A delightful brunch
(Preceded by a Lyft driver who picked up alto sax as a grown up, once made art in New York, and now works in biotech to try and cure endometriosis)
Finally meeting DHC in person and her lovely friend Erica
A real life fairy harpist
Talking about the world and music and fairies and heartbreak
The thrill of being loaned a lap harp
(And being glad I packed light!)

Arriving in Salem
Hanging out with the Rabinowii
My chosen family
Paul and Naomi, and Fred, and Emy and Nick, Louisa, and Charlotte
Sharing a truly delicious meal
Catching up and trading stories
And marveling at the pace at which children grow

Monday morning comes too quickly
As she always does
The thrill of being able to navigate transit in a city not my own
Figuring out a different system
Aah, this is how they do things here
The modern miracle of tap and pay
Of apps where you can pre-purchase your ticket
Taking the Amtrak back south
Past snow covered fields and
Frozen rivers and lakes and waterways

Thankful, thankful for the ease of the trip
For my community of lovely humans
For unexpected surprises
For time to read
And time to write
For the change of scenery and
A break in routine
For time away
That feels
Like a return to self.

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.

A visit to
Edith Wharton’s estate
Designed by the Pulitzer Prize winning author herself
With her eye for classical architecture and
Symmetry and
Clean lines and
Circular shapes
The grounds are extensive
And stunning
Filled with art
Whimsical and thought-provoking and somehow seeming right at home
In the woods
A tour of the house reveals
The luxury and freedom of wealth
Imagine breakfast in bed facing east
Time for morning pages
And walks through the Italian Renaissance garden
And French garden
And walkway lined with trees
And trips to Europe for years on end
And dinner at 8pm
The forest surrounding the house
Most definitely enchanted
Most definitely home to fairy queens
And tiny beings
A new favorite

The drive up Buck’s Rock Road
Never gets old
The green of the trees
The smell of the air
The thrill of
Coming home.

​Flying home to NYC
A lovely aerial view of Sydney to send me off
Bye Coogee Beach!
Bye Harbour Bridge!
Bye Opera House!
Bye North Shore!
Bye Pacific Ocean!
Waking up mid-flight and opening the window
To a spectacular sea of white puffy clouds
And on the horizon
A fiery orange sun

Out to Parramatta
Wandering through Jubilee Park with its statue dedicated to Gandhi
There is a woman dressed in a sari and walking laps and
A man sitting cross legged on a bench, his shoes on the ground next to him
He is meditating
He looks like a real life Buddha of Suburbia
There is an older man who looks unsteady on his feet
Carefully doing exercises on the free equipment and
Two women sitting back to back in the circular swing
Chatting as they swing back and forth
After breakfast with Lenny
We wander through the park
The day is hot and sunny
It may have been 5 years but we
Pick up where we left off
Later, churros with Emma
Suddenly several hours have passed
I squeeze in one more hug with Zaza and Courtney and Augie
Before boarding the train
All stations to Berowra (the strange familiarity of it)
Dinner with the familia in Crows Nest
Catching up with the Aussie aunts and uncles
Proper prawn chips!
An absolute plethora of food spins around on the lazy susan
A surprise ice cream cake
Cut with an actual sword
I cannot stop laughing

Treating myself to breakfast at City Extra
Overlooking Circular Quay and the Bridge and the ferries
Meeting Zaza, Courtney, and Augie in Darlinghurst
Reading stories and watching Bluey
A gorgeous visit to the
Chinese Gardens
Looking lush and verdant after the rain
Lovely enormous lotuses in bloom
White petals tinged with pink
Like they’ve been flirting with pots of paint
Lotuses grow from mud
A beautiful literal metaphor for life
And the biggest lily pads I’ve ever seen.
Making friends with the lizards and
Feeding the fish and
Reading the symbols of the Chinese zodiac with Augie.
Playing in the park at Darling Harbour
Augie doing nudie runs under the fountains
Zipping across the park on the flying fox
Slipping down the slide with room for three or four
Climbing the jungle gym
Being awed and humbled by the Indigenous art at the MCA
Giving Chantal a hug
McCookies, an absolute rarity of a treat
I feel like a little kid again
Except this time, no one will yell at me at the end of the day

Down Pitt Street and
Past the Theatre Royal
Through Martin Place
Down George Street
One of the main thoroughfares of the city
It has been pedestrianised and a tram runs up and down from Circular Quay all the way to the eastern suburbs and into the inner west
It is peak hour
All the well dressed workers on their way home
The new restaurants and bars along the way are pumping
One of my old haunts
Jackson’s on George, which used to be a seedy nightclub
Now looks like a space ship with
A flashy hipster bar
I’m surprised how clean Sydney looks
There’s no trash on the streets
People are well dressed
I’ve just walked through the busiest part of town and only saw 2 people begging
I know homelessness exists
Last night on the news they even talked about the possibility of a San Francisco style epidemic of homelessness
Times are hard everywhere
But it’s different here
There’s a quality of life that doesn’t exist in the US
Down around Circular Quay
It’s a tourist hub
But it’s one of my favourite parts of Sydney
The Bridge! The Opera House! The art museum! The ferries! The water!
The Rocks! (a historic district)
Being back in the city and going by my old haunts
Feels most like being home

Waking up to a bright red sky
And the screech of cockatoos 
Visiting dear high school friends
And meeting their sweet babehs 
Lazing about in the pool
Followed by a delicious nap
On a balmy summer's day

Being re-intoxicated
By the smell of eucalyptus
In its natural habitat