The Twisted Gypsy

On Friday, Nippe and I are headed on our first trip to  Greece.  Somehow, I have mixed emotions about going there.  Of course, I am super excited, ready to explore and in desperate need of a true vacation. But, in some way, it is also facing the past and giving a true definition to all the little kid dreams I dreamed about that country.

As an American, I guess I have been a little sad to feel as if I do not belong to a specific culture.  Yes, just being an American is one way of belonging and I am so glad that I do. But, because America is such a cultural melting pot, the culture of America itself is ever shifting between States and communities.  There is not  a standard definition for our culture that could be applied.  So, somehow I found comfort in the fact that my Grandma, Aphrodite, was from somewhere that she was still connected to in a major way, even living in the west plains of Kansas.  I would sit in the smoky kitchen and listen to her chatter away in Greek to her many sisters and brothers and I would ache to be a part of it all.  In some small way, I guess I was a part of it, but I don’t belong to that cultural fully.  Actually, I am only 25% Greek and 75% everything else (some Irish, some German and some who knows what.)  A cultural melting pot, indeed.

My Grandmother went to Greece several times when I was a child.  She would bring me back dolls wearing bright colored dresses trimmed in gold, tiny drawstring bags filled with Drachma and seashells from the shores.  Those were the first seashells I held in my hands. She taught me to hold the shell up to my ear to hear the oceans waves.  I was mesmerized.  I could hear it.  I could hear the Aegean Sea from all the way around the world, laying in my pink, frilly bedroom in Salina, Kansas. The dreams began and desire to find some connection to my heritage was planted so deeply inside in those young years of my life.

Of course, my Grandmother told me that she would take me to Greece someday.  We would go together when I was teenager and old enough to appreciate the experience. And, of course, someday just wasn’t possible when the years took their toll on her and time just got away.

Well, now the time is here.  I think I am old enough to ‘appreciate the experience.’ Back to the past in and into the future…

What is more fun that holding someone’s leg up in the air
and tickling that person with wild fervor?  If you ask Harry,
nothing.

“If man understood that “what I create has nothing to do with what anybody else is creating” then he wouldn’t be so afraid of what others are doing.”
Abraham Hicks

There is a pure joy that comes from being surrounded by people who you love and care about and who love and care about you.  It feels as if you all unite to form an unstoppable force.  That force could conquer anything that life or death could throw your way.  The strength that comes from lifting others up and knowing they will do the same still astounds me.

The summer of 2010 will go down as one in which I think I truly began to start to understand the sheer power of like minded people. I have always known in my mind that it existed, but was never able to fully understand how or why.  This summer, it all clicked.  I am in no way claiming that I am the one who made it click or that I am the only one who gets this concept.  It was as if a universal command of our collective power just kicked into action and never stopped. This seemed to have happened in my family and in the Lovewell community. My family saw each other 4 times in 2 months, stopping everything to take the time. With Lovewell, we wrote 6 new musicals this summer.  We flew around the States and around the world, meeting up with different parts of the collective ‘us’ and starting over from scratch. We worked day and night and also played day and night. We all loved and appreciated each other wildly and the impossible seemed possible through that love.

We closed the final show this weekend and I just returned to my hotel room in Stockholm after dropping the last group off at the train station.  Walking away from that platform, I thought about how I have not been alone in months.  Of course, for moments and for breathers, but not alone alone.  Not alone with my thoughts.  Yes, I am very much looking forward to that time of digestion and reflection, but also, I already miss the power of ‘all of us.’  As always, it is important to have both and I feel so thankful that I do.

It’s been a beautiful experience in Oskarshamn, Sweden this summer. The Drop: An Atlantean musical has opened and closed.

A skype chat from the cast of the Fort Lauderdale show to us in Oskarshamn.

“Preparing for when the Gods come down”

A party maker.

Magic.