Critical Tourism Theory ==> The Musical!

Come from Away....

tall, regal wicca with Medusa hair and immaculate posture : at my gym

Tabitha is all growed up! For the XX months I have seen her, she is usually either working isometrically, has her nose in a book or exchanges quiet/certain small jokes with the other trainers. Rarely speaking, she ALWAYS said hello to me by name at first... Now, only with her eyes. I always see her, but rarely L@@k because to do so feels invasive -- as her work is so intense. The times that I have interrupted or caught her near the bathroom, she is grateful for my question and answers carefully. She's the one who writes the provocative questions and nudging quotes on the white board for everyone exiting to see -- INSERT Two days ago, *my* trainer Travis alluded to her in conversation and I looked over and WOW! BUFF! She resembles a linebacker! Her shoulder muscles, her upper arms and chest -- PUFFED OUT TO THERE!

And now I got a boner

Wild reunion, right? Strangers kept humming up to me, expecting hugs and reminisce about the things I did four decades ago ... Remembering the way I dressed? Remembering my eyes and smile and kitty happy joy. I guess that's a great way to be remembered, but I'm shy, so I just dance with my back to them mostly and spinning and turning and whatever Check out all those derrières about 10 years ago Rob and I met at the Coffee Emprium so I could divulge some deep personal secrets Sorry

You Can Always Come Back Home

It's been a rough / joyous year of growth, my son and I. My mom, however, is struggling. The old boys, 14-year-old Captain Liam MacGregor and 11-year-old wolfpup Nanuk -- also struggling. Nanuk is the sweetest being in my life, greeting me with happy jumps and licks. Gyda continues to be a beautiful bitch (Maine coon) and Tigrr is the bouncy delight of the household -- a 53-year-old doublewide in the Sonoran desert. My son and his family will always be welcome to stay with me -- even if I am homeless.

Playing at Sunrise Assisted Living at River and 1st Avenue

i lost my mind in Iceland - went happily crazy and just recovered. It was time. I turned 50 two months after I accepted the job offer from the university rector. Saw the offer, put my laptop aside and thought 'Be careful what you wish for -- you just got it!' Grew up in the icy, snowy Midwest Ameriku where snowplows push heavy sludge into icy mountains lining highways and only knew that winter meant shivering under covers in German-style Italianate houses built in the mid-18th century with grand wooden staircase, a cubbyhole with a door underneath and servants bells from the kitchen to the attic. Timmy and I played in there for hours, sweating as we giggled and painted the walls red, white and blue. Mom had some extra paint and hung a utility lamp in the corner -- so it got very hot. We would stay until Fozie or Betty or Sue or Freda told us lunch or dinner was ready. Oh, we weren't rich; those were helpers that my mom found -- students and cleaners who could handle childcare at times. Dad was a doctor, we knew that -- but Mom mostly took classes and had friends who smoked on the blankets in the park where she laid out picnics. We never ate normal food like other kids got -- cans of soda or Cheezits. Nope. Breakfast was sunflower seeds, orange slices or apples with peanut butter. Burned Lucy toast served on the open oven door to warm us before Timmy and I skedaddled o Mom Janie Sparrow Spain Lavender smiles sweetly at my arrival.

post-pandemic after-times update - written 5/23/21

"is it too soon?" we collectively ask from the comfort of our superpower communities in the "First World,"knowing that the world's underdeveloped and underprivileged are the most vulnerable to repetitive surges of This Virus |ä bent nail in the board that is humanity" -- an anonymous commenter on my first web site, c. 1996 my journals were tomes of writerly self-absorption, of a girl and young woman figuring herself out anonymously -- too introverted and private to vent/rip/bare my spleen publicly for mass consumption

Introducing... Mótsognir and his friends Half / Ametarasu / Loki / Odinn / Saraswati / Huginn / Muninn / Fenrisúlfur /

"ït's been a minute!"-- pandemonium pandemic year of creative BLISS!

hæhæ!

it seems that I have not logged on since May 2@2@, before I moved one block away ... it's been quite a year as we begin to reflect on the Pandemic Pandemonium and subsequent collective BREAK and deep breath we've all taken...

And I have spent almost every moment since then writing / playing / pasting stuff in books / writing books / studying Icelandic / gardening and pruning my orchard / Instagram stalking Megan's darling family in Bton / IG stalking my LilBros / TIKTOK RIGHT? / worrying about COVID / listening to NPR / cutting things out to paste into books / watching plays and movies with momJane five to four to three nights per week : walking dogs : hiring people to come help me clean my messes and landscape my orchard : kaffi with my 77-yr-old neighbors USAID hydrologist Barney and Carolina : dancing spasmodically / falling DOWN / getting bruised / perfecting my masked coquettishness with children / entertaining the neighbor´s grandkids / laughing with Feral Manboyson / gossiping bc I LIVE IN AN AGE-QUALIFIED RETIREMENT COMMUNITY!

Lifið er gott!

I have an Icelandair ticket in August and September to take intermediate Icelandic.

myth-O-logic

welcome to the labyrinth of happenstance, magic and coinciserensychrondipity... aka keywe

we at myth-O-logic believe that self-knowledge is key to well-being in life

And the keys to the doors of self-knowledge are found the sagas, the stories told throughout millenia, in every culture globally, from villages to massive nations

we humans thrive on adventures and legends

this is a portal/entry into a playground... a place to uncover, unlearn and rediscover the truths you already know but somehow forgot

the treasure is within you; this place is a journey to the innermost within -- to celebrate the outermost YOU

hi my beloved Tara -- aka "NOTHING in life is coincidence"

okay so my dear Tara, the green Tara, the white Tara, the black Tara -- the reason I was probably drawn to return to Tucson (LOL okay maybe that's going too far since she is the ONLY one who will GET that joke) is...

tomorrow, she continues her healing journey to become a yogic leader

she ^believes/thinks/says" that this journey began when her father was dying and she launched on a cosmic path of yoga/wellness/rejuvenation -- but what I KNOW is that she's always been on that path -- that's how our souls collided in the ether, in the universe, in what is now called the "cloud" but what we thought of in 1996, when our SOULS MET (in this life) ...

...here is my girl, my Tara ;) She is absofuckinglutely lovely, as many/most who meet her realise ... what I mean is that she is ethereal, gorgeous momentary and has taught me SO MUCH about trusting myself.

I call her my Sonoran desert princess because she is FROM here, borne of the Sonoran desert from the Mexican part ;) And that 10,000 Maniacs vision is so perfect to describe her ethereal beauty-- even though the video shows an urban landscape and my Tara is from the gorgeous ethereal desert where its not only dry like you imagine but LUSH with desert flowers and creosote and .. and and and -- millions of butterflies and hummingbirds...

That is my secret nickname for her -- "Mariposa" -- she doesn't speak much Spanish but she is an eternally metamorphically fantastically evolving creature who is completely comfortable or at least acquiesced to the fact that SHE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

How many of us KNOW that / GET that / accept that?

You know who does?

TARA(s)

::: t i m e l e s s ::: placeless ::: ethereal BEing ~ the emergence of my feral son

the chaos of the last … three years / seven years / decade ~ has transmogrified my perspective

I used to believe conversations were linear. I used to believe that I was obliged to act consistent with my past behavior, to help others understand me. I used to therefore lock myself into a feedback loop.

For example, when my baby's father left abruptly when our son was 14 days old, my world completely changed. While I was adjusting to 100 percent care of another human, my own body had failed during the birth process and I was dealing with a massive thrombosis in my left calf. The work I was doing on a contract basis was shifting to full-time employee status once the medical insurance coverage was handled by my private insurance.

While adjusting to the new routine of single-mother with a career, I was handling the collapse of the marriage. My ex-husband had left me for a woman he met dancing salsa/bachata/merengue, so there was that drama that I barely had time to care about. There was familial concern/support; my ex-husband had come from the Dominican Republic on a fiancé visa five years earlier - so I was also dealing with his mother and grandmother visiting while he kept slipping out to his new girlfriend.

So here's the crux of "feeling obliged to public opinion"--> Socially and professionally, I was embarrassed. I did not want pity. I was focused on my darling infant son, to whom I turned my complete attention.

This tiny infant, I projected -- how would he process this devastation of abandonment?

My mother said, "Amy, we love him. He has you and I - and we love him completely. everyone has some big challenge to contend with - this will be HIS

And with that, his fate was sealed.

I didn't know him yet, as I looked into his tiny face and filmed him constantly. We got up every morning at 4:45 to spend time together before taking him to the day care in the basement of my downtown Cincinnati office building. I paid nearly half my salary for the privilege of ease dropping him off in the morning, nursing him twice and then going home together. Those were halcyon days, untinged with any of the pressures that might have consumed me - the clot, financial pressure, my ex-husband, my larger family, my professional status, my actual work.

Even though I had completely invested all my concern and effort toward career until I became pregnant, my work suffered now that I had a new focus.

When we went home every afternoon by 4 p.m., we then had six or seven hours to play together. We took walks, painted, cooked together, sang and danced and learned about each other and the world. Once he fell asleep, I needed at least an hour or two of alone time. I was in great shape, physically (except for the clot).

The soundtrack to our lives in those days were from Plaza Sesamo, Sesame Street and Tarzan (in Spanish), which we played over and over.The story of the abandoned baby who grew up in the jungle relying on his primate family was constant. While we drove to work/daycare every morning, we listened to Libro de la Selva (Jungle Book in Spanish). Outside of the house, he was curious about ponies and horses. He told me later that his fascination was that they were so massive and yet so gentle. When he showed a lot of interest in growing up "wild," I told him stories of the wild child depicted by Francois Truffaut. When he was nearly three, I met a man who loved me so passionately that he was willing to support me in any way I wanted. We left the Midwest for the Sonoran desert and I worked from home so that we could participate in an unschooling movement.

Being outdoors between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily, playing at the park with other wild children, seeing young children walking on sidewalks without parents nearby, my son asked "Are they WILD?" His favorite movie when he was four became George of the Jungle. It was January, 2002. He was four and I made him a faux-leopard loincloth which he then wore to the park every Thursday, running around with his friends.

My feral son emerged.