I was in, I was out...

... and good thing too because I am talking about the dentist.

At first I found it really odd that she said literally, nothing to me
other than the occasional "open" in German.

It didn't take long at all to realize this is a very good thing.

You see, back in the states, I have had the same dentist since I was 9 years old.

Even when I moved around out of state, out of the country, had no insurance - whatever ... he was always there to help me out, clean me up and strike some kind of deal so I wouldn't end up toothless.
Hallelujah!

But my oh my if he didn't tell the longest stories of my entire life.

Heck, I'm a storyteller too, I know the draw to keep em coming and going and...
um.

But I am beginning to put the pieces together as to why my office visits took
all afternoon.

As lonely as I sometimes felt as my dentist made a mad dash for the room next to me to tend to another - while I numbed up - I was also relieved I could just close my eyes, rest and count on her dashing back in to get me move on out.

I guess they get paid per customer here.

So after a non-harrowing but more like lovely little nap in a quiet room, good and drugged up, I've had a pretty good day.

I was in, I was out.

Found footage - 2006 concert in Stockholm, Sweden with my trio, "The Black Sheep girls." This was at the end of a long 3-month tour throughout Europe

mein tag war sehr interessant...

All in all, it's been a pretty interesting day.

Dressed mildly for Spring only to be caught in a snow flurry.

Ended up being interviewed on local TV and I spoke German
understandably.

Was walking my bike across the crosswalk when a car stopped for me...
a second later the car behind him crashed into him.

I gave my first real help to tourists, at least 3 minutes worth - entirely in German on where to go to have an inexpensive lunch - nearby and how to get there exactly.

I found a 10 Euro bill at the Supermarket and paid for half of my groceries, mainly gifts for frieds & family in the US next week.

About the only downside (other than the poor suckers who crashed their cars and my cold Spring-like jacket) for some reason my key to get into the building didn't work.

Luckily we have good friends I could ring and get buzzed in.
Still.

I came home to an email that my friend can house me while in Austin for the record... which was a nice cross off my check list of a million things to do in one week.

It was a very interesting day.
Not perfect but damn near it.

Murder of the little yellow paper...

Last night I dreamed my post-it notes had legs and were chasing me off a cliff.

So that's the downside.

The upside would be I am back in action, riding once again on the folk train.
Trying to get ready to sing and record, planning graphics and meetings here and abroad - trying to maintain just a little bit of a social life before I go (this one I am letting go the last couple of weeks) and more importantly, keep my marriage happy - is well, even for a crazy girl like me - a stretch.

After a meeting with a potential sponsor today, we walked home through the Hofgarten.

I had never actually walked all the way through before, which also meant I never really saw the giant chess set.
Literally, statue-sized chess pieces you move about a small basketball court-sized painted on the cement playing "board."

As we walked past and watched two elderly men bundled up for the winter, carefully lifting the chess pieces and going at it - everything just seemed so big and complicated, yet somehow slow and easy.

When I came home and stared at the post it notes in question before me, I was able to see them in a new light.

Compared to the game I just witnessed, they seemed a heck of a lot easier to manuever
and at the very least, I can crumple them up and that's the last of it.

Til the next batch that is.

Now - if I dream tonight my post-it notes are calling out at me "check mate," I will seriously be checking into the nearest hospital, playing alot of chess for a long time to come.

A good cause my niece is participating in... !

My niece Camila once asked me about when I used to run marathons for charity. She sighed when I told her how many miles and how hard it was.

Now she found a way to do it - goooo Camila!

*****

Auntie Tina,

Hello! I am jumping rope to help the American Heart Association fight heart disease and stroke in Jump Rope For Heart. Can you sponsor me by making a donation?

The American Heart Association's online fundraising website has a minimum donation amount of $25.00. If you want to donate less, that's ok. You can just send the check right to me and I'll make sure the American Heart Association gets it.

http://ahajump.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=248996&u=248996-207691296&e=1586313811
Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support American Heart Association - Western States Affiliate

Reach out and ... ?

This year has already proven to be one of the best yet - for me.

I am in awe and thanking every star and knocking on wood every chance I get.
After the year I've just been through, I feel especially grateful.

And I was thinking the other day about journaling about how much fun I am having speaking understandable German and being understood ... journal about getting orthotics for my shoes that in America cost me $500 for 24 euro here ... and a funny, funny day rodeln with my Innsbruck expats/locals group and while speeding down a snowy steep trail (in a snow storm) whizzing by my good Italian friend Patrizia on her rodel - talking to her mom on her cell phone! The last time I saw anything that crazy was while running the Rome, Italy marathon. At mile 12 an Italian man ran past me while casually and not out of breath I might add, talking on his cell phone.
I was preparing myself for a Italian cell phone blog....

But then while on my bike heading to see my bone doctor - I had this experience that I decided outweighed everything I thought I wanted to say.

I was riding down a one-way street - but really crawling with my leg out pushing myself along - and on the sidewalk.
Now I know this sounds dangerous but I assure you I was practically walking it.
And this 2 minute detour saved me about 15 minutes on a day I could not be late. Being even minutes late in Austria for a doctors appointment means you wait another hour.

Ahead of me, was an elderly women with her back turned, looking in a window.

I was very aware of her and slowed down almost to a stop and if it weren't for the bike seat I was "sitting" on, I was almost technically walking.

When she turned around I had a feeling a dirty look might be coming my way.
So I prepared myself.

And then as I neared closer, I realized not only a scowl was coming but a good old fashioned Tyrolean lashing.

Not only did she scowl and yell but in a matter of seconds as I began to pass, her arm reached out and in one instant, I was officially pushed over by an old lady off my bike.

She was yelling German and pointing her finger, hitting my arm - poking me to the point I am bruised. No kidding.

And I am pulling myself together and despite being completely and utterly in shock, amazingly, I carried on.

I didn't tremble or cry or get all disoriented as I might have say maybe somewhere in America if anything like this had happened.

Because you see, there is something about Tyroleans and rules.
They are very dead set against their rules and people following them. And for whatever reason, they feel they have some sort of civic duty but more often than not, self duty to make sure every last person is following every, single rule to a T.

And if you are not?
You get pointed at, scowled at and pushed over. Period.

So despite finding a happiness here that I think will keep me in Tyrol longer than any land has ever been ever to hold me, I will always have a little place in my heart and surprisingly let out a little giggle - for the little old ladies that feel the need to reach out and push someone.

cigarettes & rain...

Riding my bike through altstadt today, smelling the combination of very cold air, roasting pizza's, sidewalk coffee & the very expensive perfume coming from the tourists, meant I nearly crashed into a wall.

I was in serious bliss and not because the combination is particularly interesting or makes much sense really. I mean perfume and pizza?

I can't tell you why or what happened but right then and there, I pulled over and needed to breeeeathe it all in.

There are just some smells, sometimes that make me happy.

I believe in the scientific approach citrus smells being pumped through an office to make everyone more productive, baking bread or chocolate chip cookies before guests arrive to fill them with immediate warmth...

I remember an odd smell of cigarettes and rain in London taking me on another
level and I don't smoke.

I can only guess it's a mix of all my senses being massaged, taken on a new
journey and in some cases, back in time.

A little unexpected brain workout, trip down memory lane and moment in the day to relax and breath.

view from my window...

the wail...

I told her not to be afraid of leaving those she loved or being left
by the ones she loved back.

It's how I lived and the only way I could live, in order to leave in
the first place.
If I thought too hard about what I was doing - what might happen and
who I was leaving, I surely would never had seen or done the things
I have. I would not be the person I am and desperately wanted and
needed to become.

She wants to leave. Badly.
She has wanted to leave since she was six years old.
It's in her bones - and although we are not blood sisters - it's like
the universe put us together almost 20 years ago and didn't tell us.
...because in every sense, she is my little sister.

I want to tell her to go go go, live and love and be loved - fall and
pick herself up as many times as she needs to.
But at the same time, I want to protect her from the very things I did
and the blindness I sometimes feel I had while leaving everyone behind.

It's a hard call and one I am not happy to make.

But I must make it just the same because that is what the world asked
of me when they put us together.
When they gave me the honor of being Mallory's big sister.

And now I am watching her leave.
I am watching her life become hers and stories being written
for only her to tell. So many I will never be there for, see or understand.
The way a life should be.

And all I can do is sit back and hope that my life on the run didn't entice
or romance her too much.
And that while running, the tales that were not so sweet, didn't scare
her from making her own and taking her own roads - good and bad.

For all it's worth, I think I was completely honest and bare boned about
what not being afraid to leave costs.

I hope.

Because sometimes it's true - I need to just sit down and wail.
One big wail like you hear coming from the mouths of the homeless
cats lingering along the fences.

I let one out every now and then.
Both to honor the ones I left and love - and release the pain that I know
because of it, will never go away.

I can see the view...

Sleep.
Sleep changes everything.

When you have gone far too long without it, forcing it ... or downright begging for it, it would make sense the subject can get you well, a little tired.
Mind you, without the benefit of sleeping it off.

Since returning from my holiday trip to America, it's understandably been more disturbed than usual.

I have been trying everything to get a grip on it when one day recently, I just collapsed.
It was if my body had enough, all these years and just fell like a timber.
Like a child running and playing so hard while one second screaming at the top of their lungs - then the next, lying peacefully at the foot of the couch, or in the hallway, on the table. Wherever they happened to have their crash landing.

For me luckily, it's been in my bed.

For that and for the mere act of closing my eyes each night, dreaming away long movie-like dreams, even though lately the nightmarish kind - I am grateful.

I can already feel the weight of burdens and anxieties, the heaviness of an overloaded mind not being given the chance to unload in the night - lifted.

I awoke to a snow filled Alps outside my window. With a blue sunny sky and that perfectly crispy air you can only get on a perfectly snowy, sunny day.

And I feel like I am 29 again.
And not because I want to be because trust me, you couldn't pay me any amount of money to go there again. Any.
But I remember around there, having some kind of surreal never-ending flow of energy that didn't require sleep. And when I did get it, I was me amplified by 100.
And if I didn't spend those days becoming a songwriter, running marathons, playing on a softball team, being a nanny, chasing kids or jumping around as a clown at their parties, I would surely have had the energy to do almost anything else I could have imagined.
And back then? That's what I was doing - anything I imagined.

So although I am a bit slower, my sleep a necessity that I actually care if I get, my odd jobs long gone and marathon shoes and softball cleats hanging on the wall - I take comfort in rubbing my eyes today - saying well done, you slept.

And when I wake, my view is that of - and quite literally - a majestic long set of snowy Alps in Austria.
Something I would have been far too busy to see at 29. Or even 35.

And although I am keeping my earplugs in just a little bit longer today, I can hear the past let go, the future coming at me and the present just perfectly.

Peaceful and quiet. Just the way I had always imagined.