The Bookshop

The Bean Cycle Coffee Shop,

And Wolverine Farm bookstore 

Fort Collins, CO. 

Is the most perfect of coffee/book shops

Comfy couches

Walls lined with second-hand books 

And poems 

And artworks of local artists

The smell of coffee and old books 

Handmade signs

Everything a little dusty

The old bicycle on the wall

Music plays

Audible enough to create a vibe

Chill enough to allow conversation

And reading

People sit 

Sipping coffee 

Absorbing in other worlds

Through words and print on paper 

Type away on laptops 

Face each other 

Over round tables

Conversation 

A background hum 

The kids’ corner 

Tucked away

The rocking chair and teddy bear and doll 

Mom reading to her daughter

You are welcome to sit

And read

And browse 

And drink coffee 

Small children clamber up the stairs to the loft

They turn their heads

Grin the through the railing with cheeky smiles

The clanky old register 

Books to be priced, stacked, and shelved 

I can’t even begin to describe the satisfaction of

Rows of dusty books

Sorted by category and author’s surname

Every shelf

Contains treasure, 

My “to read” list

Ever growing.

Even if I sat down and read books

Cover to cover

All day long

For the rest of my life

I would never reach 

The end.

Just Around the Riverbend

I was at uni
And I was learning
And acting
And surrounded by amazing people
And I was so depressed
I was numb
I actually felt nothing
And I tortured myself
Literally and metaphorically
And kept asking
When will I ever be good enough
To do something amazing
And then I got to perform my own material
And I was like
Hey, I really like this
And then I got to travel the world
And my brain exploded with possibility

I was engaged
And we were gonna get married!
Everything was lovely!
We were in love!
And then we broke up
And I was miserable
And wondered when anything was ever going to stop feel like crying again
And I sat with my bestie at the markets
And said
"ARGH! What is next?!"
And the next day got an email about working in the theatre full-time, and getting an agent
And everything changed
(My bestie was lamenting that he would ever meet someone.  Just over a year from that day, he was married).
And I got into drama school in London
And I packed my bags and moved to a whole other country

I got there
And was really broke
More broke than I'd ever been
I was living the dream
Of studying theatre in London
And I was miserable
My voice was shot
My self-esteem was invisble (again)
I couldn't get a job
And it got to the point
Where I had exactly one week's rent left in my savings
And that was it
And I won a scholarship
And I was able to stay

And then school was over
And I got to go back to camp
And I finally worked in the Music Shed
And taught voice
And realized I had a skill and a knack for teaching singing
And fell in love with it all over again

Back in London
I discovered what it was like
To be earning minimum wage
Less than the London living wage
And to work and work and work
And having nothing left
And you have to go back and do it all again
Because otherwise
Then you really have nothing
But sitting in offices around London
I'm getting paid to write my own material
And it feels wonderful
And liberating

I got to fall in love again
I got to work again, sometimes for what I felt I was worth
I'm going to perform my own material

We never know what's next
We have to do the work
And hope and pray
That it will work out
Sometimes it won't
But something else will come along
And it will be even better
Than what we could have hoped for

And if all else fails
Hide under the doona and watch cheesy Disney cartoons
Until you feel better

The end.

*And writing stuff like this reminds me that in my insanely privileged bubble... life ain't so bad. It may SEEM bad sometimes... but it's not so bad, you know?!

Who Am I Anyway?

Who am I anyway?
To seek a life
Enchanted
Lovely
Full of song and dance
And music
To share stories
Desire the positive
And inspirational
And surround myself with
Like minds
And minds that challenge
Who am I to stand before a group of students
And tell them
"What I know"

Here is the secret...

I know nothing

And it is humbling
And funny
All at once

The end.

Firefly

by Red Dragon Goodness

One moment you are working in London

And feeling frustrated 

And miserable

And you blink

And you are walking across northern rural Spain

And you blink

And you are back in London

And riding on the tube

And it is always winter

And cold

And you are always wearing a thousand layers 

And you feel you could never be warm again

And twenty-four hours without sleep

And two plane trips later

You are back in America

And it is June

And it is summer! 

Oh summertime

I have missed you! 

To walk outside

Without endless layers 

Scarves and beannies and gloves

Just shorts and a t-shirt

And flip flops 

Is bliss

To be back with my love

And to have returned to the cabin in the woods

Sitting on the porch

Watching a storm swirl by

The way the leaves flutter

The way the tall trees bend and wave with the whirling wind

To see lightning flash the sky

And hear thunder crashing

Feeling its rumble in the earth

And in the evening

To sit on the same porch

And smell earth and trees

Blessed by rain

And watch fireflies flicker in the forest

The sparkle of their little luminescents   

Like tiny twinkling fairy lights 

Feels like a delicious dream

And you’re glad you’re here

The end. 

Go To It

If there is something that you want to do
GO TO IT
You are not too old
It is not too late
You ARE more capable than you think
You have everything you need to start TODAY.
Stop making excuses and
Just. Go. To. It.

Space Women

Girls Can't What?

This is a true story

It happened to me 

In real life 

My friend

A university educated person

Whose parents are both doctors

Told me 

Women cannot be astronauts 

Because they get their period

This. Is. Simply. Not. True.

In June 1963

Valentina Tereshkova

Became the first female 

To launch into space 

A little earlier 

In 1961 

Thirteen women

Known as the Mercury 13

Underwent 

The same training and tests 

As the men who would later become

The first American astronauts

And they passed

And then

Not because they were physically unable

Or intellectually inferior 

But because of 

Institutional bias against women

For being women 

The Mercury 13 

Were dismissed 

In all 

Fifty-six

Women have fought

And trained 

And gone into space

Two of them have 

Commanded the spaceships
And what about their periods?
One astronaut is quoted as saying
"Period in space, just like period on the ground
Don't worry about it."

Women do go into space 

And while they make up just 10% of the people

To hurtle past the atmosphere

The point is 

Women can be, and are, astronauts

The only thing keeping on the ground

Is prejudice and ignorance

The end. 

Sing Out, Louise(a)

Patti: "sing out, Louise!"

If you had told me
Three years ago
Sitting in my lounge room
In suburban Sydney
That I would three years later
Be sitting with the host and creator of MusicalTalk
In London
Singing a new song
For a new musical
And recording tracks for my agent
I would have laughed
And said
"That's cool...
I want to be her."

The end.

Liza with a Me

At work

An actress whom I daily admire

Said to me

“Every time I see you, I think of a young Liza”

And it thrilled me 

Because to be told you look like one of your heroes 

Is

Well, thrilling

Now I know 

That just looking like one of your heroes 

Doesn’t make you like

One of your heroes

Looks do not give you 

A phenomenal belt

Or amazing dance skills

Or a guaranteed career

But it does

Boost one’s confidence

And tells you to keep going

When I cut off all my hair

“Pixie” cut

I never intended to look like Liza

I cut it off

Because I wanted to

And, honestly,

It was one of the most liberating days of my life 

I’m keeping my hair short 

Because it’s me

And that’s the person

Who I most want to be 

When I grow up

The end. 

One a Day

an apple a day...

Yesterday I made a pact 

To find one thing a day

That was inspiring or

Lovely or

"Magical, beautiful, delightful" 

And today

I started

One a day 

It was standing on the train

And listening to strangers talk about musicals

And smiling at them

Because I knew what they were talking about

And then seeing them in the theatre an hour later

And laughing with them because we recognized each other 

And they realized why I had smiled

It was receiving a message from a dear friend

Knowing he is on the same page

Several thousand miles away

It was coming home on the train

And being so engrossed in my book

The journey felt quick

It was getting home from a long day

And opening a new hand soap for the bathroom

And the smell being so delicious 

It reminded me to breathe deeply

It was hearing my love’s voice on the phone

It was being on the lookout for things

Inspiring, beautiful, and lovely

That reminded me to let go 

To not get caught up in the negative

And not be bogged down

It was writing about the nice things

And recalling, that despite a long day at work,

There were actually

Numerous moments of lovely 

And taking pause

And breathing deeply

And saying

Okay. 

The end.