My Mom could never understand why I felt compelled to jump into adventures in faraway lands, and she would say, “Oh Marci, how do you do that? How do you dare to go to these places by yourself? Aren’t you scared?” This perplexed me, because when I travel, I feel the opposite of scared. When I embark on an adventure into the unknown, I feel more at home than I do at home
So now, it was 2am in the middle of a remote forest in Norway, with snow so deep it could swallow me whole, and I’m riding on the back of a young man, surrounded by thick pine trees soaring straight into the sky. It was cold, and a little scary, but the adventure of it all outweighed the fear.
Did he see the ordinary church and reinterpret it his way?
Or did he look at the building and see centuries of wishes, hopes, tears, and prayers all swirling together into a vibrant mind-bending dazzling cloud, bursting with sacred irreverence … the church and the art soothing jagged-edged souls and healing broken hearts, century after century… generation after generation…
I met him on a rainy summer night in Paris, the kind of night that’s made for kissing. Chris was English, with thick wavy black hair, warm eyes, and an accent that could melt butter in a freezer. By the end of our first evening together, he put his arms around me while we were waiting for a taxi and I turned around and kissed him. By the next day, we were officially “dating,” and we spent much of our time that summer staring into each other’s eyes and kissing on every street corner. It was the kind of passionate summer love where you go to the pub and ask for a dark booth in the back so you can wrap around each other and kiss until you are seeing stars…
We climbed higher and higher, the air smelling fresher and crisper, until we finally arrived in the tiny Bavarian town.
It smelled like home, with the lush forests covering the mountains, the smell of evergreen, wildflowers and even a touch of snow that stays on the highest peak, even in the middle of summer.
I sat quietly in the giant hand, the stone warmed by the sun, and listened to my heartbeat among the children shouting and laughing in different languages around me. I thought about the 20-year-old me who had been full of childlike wonder and adventure and enchanted by everything about Paris and living out my dream of visiting such a magnificent city. I thought about 28-year-old me climbing the hand with my soulmate and best friend, wrapping our arms around each other, feeling like we would be intertwined forever… one glorious treasured moment caught on camera. I didn’t know then that it wouldn’t last forever. And here I was, 50-year-old me, letting the hand gently hold me.
Walking through the front door was like entering another world. Red velvet drapes trimmed with golden tassels, brick walls covered with images of Josephine Baker at the height of her dancing, the kind of warm lighting that makes even the most weary of us look beautiful… Josephine peers out from every wall, bananas on her hips, feathers arching above her, body joyfully moving, her pet cheetah with a diamond collar walking beside her, a smile promising mischief… Chez Josephine is everything I love about the 1920’s, divine decadence, giddy and glamorous, an invitation to leave your cares outside and surrender to this one gorgeous moment.
Experts speculate which ancient battle Winged Victory was created for, but does it matter? We are all fighting our own battles in our own way every single day. The fact that we are here, out in the world, celebrating the majesty of the human spirit through art, creating our own art, walking through these treasured creations, letting their astonishing beauty wash over us, is a winged victory in itself. I wiped my tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand and walked on, with my shoulders rolled back and my dress rippling across my hips.
Now I can’t stop thinking of the wild pianos of Salzburg, and in my dreams, they gallop around the mountains, breathless and wild and glorious. If you catch one, you can sit down and make music like Mozart.
One warm summer night in Monte Carlo while backpacking in 1990, Zar, Tanya, and I decided to splurge on a banana split, while eating on a cliff overlooking the sea. As backpackers, we never ordered dessert, because we had to save every penny. But tonight,
