Sense and Serendipity

The journey is contracting--when I open my eyes, I will be closing the door to my Astoria flat and entering a tunnel that will emerge in Ecuador.

We mark such chapters by significant changes, shifts in the techtonics of our physical and emotional lives. I know there is a continental shift in not only my soul but in the spirit of those around me both near and far. Friends are departing for summers away or abroad, casting themselves, as I am into the sea of the only life that we know.

Speaking of lives we know not of . . . today I faced the power of the sixth sense. I had brunch at my old apartment with Napa, and we listened to a tarot card reading we had done last year--it was recorded in May 2008.

Before Derek's reading, I had never indulged such curiosities (apart from Sister Reese whose way off visions did not convince me to unclog my chakrahs for an additional cost . . .Oh Sabrina, how could we?!) and since he is a friend of a friend from Hawai'i, we sought his sense about our immediate futures-- in work and in love. I shall focus on work here, though he was spot-on in both . . .

Derek not only is a direct contributor to the funding of this project, but he SAW it in the reading, though he didn't call it DAT at the time--he saw me traveling with a group of people to different places, (possibly Islands!) to work with education, children, and theatre. He said this will be the way I will work always, but this year is when it begins and I will tell the story of my travels ... the labor begins tomorrow, and the blog has already begun. "You'll be wearing glasses of some kind--I'm not quite sure if it's for a role or something else, but I see glasses . . . " Cousin Pat was with me when he approved my crazy frames last November. . . The year is over; a birthday is marked; a prophecy is fulfilled that will change my present life, that has been changing it and is.

It's funny what I imposed on such visions of the future at a time when I couldn't even fathom what the visions meant . . . I assumed they were related to my life as I knew it then --the people and places in it last May. Oh, how life has changed. He saw a ferris wheel . . . and this year has been that, certainly; my expectations-- however unexpecting-- and my experiences have been serendipitous and quite the Coney Island ride.

Christen, whom I met by watching a play that I almost never saw, introduced me to Seton Hall, and a year later, we both are going to Ecuador with DAT--without telling each other. We both thought we were underqualified, and now we will share our "undeserved" experience!

And so will Monster ...



Long story short: Monster hails from Boston, from the hands of Courtney and Tricia. And he shall continue to follow me through my travels. The day I released Monster to Sabrina, who is off to the West Coast, I received a package in the express mail from Tricia. In it: Monster. Serendipity strikes again.

Beginning with packing, I intend to be inspired by these "signs" and continue my course of ACTion (as DAT puts it) . . . This is only the beginning according to Derek and Cousin Pat, and Monster has a whole decade of traveling ahead of him!

Thank you for being part of this great story, all of you--for your emails and your action, which allows me to re-act and unfold the drama that is the ever-increasing "sum" our collective, intertwined lives.

This blog is inspired by Isabelle Allende, Derek Calibre, Napa Lum, Cousin Pat, Sabrina Cooke, Christen Madrazo, and Tricia Santomasso.

Bon Voyage to all!


Jennifer and Monster