JFK. My sister Lily drove me to the airport this morning. I have a 3-hour layover before my next flight. Usually, I dread layovers but today I welcome it. I’m not ready to see my husband. It will be fine once I’m there, this trip and all the lovely gifts will seem like a dream. Back to the salt mines!

I had a play reading last night and it was, oh so wonderful. I have worked for 20 years to get good at this, but cold readings are usually very painful. Not this time. We roared through the whole thing. I always sit and listen, I don’t write anything down. I’m just really getting a feel for whether or not the tension works. The little problems present themselves quite readily. But it’s the movement that is critical to a play’s success. This one has regional theatre written all over it.

Lily read, too. A few of the actors couldn’t make it so she filled in. Hilariously! She’s not an actor. She’s just Lily, honest, straightforward and with a sense of humor that everyone gets. Unique. The play is about several drug addicts trying to have a meeting on Thanksgiving day in the parking lot of a church. Shenanigans ensue. Very funny play, but also about something real.

When it was over, we all stood up. Lily stretched out her arms and said, “Let’s close with the Serenity Prayer.”  We formed a circle and said the words.  Later, after everyone had left, I asked her why she did that. “I felt like I was at a meeting,” she said.

Yesterday, before the reading, at my incredible massage appointment with Dorothy- “Is there anything special you want me to work on?” she asked.

“I’d just like your usual wonderfulness. But if you can work some black magic… I could use some courage,” I said.

Afterwards, we sat for a moment in her lovely room. I could see outside that the sky had turned aquamarine and I believe we both looked beautiful in the sunlight.

“I kept getting the image of a swan,” she said to me. Dorothy got out a book and looked up the meaning.

“Swans are graceful and strong,” she said. “And they leave very little disturbance in their wake.”

I’m thinking- as I’m always thinking- how am I going to handle my husband. Strong and graceful, little disturbance. Whatever I have to say or do, keep that in mind? Stand tall- head high. Moments ago I spoke to my daughter, Blair. My little witch. I told her about the swan.

“Yes,” she said, “and swans are fierce! They kick ass!”

So to kick ass gracefully. Ah. I think I’m going to need some more time for this.