Bonjour!
My name is Amy.
Here is my story. It’s about adventure.
Surprise. Disappointment.
Music, art, discovery.
It’s even a little juicy.
First, I am from North Mankato, Minnesota.
I live in a charming old Craftsman-style bungalow
that I love despite its quirks, creaks, crookedness,
and the occasional wayward bat
they are always gently shepherded
outside in a net,
accompanied by lots of screaming.
This silky little creature, SamTheCat,
showed up on my doorstep
on Halloween 15 years ago.
He lets me live with him. He does
Allow me to introduce you to the love of my life:
my ancient, huge, cast iron clawfoot bathtub.
It’s part therapist, part healer.
The statue guarding the tub is Bathrodite.
She’s a good secret-keeper.
I have a huge garden I dug up
with an old shovel divorce therapy, 1999.
This summer, I made a stone circle in my garden for “sacred” activities
like smoky fires with friends and laughing
way too hard and eating waaaaay too much cheese and chocolate.
I studied English with a writing concentration in college then
immediately went to work for a printing company
as an advertising copywriter.
Also, music, I have played the piano since I was 10, and continued playing
and pursuing choral studies in college.
But a beautiful harp at a Renaissance fair stole my musical heart
and changed the course of my life.
The harp quickly went from “Well, this will be fun…”
to “Having weddings and events booked through the years.”
As soon as I earned enough I purchased
a concert harp from Lyon & Healy in Chicago.
I still worked as a copywriter, but I spent all of my free time performing.
Playing in cathedrals and at county fairs,
at weddings and funerals,
for dignitaries like Mikhail Gorbachev,
and for preschoolers.
I have made four recordings plus a DVD based on an original song.
I also started giving concerts on St. Patrick’s Day and at the holidays.
I’ve played for thousands of people,
and it brought me joy to share the joy of music with each of them.
But in 2009, softly, quietly, came the whispers of restlessness.
At work, I was supposed to be writing, but instead,
I was daydreaming, wondering, “What if? What else?”
And after 10 years of giving my own concerts, recording albums,
playing at hundreds of weddings and events and accompanying
orchestras and choirs
I began to look at the harp with weariness rather than joy.
I was tired.
My wonderful, perceptive Mom noticed. She called me one morning in April,
“You need to get out of here. Let’s go to Paris.”
I gave her a thousand excuses why I couldn’t: work, the garden, the house,
my harp performances.
Oh yeah: and we didn’t speak French.
She didn’t listen. She bought plane tickets.
We found a hotel in the Latin Quarter.
I got some travel guides.
A friend taught us some basic get-by-as-a-tourist French.
I scoured French blogs for travel advice, and “met” Corey in doing so.
I read every one of her posts.
I dreamed about what her life must be like in France, the culture,
and brocante, the romance.
My favorite post still is her poetic recipe for hot chocolate!
Mom and I flew to Paris.
The taxi ride from CDG airport was terrifying.
“You have been in Paris before?” the taxi driver asked,
swerving madly around a motorcycle.
“No,” we said. I squeezed my eyes shut, motion sick from the
smell of exhaust, the traffic, the ugly graffiti on the highway walls.
“I hate this city,” I said to myself.
A while later, the taxi driver said, “Open your eyes, look, Notre Dame de Paris.”
I looked and saw the cathedral, glowing in the morning light
like a bright pearl. I burst into tears.
I didn’t know why.
“You have been to Paris before,”
the taxi driver said. “In your heart.”
“Maybe,” I whispered. “Yes.”
Mom and I wandered cobbled streets and lingered by the Seine
and ate and drank wine and saw the Mona Lisa and
Monet’s Water Lilies and rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower
and sat in the park and fed crepes to sparrows
that flew right up to our fingers.
Every day, we went into Notre Dame to light candles, to hear vespers.
One night during dinner at a restaurant near Notre Dame,
a French man struck up a conversation with us.
He was charming, funny. He was also uncannily perceptive.
“You are tired,” he said to me suddenly. “You work too hard, no?”
“Did my mother tell you this?” I asked.
“She does not have to. I can see it,” he said.
“And you come from that place in the cold,
with 9 months winter and only 3 months summer?
You are a woman who needs much more of the warm.”
I didn’t know what to say, but inside,
I felt my being say, “Yes.”
He walked us to our hotel. Mom smiled at me and ducked inside.
As he and I walked through winding streets,
he pulled me inside an ancient doorway and kissed me.
I told you this would get juicy.
He wanted to meet the next night.
We did, except we left the restaurant earlier,
and my walk with him was longer…
He met us on our last night in Paris. He begged me not to work so hard.
Mom nodded in agreement.
Then, as we were leaving, he invited me (just me, with a wink at Mom)
to come back and visit him.
What a dream, I thought, as he bade goodbye.
I thought of Corey’s blog, her story about finding love
and moving to France.
I looked back at Notre Dame and felt a tug on my heart.
I arrived home to an overgrown garden, an overflowing work inbox,
a wedding to play for the next day…
and an email from him.
We talked on the phone all summer. We got to know each other –
our dreams, wishes, deepest thoughts.
He really did want me to visit.
So I studied French, read Corey’s blog, ran for miles to get in better shape.
In early October, with Corey’s stories and my own hopes in my mind,
I flew to Paris.
Into the arms of…a stranger. It was him,
but he was not the perceptive, kind person I had gotten to know.
He was cold and distant. “Your plane was late,” he said.
“And you are too thin.” He left me at the apartment and went to work.
I barely saw him.
When I did, he was cruel. One night was so frightening,
I hoped for Liam Neeson to rescue me like in the movie “Taken.”
I wandered Paris alone, getting to know her,
falling in love with her. I was also falling in love with the way
I felt about being in Paris.
I didn’t need him or anyone else to be there.
I could take care of myself. It was clear that Corey’s story
and mine would be very different.
So I escaped to a tiny room at the tip-top of a hotel.
I disguised myself with a huge scarf over my head.
I sat in Notre Dame for hours, lighting candles, kneeling.
I sat in the backs of cafés and drank hot chocolate and wrote music,
wrote in my journal, wrote to my worried Mom back home that I was fine.
And I was fine.
Things had gone wrong with him,
but I was doing what I wanted,
when I wanted, in a city I was loving.
That December, back home, I gave a concert of the new music
that I had written in Paris.
I mulled over my memories.
I read Corey’s blog. She and I wrote to each other periodically.
Every time I talked about my Paris trips,
people would say, “You need to write a book about this!”
Over five years, two trips back to Paris,
and many writing workshops,
I wrote my memoir while still working long hours as a copywriter.
Plus still playing the harp every week.
I had forgotten his words, “Don’t work so hard, you work too much.”
One morning, exhausted from pushing myself,
I fainted and fell in the shower,
hitting my head hard at least three times.
which caused a traumatic brain injury.
which developed severe migraines and fibromyalgia.
My memoir sat, nearly finished.
The harp sat, silent.
I went through the motions of my life like a ghost.
For my 50th birthday in December 2017, I felt well enough
to go back to Paris and stayed in Corey’s beautiful apartment.
It was a healing trip. I spent most of it sitting in Notre Dame,
breathing incense, lighting candles, kneeling on the floor,
grateful to be alive, to have done so many things,
to have learned so many beautiful lessons.
Never will I forget Christmas Eve in Notre Dame.
Eventually, I quit my job and am able to be at home now,
managing my pain and recovering.
Through a practice of gratitude, and feel like I am awakening more and more.
Recently, I have played my harp
for some Zoom events.
Reading through some pages of my memoir, made some notes.
I do believe that one day I will finish and publish it.
And then Corey asked me to write a post for her blog -
the blog that has been so inspiring,
a gentle guide to goodness and gratitude,
a place of beauty.
It was like being asked to make a drink to pour into the holy grail.
I said yes. And here it is.
A story of writing and music,
Of Paris. Of Notre Dame, my beloved sanctuary,
which I mourn and pray for.
And of my friendship with Corey -
we have never met in person,
but I feel a kindred-spirit love for you,
and appreciate everything you have given to all of us through your blog.
If you’re interested, you can purchase my music here.
(Note: The Month of January album is sold out at the moment.)
Please keep in touch! Follow Amy on Facebook.
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