Getting From There To Here

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step.”Lao Tzu,  Chinese philosopher

These are famous words. We’ve heard them countless times. So when I opened up a fortune cookie one day last week, following a Chinese take-out meal, it was almost too easy to dismiss the words.

Then on second thought I decided to more reflectively consider them.

“After all, I told myself, if you (meaning me) have been guided by a prophecy for over forty years, isn’t it time, now, to pay a bit more attention to the little markers you’ve been heeding along the way.

Opportunity or insight knocks, open the door!

If you want to make genuine sense of it all, at least as best as is possible, take your own advice and lean in to whatever cues and clues present themselves. The lean in practice can be applied as much to yourself as to others."

So I said to myself, "Admit it, Anastasia, you have, on occasion, allowed even a fortune cookie to mean a thing or two!

Again -- after all -- the more than 15,000 days you’ve lived since that prophecy came to you, you've had to cover your ground step-by-step, moment by moment, hour by hour and so forth. There are footprints you left behind. Seek and find them where you can. And heed the guideposts you find along the way as you continue on, even from a fortune cookie.

This wasn’t simply an Uncle Remus, Disneyland Magic Kingdom Matterhorn ride from there to here.

“Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip- a-dee-ay. My oh my what a wonderful day” hasn’t exactly been altogether the tune of these days past.

No siree!"

Then I implored the "I" inside of me, "Where is the meat and bones of the journey, Anastasia?

Blood, sweat and tears has been more like it than Uncle Remus! Now SEE it, know it and spill it, Anastasia!"

Ok, I told myself, I will do like Dore in “Finding Nemo”, “Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming” until my mission is complete.

So I will, I assert. It has, after all, been a wonderful adventure in spite of the troubles. 

Why not dig deep and get to the heart of all that has been so I can know more about it, even for myself than I do right now?

But it is a challenge, ladies and gents. I'll tell you that!

In trying to tell the many tales of the journey, totally a hero’s journey if there ever was one, I find myself, these days, seeking further expansions of formerly held perspectives; discoveries of how I got from “there” to “here.”  I want to explain it better to myself as well.

And, I will succeed on this mission! It is, after all, my nature to dig deep and find whatever is there to be found. I am determined!

That’s what makes me, not only Anastasia The Storyteller but, also, Anastasia The Super Sleuth! 

(Which, by the way, I like a whole lot better as a persona than that old Marcia E. Rosen, hot pants, motorcycles and K Street sex pot, sometimes look alike for Nancy Sinatra in her "These Boots Are Made For Walking" bygone days. 

Oih veh!

You will hear more about this tidbit as our shared travels reveal it here. 

Oih veh, again!! OMG!!)

So I admit to myself, Hot Pants, Motorcycles And K Street: In The Era Before Watergate does not seek to tell only a bland tale when actually I have lived a rather invigorating life.

And, the adventure of writing this memoir is not only for the reader’s illumination and/or a gift for my daughter to help her better know who she is -- and - ME.  It is also the progression of another chapter in my life’s adventure as I endeavor to make sense of it and integrate it into my, mainly, but not perfectly well-lived life.

Though I am definitely still short on answers for my many musings in this regard, my most conscientious investigations do draw me down deep, up high and all around.  

In particular, presently I am searching for the beginnings.

Where are they, I wonder?

This life at the very moment of conception, my nine months in utero or the day my mother was delivered of me?

Or do I begin lifetimes ago?

Do the sun and the moon, the planets and stars have answers for me? I’ve lately renewed my investigations in this direction too.

Again and again I ponder age-old questions, the self-centered ones, “where did I begin? And the corollary where do I end or do I?

Mystery!! I must be willing to accept that which seems to remain beyond my frail, human mind.

So I wonder and wonder, seeking contentment when all else fails.

How did I get from “there” to here?

Stay tuned in to what I discover, at least the parts I am willing to tell.

Still, my journey, truth be told, is actually a shared one. Come along and tell your side of it too! 

Jack Slattery and I will be storytelling on my next Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show.

“Anastasia,The Super Sleuth Says –“

Saturday, September 27, 2014

11:30 a.m.

Think about joining us!