Coming Home to Story

Saturday 4 June 2016

Tomorrow afternoon I fly to San Francisco on the next stage of my peregrination with Chris’s ashes. I’m really looking forward to it but I’m exhausted after two months non-stop work and can’t wait for the 10 hour flight when I can sleep, read, and rest undisturbed by emails and phone calls.

Each time I’ve returned some of Chris’s ashes to the earth (in Crete, Italy, and Africa) I’ve felt incredibly close to her and it has been profoundly nourishing. I hope this leg of the journey will help to heal the symptoms through which my body seeks to give voice to my grief.

Chris loved California and made many trips there for work and pleasure. I’ll be staying with friends in San Francisco and Sonoma and then making my way down the coast to Esalen, where she went with Kathy Skerrit to paint with their beloved teacher Leigh Hyams.

After that, I’ll go to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico to visit the house owned by Leigh’s daugher Gina Hyams, where we once spent a memorable month. Chris painted a dozen fabulous canvases and I wrote a substantial chunk of Coming Home to Story. It was an iconic experience of living, loving and creating alongside each other which inspired us for many years.

Then it’s on to New York and Long Island where Chris often swam in the fast-running waters off Southold with our friend Karen Karp and where we stayed on our unmarried honeymoon in 2002 and last visited together in 2010 after our Black Bear trip to Minnesota.

Please hold us in your thoughts from time to time over the next three weeks, as I say farewell to Chris the intrepid traveler, extraordinary friend, and fearlessly creative artist.