Have you ever visited a psychic? Would you like to gaze into a crystal ball during these uncertain pandemic days and be reassured that yes, everything is going to be all right? If so, you’re not alone.
I recently read an article in The New York Times about how the pandemic has led many suffering from anxiety and fear to seek spiritual guidance via online psychic readings. Fortune tellers are seeing a big increase in business, as stress about the future has turned their customers to the supernatural for clues or answers. Most want to know when the pandemic will end; others seek guidance in finding romance when social distancing is the new normal. Those who suddenly lost their jobs are eager to make a career switch but don’t know where to begin.
Although I’ve been hit by pangs of frustration and despair over the past year, I’ve not consulted a psychic. Nor do I plan to. However, I can understand and relate to people who are overwhelmed and can’t see a way forward, as I was in a similar situation when I was forty-one. A supernatural session with Angelica turned my life around.
On my forty-first birthday, I’d fully expected Hank, my boyfriend of seven years, to propose. We’d been living together for three years, and the next logical step seemed to be marriage and maybe motherhood. (I say “maybe” because of my age.) He and I loved one another, got along better than most couples we knew, and existed in a happy day-to-day bubble. We both had satisfying careers, close friends, a comfy apartment with a grand piano, and shared many of the same values, except when it came to visualizing our future as a couple.
Even though Hank had been upfront about not wanting to settle down and raise a family due to his “advanced age of 51 years,” a year earlier, he’d given me an antique rose gold “friendship” ring that hinted at a change of heart. I truly believed it was only a matter of time before he would board the family bandwagon. When no engagement ring materialized on my birthday the following year, I realized I had a big decision to make. I once again broached the long-term commitment issue with Hank, who hadn’t budged yet insisted there was room to compromise. How do you compromise on having a kid? I wanted to know. He had no answer.
Although I was devastated by this final impasse, I knew that continuing with Hank’s non-plans meant sacrificing my own. It was only a matter of time before I’d become bitter and our love turn sour. On the other hand, as long as I didn’t dwell in the future, I was content with our status quo. Did I really want to go through the upheaval of another failed love relationship and re-enter the dating scene in my early 40s? Perish the thought!
Thankfully, my best friend Jenni saw the situation more clearly than I did. “If Hank can’t commit after seven years, ten or fifteen might not be enough either,” she warned. Ouch. Unless I was willing to “hang in there for the long haul,” it was high time to “settle down, not settle for.” She had a point.
Jenni confided that she had been stuck in a similar predicament years earlier and had visited a fortune teller, Angelica, as a last resort. The session had helped put her future into perspective, and over time, she emerged more at peace with herself and her choices.
“Desperation pretty much sums up how I’m feeling,” I told my friend.
“Then let me see if Angelica is still in business,” Jenni said, “and if so, I’ll schedule a session for you as a birthday present.”
At first, I dismissed the psychic realm as a bunch of hocus-pocus until I remembered that my mother had visited a fortune teller at age twenty, also after a failed romance. “Lady Olga” had read my mother’s tea leaves and predicted that she and her current beau would soon be parting ways. Her future husband, a man with the initial “J,” would soon enter her life, and they’d wed six months later. Soon after, my mother met “Joseph,” whom she married right on schedule. If my parents’ destined love and long, happy marriage was a testimony to the power of the tea leaves, I couldn’t just dismiss it as nonsense. I told Jenni I was open to meeting Angelica.
As I approached Angelica’s home one week later, I worried about her predictions. What if she told me that Hank and I were finished? Even though it was a distinct possibility, I wasn’t sure I was ready to have a stranger sound the death knell of our love. I rang the doorbell, my heart leaping around my chest.
Angelica’s sing-song voice and ethereal presence set me at ease, as did the cloister-like interior of her home: a statue of Mother Mary greeted me in the living room; religious icons and paintings of angels hung from the walls. After introducing ourselves, Angelica asked me to sit without crossing my arms or legs so she could “tune in” properly. I obeyed. She closed her eyes and asked my “Higher Guides” to envelop us in a “golden circle of healing light and protection.”
After a long silence, she began to tell me things about myself that even Jenni didn’t know, such as falling out of a tree as a child, a long-ago pet who “still hovers around you.” My body language eased up as I realized that Angelica was more Glinda of Oz than the Wicked Witch of the West. Could she wave her magic wand and change Hank’s aversion to marriage and motherhood? The answer became clear as she uttered her first prediction.
“Soon you’ll be living in Eastern Europe,” she said in a voice brimming with excitement.
I jolted. “What on earth would I be doing there?” Although I longed to explore more of Europe, a long-distance move was not a consideration. My career, friends, parents, and Hank were all in Massachusetts.
“I see you standing in front of a room of students,” she continued. “It seems you’re teaching English.” I squirmed in my seat. “Tell me, Linda, is this something you’ve been thinking of?”
“Absolutely not!” I almost blurted out. I’d been working as a development director at a local nonprofit and had started interviewing with other organizations that would take my career to the next level. Without wanting to divulge too much, I politely told Angelica that no, teaching overseas was not even a remote possibility.
As she went on to describe scenes from my “Odyssey” abroad—singing and playing piano, traveling to exotic locales, and meeting attractive men—I had to stop her, as her sixth sense obviously needed some fine-tuning.
“Um, Angelica,” I said timidly, “can you back up a bit. I’m still involved in a relationship here that I’m hoping will work out.” Without revealing too much detail, I told her about the proposal that didn’t happen and the ring Hank had given me the year before. “Even though we have diverging views on marriage and parenthood, all this time I’ve felt that Hank was my soul mate,” I continued.
Angelica dropped her dreamy eyelids again and sat in silence for a long while. When she finally looked at me, I sensed at once that I was the one who was off-track. “I’m sorry, Linda, if this isn’t what you want to hear, but your relationship with Hank isn’t working because he’s not your destined love.” I burst into tears; she reached over and handed me a box of tissues. “What I’m getting at is that your true love isn’t here in the U.S.”
“He’s not?” I glanced around the room.
“No, your future spouse is waiting for you in Europe.”
Europe? My eyes widened. “Can you tell me what he looks like?”
Angelica squinted and moments later said, “I see a tall man with glasses.” That certainly narrows the field down to a few million. His image was “fuzzy,” which meant he wasn’t coming into my life for a while. It seemed that my “Higher Guides” didn’t want me to know more details. “But don’t worry, Linda,” Angelica added. “The spirit of your Russian grandmotherer is watching over you. She’ll lead you to the right place.”
“Would that be Russia?”
“Not necessarily.” She tossed aside a few shimmery strands of silver-gray hair. “But I believe a Russian icon will lead you to your future husband.” That seemed highly doubtful, as I hadn’t seen a Russian icon up close in years.
Angelica ended the session by sharing scenes from the Odyssey that awaited me if I had the courage to embrace it. I thanked her and left, feeling conflicted and confused. She hadn’t offered any affirmation about Hank; on the contrary, he was a barrier to fulfilling my personal goals. Yet, it was exhilarating to think the future could be so alluring. I longed to see more of the world, but for the past seven years, I’d deferred to Hank’s preference to stay within a five-mile radius of home. Now that I thought about it, why had I put my travel plans on hold? I was also eager to reconnect with my passion for classical music, another Odyssey selling point.
Over the next few weeks, I pondered Angelica’s words, which had unearthed some of my deeply buried frustrations with Hank. I discussed the pros and cons of leaving him and moving overseas with Jenni and my parents. I even researched opportunities for English teachers abroad and lusted after photos of the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, where I envisioned walking in my musical idol’s footsteps.
Here is an excerpt from Cruising from Boston to Montreal: Discovering coastal and riverside wonders in Maine, the Canadian Maritimes and along the St. Lawrence River by Al & Sunny Lockwood:
Montreal
Today most passengers leave the ship and return to their homes. But Sweetheart and I, along with a few others, have chosen to remain for the return trip to Boston. So for us, this is the halfway point in our fourteen-day cruise.
This is also the day that a whole ship full of new passengers comes aboard for the cruise from Montreal to Boston.
Breakfast in the mad-house Lido. Goodbyes are being said. Promises to keep in touch. Everybody trying to grab one last breakfast before leaving for the airport.
Despite the cooks and servers behind the food counters struggling to keep up with the departing passenger requests, they’re failing. All my breakfast food is cold: frittata, roasted tomato, British banger. Al says his pancake is so-so. But why complain? In an hour we’ll be off on a Montreal tour.
Last fall we took an all-day tour of this grand city. At the time, I had little idea of what Montreal would be like. I just suspected it would feel like Europe and I’d enjoy it. We learned so much during that one day. The biggest surprise was discovering that Montreal is a river island. Located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, it is the second most populated river island in the world. Established in 1642, the historic area of Montreal is, indeed, European. Cobblestone streets, gray stone buildings, lots of restaurants and shops. French signage everywhere, and the music of French conversation surrounding us on the street.
But there is so much more to this city. And its history is not entirely limited to the 16th century. This is where John Lennon wrote the song “Give Peace a Chance.” He wrote it during his and Yoko Ono’s week-long “bed in” at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in June 1969. Their “bed in” and the song were among their personal protests against war.
More recently, Cirque du Soleil chose Montreal for its headquarters. The world-famous troupe of acrobats, musicians and magical performers actually got its start in Quebec, but has established its headquartered in Montreal.
Montreal is the largest city in Quebec Province and the second largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.
What fascinated me most the day we visited last year was exploring the city’s subterranean world. Montreal has one and a half square miles of underground walkways, shopping centers, restaurants, movie theaters, night clubs and subway stations right beneath the heart of the city.
This underground maze connects with office and apartment buildings as well as the city’s museums, universities and colleges. It’s a well-lit, climate-controlled world that protects residents from harsh weather and offers a convenient way to navigate the downtown all year around without ever having to deal with traffic.
It even has its own metro. But the underground metro doesn’t run on rails; it runs on rubber tires, keeping the noise level low for people living close to the system. When winter storms and plunging temperatures threaten to shut down outside activity, the Montreal underground keeps the city humming.
Year around, about half a million people use the underground every day.
While the underground fascinated us, what really blew our minds was the unimaginable beauty of Notre-Dame Basilica, the crown jewel of Old Montreal. We only have three hours for today’s tour, and we won’t be visiting the underground. But we’re eager to get back to Notre-Dame Basilica.
To our delight, the tour bus heads straight to the Basilica. Tour Guide Norman says we’ll be here for at least forty minutes. I’m thrilled to have that much time within this gorgeous structure. The Basilica’s architect, James O’Donnell, was an Irish Protestant who converted to Catholicism and is buried within the church.
This huge Gothic Revival-style basilica has two square towers. They were built between 1841 and 1843, and both have names. The western tower, named Perseverance, houses the great bell, weighing more than 24,000 pounds. The eastern tower, named Temperance, houses the ten-bell carillon. Between these towers, and high above the center entry door stands a compassionate Virgin Mary statue, her head encircled by a halo of golden stars.
While the Basilica’s exterior is impressive, it’s the interior that takes my breath away. To begin with, the place is huge. Three thousand worshippers can comfortably sit in this sanctuary.
High above the pews, the deep blue ceiling vaults are sprinkled with thousands of gold stars. Made of genuine gold leaf, the hovering stars actually twinkle in the reflected light of burning candles and sunshine from entry doors opening and closing.
There are religious paintings, intricate wood carvings, elegant columns painted in gold, reds, purples, silvers and blues. Even the devotional candles are blue and gold, a sea of tiny flames casting flickering shadows and the fragrance of melting wax.
Sitting in a dark pew beneath shimmering gold stars, I feel immersed in peace.
Straight ahead, the dazzling altar fills an entire wall. Back-lit, the altar and wall glow in radiant blue and gold. Christ crucified, the central statue, is surrounded by Biblical scenes: angels, saints, the Virgin Mary, the disciples, Mary Magdalene, Old Testament prophets and more.
Awash in splendor and dramatic architecture, prayer comes as naturally as breathing. Inhaling wonder. Exhaling gratitude. How long have I sat here absorbed in awe? Al comes up beside me. “Isn’t it just amazing,” he whispers.
After a moment, he motions toward our group, gathering nearby. We join them. Norman points out the 1891 Casavant Frères pipe organ with its four keyboards, ninety-two stops and 7,000 individual pipes. Not only is this building beautiful beyond description, but Norman assures us it also has perfect acoustics. How I wish we could hear the organ.
This entire space is majesty on a grand scale. I’d like to spend more time in this serene sanctuary—hours, days, weeks—but Norman leads us back outside.
THE COUPLE UNLOCKS the French doors and walks onto the stone terrace. Their bodies are stiff, achy, jetlagged. They’ve just endured the 27-hour ritual in which they drag heavy bags from house to car, car to shuttle, shuttle to plane, plane to plane, plane to taxi, taxi to train, train to car, and car to old stone house—the house that waits patiently all autumn, winter, and spring. They collapse on wicker chairs and stare into the distance. The air is warm. The first stars make their shy appearance.
The woman gets up, her chair creaking. She disappears into the house and returns with a bottle of pale rosé, sets one glass here, one there. After a long pause, she says: “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”
The man nods. “It’s impossible.”
They sit, taking small sips as the stars grow bolder and more numerous. A bat zigzags through wooden columns that strain to support a roof heavy with old tiles. The breeze carries the scent of burning vines.
“Of course,” the woman says, “I always say that. Then we get here, we come out onto the terrace, and I remember why.”
The man turns his head.
“You know—why we do it,” she says. “Why we pack up our clothes, our computers, the dogs, everything. Why we close up our house in California and hire strangers to watch over it.”
“Why do we?”
“Because of this,” she says, with an inclusive gesture. “This landscape. This fragrance. This view. As soon as we get here I start to forget all the effort and pain. And then I never want to leave.”
The man raises his eyebrows.
“I think we should write a book about this,” she says. “I think we should write a book about this part of France, about our friends, our neighbors, about Sara, this house, about learning French. About this.”
They gaze across the field. A light goes on in the next hamlet over. The sky has become a sea of stars. The Milky Way is the heavenly wake of some huge ocean liner, passing silently millions of miles overhead.
“Both of us?” says the man.
“Why not?”
“How can two people write a book?”
The woman drains her glass and places it on the table.
“Same way we do everything,” she says, her smile a miniature Milky Way. “You’ll drive and I’ll navigate.”
He reaches for her hand. They laugh. They walk into the house, where the jetlag and the wine and the fragrance of the night overtake them.
_____
For the record, my name is Marty and my wife is Eileen. We’re Americans. But here’s the thing: if we could introduce ourselves to all of our 320 million neighbors in all of our 50 states, no one would call us Americans. We would simply be Marty and Eileen. Yet in this part of France, no one would call us anything but les Américains. Why? Because there are no others. We’ve looked.
Aside from the French, we see quite a few English. In the summer we hear a smattering of Dutch. While the Dutch may simply be taking advantage of the cheap flights out of Rotterdam, the Brits have a historic claim on the place. They lost it in the Hundred Years’ War. And now, six hundred years later, it’s as if they’re quietly buying it back, bit by bit, hoping no one will notice.
But that doesn’t explain why we’re here, les Américains. Or why we traded our life savings for a second house in a part of the world we’d never heard of. We have no historic ties to France, no family members living in the “old country,” no vivid memories of cycling through the ripening vines during our gap year. More to the point, we can’t just “pop down” like our British friends. We have to slog 7,000 miles through nine time zones and five types of transportation to get here.
No. The reason we ended up in France is much less obvious. We came by mistake. We thought if we bought a house in France, we would—as night follows day—become French. Now I know what you’re thinking: Wow, these people must be loaded. Who buys a house in France on such a whim?
It wasn’t like that. There were no silver spoons in the kitchen drawer. We started our marriage as mere children, barely twenty, already raising a child of our own. To pay the rent I peddled handmade greeting cards from the back of an old Volvo. Eileen fed our little family with food stamps. When the greeting card business failed, I set up shop as a freelance designer. Little by little we built a life—I, designing ads and logos, she, keeping the books and running the house.
For the next twenty years, travel was out of the question. But we kept the idea alive—the idea that someday we might visit a few foreign countries, even learn another language. And maybe, just maybe, if we worked hard enough and spent next to nothing on clothes and cars and meals in restaurants, we could afford to live in a foreign country. Why not? It doesn’t cost a cent to dream.
Prologue
THE COUPLE UNLOCKS the French doors and walks onto the stone terrace. Their bodies are stiff, achy, jetlagged. They’ve just endured the 27-hour ritual in which they drag heavy bags from house to car, car to shuttle, shuttle to plane, plane to plane, plane to taxi, taxi to train, train to car, and car to old stone house—the house that waits patiently all autumn, winter, and spring. They collapse on wicker chairs and stare into the distance. The air is warm. The first stars make their shy appearance.
The woman gets up, her chair creaking. She disappears into the house and returns with a bottle of pale rosé, sets one glass here, one there.
After a long pause, she says: “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”
The man nods. “It’s impossible.”
They sit, taking small sips as the stars grow bolder and more numerous. A bat zigzags through wooden columns that strain to support a roof heavy with old tiles. The breeze carries the scent of burning vines.
“Of course,” the woman says, “I always say that. Then we get here, we come out onto the terrace, and I remember why.”
The man turns his head.
“You know—why we do it,” she says. “Why we pack up our clothes, our computers, the dogs, everything. Why we close up our house in California and hire strangers to watch over it.”
“Why do we?”
“Because of this,” she says, with an inclusive gesture. “This landscape. This fragrance. This view. As soon as we get here I start to forget all the effort and pain. And then I never want to leave.”
The man raises his eyebrows.
“I think we should write a book about this,” she says. “I think we should write a book about this part of France, about our friends, our neighbors, about Sara, this house, about learning French. About this.”
They gaze across the field. A light goes on in the next hamlet over. The sky has become a sea of stars. The Milky Way is the heavenly wake of some huge ocean liner, passing silently millions of miles overhead.
“Both of us?” says the man.
“Why not?”
“How can two people write a book?”
The woman drains her glass and places it on the table.
“Same way we do everything,” she says, her smile a miniature Milky Way. “You’ll drive and I’ll navigate.”
He reaches for her hand. They laugh. They walk into the house, where the jetlag and the wine and the fragrance of the night overtake them.
_____
For the record, my name is Marty and my wife is Eileen. We’re Americans. But here’s the thing: if we could introduce ourselves to all of our 320 million neighbors in all of our 50 states, no one would call us Americans. We would simply be Marty and Eileen. Yet in this part of France, no one would call us anything but les Américains. Why? Because there are no others. We’ve looked.
Aside from the French, we see quite a few English. In the summer we hear a smattering of Dutch. While the Dutch may simply be taking advantage of the cheap flights out of Rotterdam, the Brits have a historic claim on the place. They lost it in the Hundred Years’ War. And now, six hundred years later, it’s as if they’re quietly buying it back, bit by bit, hoping no one will notice.
But that doesn’t explain why we’re here, les Américains. Or why we traded our life savings for a second house in a part of the world we’d never heard of. We have no historic ties to France, no family members living in the “old country,” no vivid memories of cycling through the ripening vines during our gap year. More to the point, we can’t just “pop down” like our British friends. We have to slog 7,000 miles through nine time zones and five types of transportation to get here.
No. The reason we ended up in France is much less obvious. We came by mistake. We thought if we bought a house in France, we would—as night follows day—become French.
Now I know what you’re thinking: Wow, these people must be loaded. Who buys a house in France on such a whim?
It wasn’t like that. There were no silver spoons in the kitchen drawer. We started our marriage as mere children, barely twenty, already raising a child of our own. To pay the rent I peddled handmade greeting cards from the back of an old Volvo. Eileen fed our little family with food stamps. When the greeting card business failed, I set up shop as a freelance designer. Little by little we built a life—I, designing ads and logos, she, keeping the books and running the house.
For the next twenty years, travel was out of the question. But we kept the idea alive—the idea that someday we might visit a few foreign countries, even learn another language. And maybe, just maybe, if we worked hard enough and spent next to nothing on clothes and cars and meals in restaurants, we could afford to live in a foreign country. Why not? It doesn’t cost a cent to dream.
Hello Worldwide Travelers! So I hear that you’re ready to travel the world. Well, you’ve arrived at the perfect place. I absolutely love to travel. Ever since I was a little girl and took my very first flight to Florida and was given my first set of wings pendant, I’ve been captivated with travel.
Every time I look at the photo with my Mom and see that big smile on my face, I see the inner happiness shining through. Flying is absolutely exciting to me. I have a love affair with traveling. I love everything about traveling from deciding on where to travel next, places I’ll go once I arrive, which hotels to stay at and I even love packing as well as shopping for my travels.
Can’t you feel the enthusiasm? Each time I arrive at the airport, the whole process of checking in completely thrills me, knowing that I’m off on an adventure to someplace new, a place I have traveled to and love as well as just getting ready to spread my wings and fly.
Once I step onto the airplane and buckle myself in, each and every time, with my hands by my side, I secretly do the rock star sign with my hands. I am one girl who absolutely loves to fly. Taking off down that runway thrills me like no other. As I look out of the window and see and feel myself being lifted into the clouds, the entire experience rocks my world. Up, up & away I go!
In 2007, after 16 years of island life, we moved diagonally south-eastwards across Scotland from the dramatic mountains and seascapes of the Isle of Skye to the gentle rolling fields of Duns in the Scottish Borders. I had escaped, with my sanity almost intact, from my full-time post with NHS Highland in October 2007. I felt they might just struggle along without my vast experience both clinical and managerial. They agreed. I like to think that this marked the beginning of a period of catastrophic demise for the health service, but perhaps other factors played their part.
We had in fact already sold our main home on Skye and moved away in June. Subsequently, I travelled the proverbial high road and the low road during the five intervening months, covering some 15,000 miles in the process, burning up tyres at a frightful rate. My work base at Portree Hospital lay 300 miles from our new home in Duns so hardly appropriate for a daily commute. The excitement of our new home soon turned into a nightmare for my husband, Tom. While I was still busy saving both lives and the NHS, he was coping with disastrous plumbing and collapsing ceilings. The hidden wonders of this outwardly upscale build were to prove to be more than he could bear and subsequently, he was already planning to leave it by the time I retired in October.
I had barely settled into my newly discovered relaxing routine, when he had invited the estate agents round, and the “For Sale” sign was being hammered into place. During this spell, the house next door, cobbled together by the same builder, gained in incontinence, what it lost in habitable rooms. The plumbing next door was no better than ours; the oak floors had to be lifted and, to top it all, it burst into flames one night. Thank goodness for all the leaky pipes, as these saved the day and the neighbours.
That was the final straw. We were moving and that was that. So by November 2008 we had already moved once again, from potentially deadly Duns back to “our other wee hoose” on Skye, albeit briefly, to complete that sale. In April 2009, we bounced back to the Borders to settle in the delightful village of Morebattle. Did I say settle? I think that an amendment and explanation is required.
“What’s that? Up ahead, in the road?” I said. “Hmm?” Sarah looked up from her book. “Looks like…”
“Is it a ladder?”
“Couldn’t be. Not in the middle of the motorway. It’s…”
…a ladder. An aluminium triple-extension ladder. Even more incredible, it was balanced on its side. Thinking distance was over. We were there. Sixty mph and a ton of caravan in tow. I flicked right. I clipped the ladder. Plink! A gentle kiss. Not enough to even shave any Turtle-Wax off the nearside front wing. The caravan missed it altogether.
The kids, Kevin and Amanda, loved it.
“Oh, cool. Did you see that?”
I saw them twisting and jostling for position to get some kind
of view in the extension mirrors, since the white bulk of the caravan hid most of the rearward action.
“Look at them slide,” said Kevin.
“He’s going to hit… ooh!” said Amanda. But their teenaged hunger for mayhem would not be satisfied this day. There was plenty of stunt-driving and blue tyre smoke, but nothing exciting as far as they could see. No barrel rolls, flapping doors or flying, bouncing wheels. I didn’t look. I stared straight ahead with boggling eyes and a white-fisted death grip on the steering wheel.
Twelve miles. We’d driven just twelve miles from our home. We live on the Wirral, a sleepy peninsula tucked up in the northwest of England. The Wirral is a long way from Dover, let alone our ultimate destination. We had a thousand miles ahead of us. Was this just a taster?
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