Come Follow Me to my New Blog - Life is a Marathon - Journey Well!

Thank you to all who have been following my blog. Be sure to follow me on my new blog Life is a Marathon - Journey Well at www.marathonjourneywell.blogspot.com

My first blog title was Welcome to a New World. I started blogging at the suggestion of two students from Boston University's PR lab in October of 2008. I smile as I read my early posts and realize I had no idea how to use social media and how to blog. I was posting about my greeting card business, New World Greeting Cards, original poetry for every occasion and training for the Boston Marathon. The title reflected my transition from life as a VA social worker to well a new world after the diagnosis of post polio syndrome.

I changed the title from Welcome to a New World to Healing, Hope and Possibility interestingly enough on the morning of April 15, 2013. My message was no longer about welcoming readers to my new world but sharing a message of healing, hope and possibility after a life changing diagnosis and living with the aftermath of trauma.

It's time once again for a change. Rather than sharing a message of healing, hope and possibility, I am living that message and want my blog title to reflect the living aspect of my journey. I decided to begin a new blog; a new starting line if you will.

On Saturday night I was blessed to be a guest on the Jordan Rich Show.

As we talked about my memoir, "Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility", I said that life is a marathon. Just when you think you can't take another step, there is always something left in the tank. You're stronger than you think you are.

As I was leaving my therapist's office at Sollievo Massage and Bodywork, on the Thursday before the weekend of the 2014 Boston Marathon, anticipating the weekend's events, Joseph said to me, "journey well".

I am learning how to go the distance on and off the roads and how to now journey well, managing the late effects of having contracted paralytic polio at the age of 5 and in the wake of severe childhood trauma. My intention for my blog is to share race reports, training runs, new experiences and the joy of new discoveries on my road to health and aging well; wisdom and soul lessons learned; poetry, people who inspire us, my next miles in the marathon of my life and anything that inspires me/moves me to share with you on the open road before me.

Thank you for reading!

"Love Letters" and Voices of Hope

When my dear friend (and everybody's dear friend it seems) Jordan Rich posted on Facebook that he was going to co-star in "Love Letters" to benefit Voices of Hope, I immediately went to the North Shore Music Theater's website and bought tickets for my husband and me.



Voices of Hope are a group of "Ordinary people on an extraordinary mission," as they raise money to find a cure for cancer. Most recently, monies raised by Voices of Hope, and the money raised from the performances of "Love Letters," are going to the Henri & Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies at the Mass General Cancer Center.

The Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies offers new hope to patients and their families at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and beyond, as the center defines the future of cancer therapy.

Led by Keith T. Flaherty, MD, a renowned expert in personalized cancer medicine and melanoma specialist, the Termeer Center offers a comprehensive translational research program to speed the discovery and delivery of new targeted therapies to patients with early and advanced stage cancers.

The Termeer Center brings together cutting-edge research resources and provides a foundation for
collaborations among physicians and investigators from a broad spectrum of biomedical disciplines, resulting in a rapidly expanding arsenal of weapons against cancer. Leading specialists from the Cancer Center’s 23 disease centers participate in the Termeer Center by enrolling their patients in its fast-growing portfolio of Phase I, Phase II and Phase III clinical trials.

"Love Letters," a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is a two person play by A.R. Gurney. "Love Letters" takes audience members on a journey through the lives of free-spirited Melissa Gardner and the conservative Andrew Makepeace Ladd III — lifelong friends who share their most intimate thoughts and feelings through the letters written to each over their lifetime. The New York Times reported that there is talk of a revival of "Love Letters" for the 2014 Fall Broadway Theater season.

The Backstage Bistro, part of the North Shore Music Theater, is located just off of 128. The ambiance is delightful inside and outside.


We were greeted at the door by Ed Siegal, Vice President and Treasurer of Voices of Hope asking us how we heard about the performance. His passion is infectious as he shared with us about Voices of Hope and how proud he was of his wife's coming out from behind the curtain to perform this week and next in "Love Letters."

There is casual summer dining available and service begins at 5:30pm. We had dinner before the show and told our waitress we don't drink. She said that wasn't a problem and offered us non alcoholic beverages as well as a dessert menu. She said that if we had just eaten, we could always opt to have dessert at intermission when food and beverage service would resume.

Here is our date night selfie that we took before the show:



Two envelopes with LL in calligraphy contained our programs and information about Voices of Hope. Since the play focuses in part on the lost art of letter writing, it was a delightful touch to have the programs presented in this way complete with a small heart sticker, simulating sealing wax. I was transported back in time before the lights were even dimmed.



I had not done any research on the play before the performance. I'm so glad that I did not know the synopsis of the play so that I could ride the waves of emotions as Jordan, and his co-star and Executive Artistic Director for Voices of Hope, Dana Siegal bring their characters to life through the love letters they wrote to each other over 50 years.





When you leave a musical still humming the score, you know you've had an enjoyable theatrical experience. I can still hear the echoes of Jordan and Dana's voices as they bring Gurney's characters of Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III to life.

There are performances on August 7, 8 and 9 at 8:00pm. Get your tickets today and fall in love with "Love Letters" and Voices of Hope.