Hitting the road…

Well, these next 10 days are gonna be interesting! I will do my best to blog fairly regularly about the road trip I’m about to embark upon…but the blogs won’t be the usual somewhat-articulate articles that I try to write (by spending hours on!). Instead, this will be writing that’s more on the fly because I’ll be on the road…writing as I go!

Here’s the scoop:

My friend Terri and I – and my dogs, Sable and Soda – are heading south, driving down the west coast of the States. We’ll be starting in White Rock, BC and then crossing the border into Washington, then driving down the Oregon Coast and into Northern California. Our ultimate destination is the Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

Here’s why:

In 1996, John and I did a trip similar to this for our honeymoon. We had a riot! We made it as far as Big Sur, south of San Francisco, before we ran out time and had to turn back.

We were both big fans of Citizen Kane, the famous film by Orson Welles. The film “examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Welles’ own life” (Wikipedia).

So John and I wanted to see the famous Hearst Castle (in San Simeon) on that trip because there are some pretty classic scenes in Citizen Kane that were based on that castle (the film wasn’t actually shot at Hearst Castle – in fact William Randall Hearst was, apparently, none too impressed with the reference to his life!).

Anyway, John and I were oh so close to San Simeon but didn’t quite make it…so Terri and I are now completing that journey thirteen years later!

Also, both John and I – and my mom – LOVED the Oregon Coast (not that my mom, John and I were ever there together…oh no, no!) so I think that, if all goes well, Terri and I will be on a sand dune somewhere near Florence, Oregon on Wed Sept 29th – the 10th anniversary of John’s death.Very cool!

Another bit of Maryanne-history for you: Terri and I met back in 1992 while traveling in Indonesia. We traveled again together to Morocco in 2001…she’s the one I went to the Sahara Desert with. In June. When it was fifty flippin’ degrees celsius! That didn’t end well…but I digress.

For THIS roadtrip, as our guide I will be referring to Cameron Tuttle’s classic, The Bad Girl’s Guide to the Open Road. It’s oh so cheeky!

For the record, Terri and I will not be using Eat, Pray, Love as our guidebook…more on this later 🙂

However, before embarking on the vacation part of the journey, I am first making a pit stop in Vancouver to do a speaking gig at the BC Lower Mainland Victim Services Conference.

My presentation is called Behind the Scenes; A Grief Deconstructed. It’s one the more difficult presentations for me to give (but not THE most difficult…more on THAT later, too!) because I am so damn candid about the psychological, emotional  and impacts John’s death had on me.

The purpose of this presentation is to give those amazing people working in victims services a powerful ‘insider’ look at how I responded to a tragic event. Everyone handles shock, grief, denial, loss, tragedy etc in different ways, of course, but the anguish, hurt and vulnerability are very basic human responses when forced to accept the unacceptable – whatever that might be.

At any rate, I will do my best to keep in touch over the coming days with snippets from the road…till then, take care!

Maryanne