Ecstatically Alone – The Cross Canada Tour 2021 – NOT WHAT YOU THINK, PEOPLE!!

I know.

It sounds like I’m dragging my cocktail dress and high heels out of the deep freeze, and onto a stage near you, doesn’t it?
Well, no, I’m NOT doing that.
Not yet, at any rate.

Instead?
I’m plopping my bike on my new bike rack (that’s attached to the hitch I had installed on my car at a cost that brought water to my eyes), stuffing my blow-up kayak in the trunk, packing enough clothes for three seasons and taking my jam-packed KIA on the road, and venturing as far west as a gal can drive.
I will say it again, as FAR WEST AS A GAL CAN DRIVE.
Also, I WILL have a tent…remember?…that tent I tried out last month?…uh huh.
I may, or may not, use it…to camp in…for reals…hopefully on a beach.
In my researches, I have seen a number of hike-into-a-beach-and-camp situations.
Okay, I’m babbling about my tent because I’m freaking out…just a bit…because all my work this year has almost come to fruition.

Yes, you guys, the camping last month?…that hike into Algonquin?…the hiring of my awesome trainer?…Well, I had a plan and ALL these things were building a foundation for this trip.

I’m taking my Ecstatically-Alone-self across this country for a month, in my KIA.

It’s my dream trip, really.
AND yes, I’m taking this journey, obviously and mostly alone.
Yeah, I know, I KNOW!
It’s THAT kind of tour.
It’s also the kind of tour where most of the singing is performed uber-stridently and not-perfectly, along with Chaka Kahn or Lady Gaga or Ray LaMontagne or Shawn Colvin or Luther Vandross or Prince playing on Spotify…while wearing track pants, UGGS and driving along the TransCanada Highway…just the way I like it.

I’m equal parts as-excited-as-I’ve-ever-been and super-button-pushing-anxious-as-fuck…which seems to be a fairly/appropriate healthy mix, in regards to my trip.
Indeed, my doctor just, hours ago, confirmed this recipe to be okay and not…not…too much? Too much…yah, that’ll work.
Today, finally, after two years, I went to my doctor IN PERSON, for a physical, and told her before she started to talk about COVID and traveling, that I was going on this trip no matter what, and would dearly love for her to be a cheerleader, instead of a naysayer.
We stared at one another in silence for a moment.
It was very much like the stand off in a cowboy film…but in a doctor’s office…and with no guns.
THOUGH she was holding a speculum…which is still scary.
I vowed not to flinch.
I ended up looking at her earnestly, hopefully…resigned.
She took that in, blinked a couple of times, rebooted, and got RIGHT on board…and I will forever love her for that.
My GP is hard as nails, but I’d practiced my cheerleader speech a few times, on the drive over.
After 25 years, she gets me…and I get her. Is there anything better?
I mean, we DID end our appointment with a number of tests that I did not enjoy rolled in…including my yearly answer to her yearly question of “what is this?”…

Me: My super cute birth mark…I tell you every year.

She (as she turns on her special light): Well, to be fair to me? I do A LOT of these exams…it’s a bit of a blur. .

Again, what is better?

Today, on the way to this doctor’s appointment, two of my friends returned my earlier, slightly desperate calls, to remind my anxious-self that I got this, and that I’m going to love it, and to remember that it’s a dream of mine almost fulfilled.
And then they also BOTH reminded me to not talk to truckers…because according to Criminal Minds? They’re the likeliest travellers to be serial killers.
BOTH.
BOTH OF THEM reminded me.
Fucking TV.
When I got up this morning, I’d tried valiantly to remind myself of all these things (except the trucker thing…which is just a given…please forgive me all truckers that ARE NOT serial killers…but your PR department is bad), but today, my own inner-hype squad was sadly lacking…so I made some calls.
I’m, understandably, a bit overwhelmed.
Sometimes, we are…sometimes, we need outsiders for hype and support…and that, like my excitement/anxiety, is also okay.

A good deal of the places I’ve traveled to and through during the last many years of my life have been for work…and a few times I’ve traveled out of pure desperation to get away from where I was, at the time.

FIRSTLY: Don’t let anyone tell you that traveling your one woman cabaret is glamourous…it’s pretty lonely, really.
Mostly because you have to be quiet for most of the day till you belt your guts out for two hours straight, and then have to drive somewhere and do it ALL again the next night…so, even small fun times with an accompanist is usually out of the question.
Once, I went out for a glass of wine after a matinee, before an evening off and my voice cracked so many times at the next afternoon’s show that the stage manager came to my dressing room after I bowed, and asked if I was okay.
AFTER ONE GLASS OF WINE…THE DAY BEFORE.
While it was HIGHLY gratifying to finally see all my hard work come to fruition, and get the bigger bookings…I was a bit chagrined to find out how very lonely the road could be.

SECONDLY: Traveling alone to escape unhappiness and stress is EQUALLY lonely…but ALWAYS felt better than sitting at home INSIDE the stress and unhappiness…and, yes, it may be an unpopular opinion, but it WAS better.
If you are sitting there, estimating that I was running from my problems, you would be right.
And I’m fucking glad I did.
One of the upsides to these sojourns was that I didn’t have to sing, if I didn’t feel like it.

One of the entries in my RUNNING-FROM-STRESS-AND-UNHAPPINESS Road Journal, was a big road trip I embarked on a couple of years ago, after my marriage ended (THOSE WORDS…fuck…they’re as bad as BLOG)…and on that trip, I famously (to my friends who I told I would never do the following, anyhow) got my first tattoo.
Yes.
This tattoo.

I loved it.
I love it still.
I’ve looked at it one million times…and ran fingers over it’s ridges, in the dark, another million times…to remind myself who I am.
INVINCIBLE.
Yes, indeed.

When I was little…okay, yes, walk back with me a bit…I used to get so anxious, that I could not wait to get home after school get into my pajamas, and sit in front of the TV.
That was safe. When I got to that couch, I was literally home-safe.
I remember the overwhelming feeling of everything finally being okay, being manageable, cozy in my pill-ie orange nightshirt, sitting cross legged in front of the TV, watching after school TV, and staying there all the way to Fantasy Island.
After a long day at school I could finally breathe out.
Letting go of my stored up angst…in front of all of my friends on Charlie’s Angels (Kelly, Chris and Sabrina), Happy Days (Richie, The Fonz and the Cunninghams)…and also, my beloved Love Boat (Julie, Doc, Gopher and Issac).

Sidebar: This summer, I worked with an actor named Robert Pine, who has had a HUGE career, HUGE. Everyone wanted to talk to him about Gunsmoke and Mod Squad…but I could NOT stop myself from bubbling over about how excited I was that he’d been on Loveboat.
He was VERY kind about my excitement.
Robert Pine IS a super cool dude, P.S.
Also, he’s Chris Pine’s dad…but whatever, right? A fact he seemed to find quite humorous.
End of Sidebar.

Back when I sat on the crushed, fake velvet couch in my family room, watching our equally fake wood, stereo/TV console, the very idea of being out in the world was scary to me.
Being inside…being with my people, on and off screen…being in a place with recognizable noise, was safe.
I knew who I was, in relation to other people.
I knew where I fit in my house…in my family.
That made me feel safe.

Luckily, as I got older, I got braver…but that fear of being out there, of being alone, of not knowing who I was when no one else was around, of not knowing who I was without referencing my job, was a quiet little dark nugget that sat in the corner of my spirit…of myself.
That little nugget was an unconcious thing…something that kept me stuck for a long while…something that made me believe I would not fare well, alone.

And then, quite suddenly and quite dramatically, I found myself starkly alone.
Alone, and more that a bit fucked up.

As I scrambled to figure my shit out, and to do it quietly as possible, I held tight onto the strings of the metaphorical bag containing my anxiety.
You see the anxiety has never gone away…I just work with it…work ON it…use it…feel it…try to figure it out…allow it…talk about it…rail against it…somedays, I push against it…and somedays?…It’s not there at all.
This is a fairly new development.
More and more, as I work on myself, it’s a thing of history.
AND as I DO bigger and bigger things out in the world? The anxiety that DOES appear, is epic.
What a thing, huh?

So, when I started to put this trip together in my mind way back at the very beginning of the summer of 2021, I felt the unwelcome shimmer of the dark nugget…

The Dark Nugget: Don’t go, Sharron. Something bad will happen. It’s scary out there.

…and I would breathe in an out.
I did a lot of meditation, focused, and I then kept planning and revising and figuring…as the nugget kept shimmering.

You see, I know, that if that fucking nugget appears?…I’m doing something worthwhile.

The idea for the trip started when my pal, Ari, told me he was driving his car to Toronto for a month long visit, then he was going to drive it back to Winnipeg the beginning of October.
I wondered aloud if I should maybe…go back with him.
Once I said it into the air?
There was really no turning back.
What started as a drive to Winnipeg with Ari, turned into a tandem drive to Winnipeg, hiking along the way, and then me continuing on past Winnipeg…by myself.
At night, as I turned this idea over in my mind, I told myself I was nuts, more than once.
I got VERY anxious, more than once.
The nugget shimmered in the dark, as I ran my fingers over my tattoo.
I reconsidered? Never.
Not once.
I was going.
I AM going.

After a lot of planning, of getting cars checked over, of getting bikes tuned, of getting my own body checked over, of buying the things I needed and trying them out, of walking around in MEC for 30 minutes to make sure my new hiking boots were the right ones, of gathering all the things I need in the corner of my apartment, TONIGHT, I am going to pack.
As I do, I will consider all the people I plan to SAFELY see on the way. SAFELY, PEOPLE.

I leave in two days.

Shimmmmmmmer.

Last year, I got my second tattoo…the words are by R.M. Drake and when I read them the first time, they hit me in the solar plexus:

She became the journey, and like all journeys, she did not end, she just simply changed directions and kept going.

Here is the tattoo.

I really love it.
It was done by my favourite, and ONLY, tattoo artist Mia Koumaris (@miacustomink on INSTAGRAM) at Modern Ink Tattoos in Etobicoke.
Someone commented that it was like I’d had the bible written on my arm and I retorted with

Me: Eff off.

Not my best work…but they can’t all be gems, right?

The only thing missing from that tattoo…is the first line of the R.M. Drake quote…I’ve been saving it.
It’s my favourite line.
I’ve been waiting to get that first line put on my forearm…but after sitting in the make up chair for a few years, and getting the tattoos I already have covered, it occurred to me that it might be prudent to “hide” any future tattoos.
So, last week, in anticipation of my upcoming trip…I went to Mia and got this

Now you watch…after thinking I hid that tattoo from prying eyes and make-up brushes…I will be asked to have naked/nude sex on screen.
In my 50’s.
SHIMMMMMER.
Yes, queen.
I’m not totally adverse to it.
Yes, I said it.

So, this is how it goes…

In the end, she became more than what she expected.
She became the journey, and like all journeys, she did not end, she just simply changed directions and kept going.

And off I go.

It’s time to leave my couch again, my Netflix, my Apple TV, my comfort zone…and test the boundaries of what safety really is.
Not in a dangerous way…I’m not cliff jumping or anything…but I’m going out there.
Shimmmmer or no.

Who KNOWS what will happen?
God, I hope this…like my recent late night burrito scare…is NOT part of my obituary. That would totally blow.
So, whatever happens, I will indeed write about it…so stay tuned.
I’m off to pack.
Be well humans, and wish me luck!!!

Namaste.

October 7th, 2021. S.M.
Toronto, ON

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