"No guilt. No shame. No fear. No inhibitions...." She held my hand and smiled into my eyes as she spoke these words. It was Patty's 70th birthday and I had just snuck passed the bouncer and crashed her party up on the top floor of Barca (a bar in the Cap. Hill neighborhood of Seattle). Patty was wrapped in an LED boa and wearing a giant bull horn headpiece. The room was packed with her friends, all dressed in equally bizarre outfits and everyone I bumped elbows with kept telling me how incredible the birthday girl is. One guys said, "I met her when I was 29 and she showed me what my future could look like." I couldn't wait to meet this woman who clearly had impacted so many lives, liberating their souls simply by being herself and inviting them to join in her party. So when I ran into her on the stairs I immediately gave her a big hug and told her how excited I was to meet her and just as I'd been promised, she was open and accepting. She welcomed me into her party with a warm smile and those words, "This is how I've always lived. No guilt. No shame. No fear. No inhibitions....Join in, enjoy yourself!" So I grabbed a silent disco headset off of one guy's head and a fork out of someone else's hand and dug it right into the center of her giant chocolate birthday cake and yum. Latey, I've been fearing my future; afraid of never overcoming my fear of singing in public or never going for my bigger music and film dreams, of having children and becoming a boring soccer mom, of spending my life in suburbia and missing out on adventures around the world, of never having a significant impact on other people, of never manifesting all my awesome ideas and actually finishing the projects I start, afraid of aging and losing my youthful playful sparkle and love of life...but I woke up this morning with peace of mind and enthusiasm. Patty showed me what my future could look like. // Cha
PHOTOS: Hours before meeting Patty I was dancing on this rooftop on Mercer Island. We were celebrating my sister-in-law's 21st birthday party.