How do you know if you're a Gypsy?

Well...sometimes you don't!

This is a favorite...and true...story...Enjoy!

My Gypsy Sis Katherine divined her way into my life by way of a pendulum
suspended over the yellow pages of a phone book...
She needed a massage therapist and I needed an ozone practitioner.
Thus we were destined to meet...

She was just passing through but we became fast friends in our brief
time together. We have stayed in touch through her many sojourns.
The last time we got together, we embarked on a road trip to Chicago.
On that trip we discovered that we each had a huge fascination with
gypsy wagons. Not only those ornate treasures, but all things gypsy!
It’s not often that you run into someone who shares such arcane interests.
One topic led to another on that long drive and we revealed our secret
gypsy selves to each other.
It turned out that we both had wardrobe trunks filled with dancing costumes,
Indian jewelry, bangles, scarves.
When no one else was around we would dress up in our strange finery.
Every Halloween I would take on that persona in public. It was rapturous!

I was beginning to discover my real self...hiding under my plain exterior.
Soon after that discovery, I looked for any opportunity to play the gypsy.
Katherine had played a gypsy fortune teller at a benefit recently. I envied her.
I was a dance gypsy, following the folk dance circuit, living out of a suitcase
as often as possible...living for the sheer joy of the dance.
Half-living between times...

She and I had both been known to pick up and move home with our
few possessions on short notice.
The ease with which we did this mystified us both at times.

Wherever I travelled I sought out Gypsies.
I was inordinately attracted to them wherever they could be found...
on the streets of Sarajevo...on the edges of Sofia...the sea Gypsies
in the south of Thailand. But I digress...

We finally arrived in Chicago after dark...near midnight.
We headed for the lake on a beautiful and sultry summer night.
By the time we arrived all of the white folks had gone home
and the lake shore belonged to the immigrant families.
There was music and picnics, small fires. Perfect!
We found a place to park and got out to stretch our legs.

As we approached the lake shore, a small child glanced up at us.
A little boy, not more than three years old.
When he saw us emerge from the car and walk toward him,
his eyes went wide with wonder and he seemed transfixed by what he saw.
The child ran to his parents and clung to them in great excitement
and urgently whispered to them, eyes bright and shining:
Look! Mommy! Poppy!!
LOOK !!!

GYPSIES !!!”