I’ve been dreaming of today ­­– a party for friends and family to celebrate the launch of “Weaving Threads: Travels On the Silk Road.” In my dream it was to be under warm blue skies in Calgary. But today it is cold and raining. It is June 14. It will be very cosy inside our house.

Silk Road treasures that you will read about in the book are carefully placed around our house. The rough copper bowl we bought in the market in Kermanshah is filled with flowers on the dining room table. The Smiling porcelain Buddha has been freshly dusted and sits proudly in my office.  The old espresso coffee pot that we almost used as a weapon is on the kitchen counter and a blue and red sari from a recent trip to India is wrapped around a wicker love seat on the front porch. Patrick’s  Jazz Collegium, with two guitarists and a vocalist tonight, entertain us with easy listening standards we love and Nicole Gourmet’s lively staff prepares samples of Silk Road flavours in my kitchen and passes them around.

Friends and family from all the different parts of my life, the yoga group, the book club group, the Easy Writers, neighbours, and old friends find their own space to chat… out of the rain on the front porch, in the hall and on the stairs, in the kitchen where they can watch and in the dining room with the jazz group. Ross welcomes everyone and introduces the musicians and “Take Five” that they are playing (and that you will read about in “Yoga, A Giant Pangolin and Jazz” Chapter XlX.) He talks about its significance to my Silk Road story. I read “Desert Coffee”, Chapter V. Three little girls in have made their way to the front of “the audience” and I can see that they are listening keenly. They don’t take their eyes off me and I can’t help but think about all children and the future they hold. When I’m finished reading “Desert Coffee” our granddaughter Ava and her friend Zoé pass around watermelon. So everyone will remember children and the three little Bedouin boys we met that morning on the desert in Syria in the story about “Desert Coffee”.

Thank you everyone.

Five dollars from the sale of each paperback edition of “Weaving Threads: Travels on the Silk Road” will be donated to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan to advance education for Afghan women and their families.