Last Sunday, we drove to Houston again to attend the Houston Ballet's performance of Cinderella. As I sat there for the two and half hour performance, I questioned the idea of travel: "Does one physically have to go someplace at a great distance to say that they have traveled?" In my imagination, I journeyed to childhood with an adult twist which was an extreme voyage in imaginative time, space and living distance.

Cindella was a tom boy with two demanding step-sisters and a step-mother who was a "monster" to this sensative but compensating young girl who could dance rings around all those who inhabited her space. All were given tickets to the Prince's Ball but the step-mother took away Cinderella's ticket. As she lamented in the graveyard where her mother was buried, a ghost in white and spirits from the dead rose to comfort her and dance with her. The ghost in white was her real dead mother. Cindella was finally given a ball dress and a carrage to carry her to the castle. She was pursued by the Prince but fell in love with one of the Prince's assistants. When she left at the stroke of twelve, she, of course, left one of her ballet slippers and the Prince had his army try on the slipper on all the maidens in the kingdom. Cindella of course fit the slipper but rejected the Prince for her true love. The step-mother saw her husband die when he found out that his daughter was pursued by the Prince. Cindella's true mother and father walked into the light of love at the end and Cinderella (with her true love) threw off the shackles of servitude and danced away from the kingdom of the Prince (who was really only in love with himself). The step-mother was driven mad and the two sisters had to work when they found out that the father had reunited with Cinderella's mother (the first wife).

In the imagination of the audience, it was a trip to childhood while not losing our mantle of adult experience. It was a marvelous journey with twists and turns, unexpected wonders and beauty heaped upon beauty. It was a trip that exceeded our expectations and it did not cost any tips for the travel agent or the crew (except our standing applause and our cheers.)

When is travel, not moving your body but your creative mind? It is most journeys that we take, real or in our imagination.

Joe