LoveCapades StudioPod Media

In this Bonus Episode Michele and Sally have fun doing an overview of the entire podcast. First Michele lists her favorite quotes from the memoir, and Sally chimes in with her usual probing questions. It turns out that Michele had to pare down the list from about 150 quotes to 50 or so. Lots of pith to discuss! Next, our love heroine reveals her most cherished LoveCapades. Once again the intention was to list the Top Ten, but she ended up with 17 faves. We find out that Michele would have done some things differently over the course of her life, that is, made other choices along the trail. So she created a funny “Do Over” List. And lastly, Michele and Sally propose a very interesting idea for the listeners to contemplate. Would they like to tell one of their LoveCapades in a future podcast? Wouldn’t’ it be fun to hear your love stories? So, stay tuned for future developments…

In this final episode Michele ties up loose ends and draws conclusions from the myriad of exhilarating LoveCapades she’d experienced over many years. What had she learned about love? One lesson is that a real love story never ends. Such was the case with her first boyfriend, high school Bobby. Fifty years after they’d first met, he was on her doorstep once again declaring his love for her. The next rendezvous with destiny occurred in 2006 when Michele and her dear Australian friend Trish took a trip to France and Italy. Upon checking into a charming country albergo in Piemonte, she asked the receptionist Valentina to do a Google search for her Sicilian lover Nicola. And voila—she discovered his address and phone number. A few days later Michele fortified herself with an entire bottle of Piemonte’s best red wine and then dialed his number. The conversation that ensued was a remarkable testament to amore! Finding him made her happy and sad all at once. But isn’t that the way with love? As Michele says in the book and in the podcast, “It makes us come alive like nothing else. It defines us, it describes us, it propels us forward, and it stops us dead in our tracks. It makes our world spin on its axis.” In this last look at love, Michele shares more poignant conclusions and professes that hope springs eternal. She poses the final question …will she find her true love in the end?

We hear about Michele’s most recent and perhaps most fascinating and unexpected LoveCapade. It’s an affair of the heart that no one would have predicted, including our heroine. Michele hired a young gardener named Jorge to spiff up her garden before an upcoming surgery to remove fibroids. After she’d recovered, while spending time in the garden during Jorge’s maintenance visits, he would flirt with her unabashedly. It was very surprising since he was decades younger, much smaller in girth, and barely spoke English. But his advances continued, and one day they crossed a line so flagrant that Michele was flummoxed to the max. She knew this was what the universe was offering then in the love department, but it looked so very different than what she expected. What to do? After a serious talk with herself under the moonlight one night, she decided to give it a try. Luckily that adventurous side of her took over once again. What transpired was a delicious five-year romance that they kept very private and secret from the rest of the world. Theirs was an intimate fairytale romance—a Camelot-like affair that taught them both many lessons of the heart. It helped Michele realize once and for all that love may appear different than what you expect but that is part of what makes it magical. Once the romance ended she realized that Jorge had come into her life to cultivate much more than her garden. Their fairytale story had awakened Sleeping Beauty and made her very happy.

Michele’s mother had been the most ardent kind of dog lover, a sentiment not shared by her daughter until something amazing happened shortly after the mystical trip to Egypt. During a visit to see the therapist Linda, who had just rescued a doggy, they muscle-tested to see if Michele should get a dog as well. And shockingly the answer came back, “Yes!” In spite of serious doubts, Michele then set about figuring what breed she wanted, an adventure in itself. In the end our Lady of Love chose a miniature black poodle which she named Shakti…a Sanskrit word that means the creative energy of the universe. It turned out to be the perfect name for the pup! After a period of figuring out how to be a doggy mom, Michele learned the real reason this divine creature had come into her life. Shakti had arrived Valentine’s week 2001, and just three months later Michele’s younger brother died tragically with no warning. It was a horrific time. Yet Michele’s new canine partner proved to be the perfect comfort to keep Michele from losing all grip on reality. God had miraculously arranged it in advance, and what a blessing it proved to be. The two became attached at the hip in the most loving ways. Fast forward to 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President. In his acceptance speech he mentioned getting a dog for his daughters once they moved into the White House. So…Michele decided to write a letter to Sasha and Malia, from Shakti’s point of view, advocating for a black poodle in the White House. Michele reads this hysterical letter to the listeners…and the response she received from Michelle Obama on White House stationery. This tale of puppy love is one of Michele’s most unique and endearing LoveCapades.

Michele begins by describing all the types of love, and then suggests a new one—what she calls mystical or spiritual love. She goes on to describe three fascinating examples of this kind of love that exists in the sacred space of one’s consciousness. The first of these took place in the late 1980’s when the AIDS pandemic was just emerging in San Francisco. She met a beautiful young man named Michael Paulsen who became one of her spiritual mentors just as he learned he was dying of AIDS. However, his inspired guidance later allowed Michele, in spite of her Christian beliefs, to be open to meeting an Indian guru named Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. That encounter changed her world forever. As a meditator she then had a number of relationships inside meditation. One of these was with the Puerto Rican actor Raul Julia. Even though she’d never met him, their relationship became very real and she grieved when he died suddenly. Michele’s third mystical romance took place in Egypt in the year 2000. While with a group of her meditation friends on a two-week journey up and down the Nile, she did a mystical dance with their captivating Egyptologist guide, Emil Nazmy. The two obviously had a deep karmic connection which played itself out in many powerful ways on this mystical journey. Toward the end of the episode Michele has her second “burning bush” moment at St. Catherine’s Monastery, the site of the original Biblical burning bush event. You won’t want to miss a minute of this amazing episode.

Michele clearly has big time karma in Australia, the Land of Oz. She describes the Aussies as a charming combination of British good manners and correctness mixed with American Wild West individualism and penchant for fun. She’s traveled there many times for both business and pleasure. The first trip was in the late 60’s while working at SRI International when they sponsored a conference in Sydney. Then she met Trish Mappin who became one of her forever best friends—many years later they even traveled the world together. Her next junket was to play in a tennis exchange in Canberra arranged by the then American Ambassador to Australia. On her way home from that trip she and a galpal flew to Hong Kong which led to an off-the-charts wild week full of rugby-playing hunks! In addition Michele managed to spend not one but two month-long Christmas jaunts with her Aussie friends in a magical place called Binalong…a mere dot on the outback map. These sojourns proved to be enchantment personified. Suffice to say, over the years Michele encountered many divine Australian men, but you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out the delicious details. To tie up this all up in a typically tantalizing bow, Michele concludes by telling a story of how she lured a German race driver into her web while dining at a trattoria in Milan, Italy. Never a dull moment!