I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
Author: Christa Avampato
The short of it:
Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day.
The long of it:
My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events.
While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017. I’m currently working on the second book in the series.
A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist.
My company:
I’m bringing together all of my business and creative career paths as the Founder of Double or Nothing Media:
• I craft products, programs, and projects that make a difference;
• I build the business plans that make what I craft financially sustainable;
• I tell the stories that matter about the people, places, and products that inspire me.
Follow my adventures on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christanyc and Instagram at https://instagram.com/christarosenyc.
One year ago today what I thought for many years was impossible became possible through the tremendous dedication, love, and talent of an incredible group of people. My play, Sing After Storms opened in New York, and when that final black out happened I cried. A lot. A year later, life is so different, and that play still remains the piece of work that I’m most proud to have ever been a part of.
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who supported that effort and most especially to Rob, Ellie, Joe, Kate, Jaclynn, Amelia, Brianne, Oheri, Brittany, Mia, Celia, and Marita. Thank you a million times over!
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ~Aristotle
Art has a way of reaching us in ways that facts can’t. Though it’s composed of fiction, biased perspective, and opinions, it helps us discover truths about ourselves and the world around us. It gives us something to react to, to revel in, to disagree with, to love, and to hate. It makes us uncomfortable and can also bring us solace. We can struggle in it or rest in it. It helps us to know that we aren’t alone, in our joy nor in our sorrow. Art is a shared experience, a way to communicate what we experience and how we feel. It’s a mirror that we never knew we needed until it was right in front of us.
You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. ~Frank McCourt
I believe in the indomitable spirit of the mind. It is incredible how perspective and point-of-view literally change everything. Our image of the world is fragile. It can, and often does, change on a dime.
Difficult things happen to all of us. Joyful things happen to all of us. But how we see and think about those things determines our true experience. Our lives are determined by how we believe them to be, and that belief is in your control. Change your mind, and you change everything.
“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~ Rilke
My friend, Marita, sent me this quote a few weeks ago and it’s been lingering at the edge of my mind ever since. Life offers us so many questions. What should we do, go, be, and with whom? What matters most, right now, at this moment, and do we have the courage to pursue it even if it doesn’t go as we hope it will? Can we take chances? Can we let go? Can we allow ourselves to be infused with every emotion when it strikes us and really feel it down to our bones without breaking?
I’m beginning to realize that Rilke was spot on—life is about living everything as it comes. The good and the bad. The painful and joyful. The elation and the disappointment. In this way, there is no wasted time. Just experience.
“I picture each day as if it were a happy dog looking at me. I may not be in the mood, but the dog always wants to play. Trust the dog.” ~John Patrick Shanley, playwright
Sometimes we might not feel like doing something we need to do. Writing. Getting out into the world. Unrolling the yoga mat. Going for a run. Having a tough conversation. What I find is that once I get going, I’m glad I did even when the result isn’t exactly what I wanted. The effort to try our best is enough. Starting anything is difficult. There are so many reasons not to begin. We can’t let that stop us. Muscle through.
“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
One of my coworkers mentioned this quote to me yesterday and it really struck me as so insightful. When we travel, we open ourselves to seeing the whole world with new eyes. It changes our hearts. It grows our spirits. Traveling helps us to reimagine our purpose and path. If we can change our minds, we can change anything and that is the most empowering benefit of travel.
Last week, I mentioned a poem my friend, KaRyn, wrote and then gave me a framed copy of as a 21st birthday present when we were in college. She is an amazing poet and this framed poem is one of my prized possessions. It’s one of the very few things that survived my apartment building fire almost 6 years ago. And I think that says something extraordinary about its power, and the magic of the poem and the person who wrote it. Thank you, KaRyn! Here’s the text:
“It is a renewal of Spirit that makes you uncomfortable Butterfly.
Whetted wings of resistance
stick to walls of old paper that advertise nothing—needing nothing.
So Flyer, fly—and make your peace with the blue sky.
Swear you don’t wear pastel.
Take on black, brown, gold
and become a richness of soul.
Beauty is a hidden trick
most hands would capture with pins
and fettering glass,
starving the greeness from the grass.
But some hands are freeing.
Some hands are strong enough to come home empty
and some hands will hold but not contain.
Those are the hands to land on.
Let your Spirit Wings of Water wake
and rise unweighted.
There is a threshold of reason
and one of power;
These are yours to cross and attain.
Voice your wings, my breaker of cocoons.
~KaRyn Daley
For Christa Avampato – a true breaker of cocoons with hands strong enough to come home empty.
March 17, 1997”
Love food? Live in DC? Want to help a great nonprofit help others in need? Chef’s Best Dinner & Auction is happening in DC at the brand new Marriott on Monday evening, June 15th, to benefit Food & Friends. Food & Friends is an incredible nonprofit that delivers free nutritious meals to people with life-threatening illnesses right to their door in DC and the surrounding areas. We’re still looking for people to help volunteer at the 1300+ attendee event, and it’s going to be a spectacular evening. Plus, we’ll get to hang out and have fun.
If you’re interested in volunteering, call Food & Friends at 202-269-2277. And tell ’em I sent you! See you there!
I’ve been thinking about this poem below a lot recently. I don’t talk about my love life on this site much, but I recently stopped dating someone who had quickly grown to mean a lot to me. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out with him the way I had hoped. We had a lot of potential for something very special. This poem has helped a lot, as literature always does. It makes us feel less alone. Even though we may be hurting now, we know that many people have been this way before. And if they can pick themselves up and go on, then so can we.
“After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn…
With every goodbye you learn.”
“The only true voyage of discovery is not to visit other lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds.” ~Marcel Proust, “Remembrance of Things Past”
I read this quote while I was on the metro Sunday morning and as I looked around the packed train car, I thought about how different the world must look through every set of eyes around me. Sometimes we talk about empathy as if it’s a switch we can flip, as if it’s something so easy to attain that anyone could do it. But truthfully, empathy is difficult and constant work, something that takes effort and grace. To have it, we have to give up our own biases. We have to drop our own baggage and put aside our hard-won perspective in the hope of somehow finding a glimmer of understanding, a glimpse into the world through eyes that aren’t our own.
The New York Times article by psychologist Paul Bloom that featured the quote from Proust questioned whether true empathy is ever really possible or if it’s an unachievable pipe dream. I’m fine with it being either. No matter if it’s achievable or not, it’s worth the effort. Even if we fall far short of true understanding, at least the attempt shows that we cared at all. And isn’t that concern what life is all about?
One year ago today what I thought for many years was impossible became possible through the tremendous dedication, love, and talent of an incredible group of people. My play, Sing After Storms opened in New York, and when that final black out happened I cried. A lot. A year later, life is so different, and that play still remains the piece of work that I’m most proud to have ever been a part of.
Christa Avampato 