I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
I am very pleased to announce that a rough cut of one of the performances of Sing After Storms is now available on YouTube thanks to the Compass Yoga YouTube channel. Please feel free to view and share! We’d love your feedback in the YouTube comments section. Link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNZgdrLJ8oc
Last week, The Upshot (a New York Times blog) ran the results of a study on the best and worst places to live in the U.S. According this study, northern Virginia has cornered the market on good living and that includes my alma mater’s home of Charlottesville. Cheers to all my Virginia-based pals. Perhaps I should join you and move back to that area if I want to live long and prosper! Maybe we all should. What do you think?
Note: The study uses six criteria: education, household income, unemployment level, disability, life expectancy, and obesity.
“The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius.” ~ Rebecca Pepper Sinkler
Keep your board games, puzzles, fairytales, and toys. Hang onto your intense curiosity, magical sense of wonder, and big dreams, especially those that you created when you felt that anything and everything was possible. The surest ways to success and happiness lie along those roads. Guard them like the precious gifts that they are.
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” ~ Marcel Proust
Many people serve as teachers, mentors, and advisors throughout our lives. We are inspired by the journeys of others. We follow opportunities as we discover them and if we don’t find the opportunities we want, we make them. In the end, the journey is ours to take. Others can support us and encourage us along the way, though we have to follow the path on our own two feet. Ultimately the choices are yours. You are the only one who can live your life. Choose wisely, and from your own heart.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the next phase of my career as I wind down my consulting work. To help me figure out which step to take next, I started creating a list by asking myself the question, “What makes me happy?” I didn’t censor nor edit myself in any way, a rare state of mind for me. Here are the first answers I found. Crank up Pharrell!:
1.) Working with others, especially creative and funny artists like the people who worked on Sing After Storms
2.) Phineas
3.) My cutie nieces
4.) Baking bread
5.) Walking through Home Goods and fantasizing about decorating my next apartment
6.) Shopping at Whole Foods, especially in the produce section
7.) Seeing old friends greet each other on the street
8.) Stretching and walking
9.) A good story in any form
10.) Seeing someone live their passion and rise to their potential
11.) Autumn
What makes you happy?
Signs are everywhere. I snapped this one yesterday. I was really trying to capture the “Risk Everything” and while taking the photo then saw “Caution”. It made me giggle out loud. New York City, and the Universe as a whole, give you any and every sign you look for. Best to look for what you want and grab it!
Life is a daily series of once-in-a-lifetime chances. Keep taking them.
We wrapped our final performance of Sing After Storms at the Thespis Theater Festival last night. Now, I feel nothing but love, gratitude, and joy. All of the stress, long hours, and enormous amounts of energy and effort were absolutely worth it from beginning to end. Now I just want to say thank you—to everyone who supported the show, who attended a performance (or 2, or 3!), and to the incredibly talented cast and crew that made this dream happen. I promise you this: I will do everything in my power (and then some!) to continue to carry this show forward. We’re just getting started.
And they can call me crazy if I fail
All the chance that I need
is one-in-a-million.
And they can call me brilliant
if I succeed.
Gravity is nothing to me.
Moving at the speed of sound,
I’m just gonna get my feet wet
until I drown…
~ Ani DeFranco
Amelia Huckel-Bauer, one of the amazing cast members of Sing After Storms, sent me this poem the day after our opening night. Ani know how it goes for people with big dreams. She’s someone who would rather dive in and drown than stay safely on the shore and wonder what might have been if she had tried to swim. Ani, and Amelia, I’m with you.
We tell ourselves, “I’m much better off than a lot of people. This is good enough.” We get what we settle for. If you are a dreamer and a doer, good enough will never be enough because you know you can do better. Get out there and work hard for exactly what you want because everything takes hard work. There is no easy path. There is only good work that takes effort, energy, time, and passion. Give your best everyday to exactly what you want and you will find yourself in the midst of a life you love to live.
Christa Avampato 