I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
I love The Huffington Post‘s Good News section. Yesterday I read this article about a teacher turned artist who gave up her successful and steady career in education to follow her paintbrush and her heart. It lifted me up and I bet it will lift you up, too. Enjoy! Meet Layla Fanucci.
Smithsonian Magazine is one of my favorite publications. Every page is filled with some new and exciting piece of research. I read it cover to cover every month and feel better for having done so. It transports me to far-off lands and lets me dive deep into areas I’ve never heard of. It gets my curiosity motor running and reminds me just how much there is to learn in the world. And that gives me hope.
We spend a lot of time raising kids to be proud of who they are only to spend time as adults trying to be someone we’re not. We broaden our kids’ horizons and then specialize ourselves right into a corner to get a certain job, to fit in with a specific group of people. Please don’t ever be less than who you are. We need you to shine as brightly as you possibly can because there are so many people counting on you to the light the way. Be there for them by just being you, all of you.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I think about this line on my way to every rehearsal for Sing After Storms. A piece of my past is embedded in every character, every line. I wrote the play to make sense of things on the page that never made sense in my life. I suppose that’s why anyone ever writes anything—to be helpful, to be free, to be heard. We move forward though we can’t help but be informed by where we’ve been and what we’ve survived. It can dicey territory. We can be sucked into the past or use it to buoy us up and over it. I choose to let it help me rise, and intend to lift others in the process.
I hope when my time here is up that I’ve lived a life in which I laughed too loud, loved too much, and felt more than my fair share of every emotion, the good and the bad. I hope it’s been filled with confusion that turned into wonder. I hope I’ve been truly wowed by the great depth of the human spirit. I hope I leave with far more questions than answers. I hope I leave confident that I could live 1000 more lifetimes and never learn all that I want to learn. I hope I am just as curious about life as I am now even when I’m at the very end of mine. I hope I give everything away in time to see all the joy in the faces of those who receive whatever gifts I have to offer. It all goes by so fast. I hope I never forget that because I want to make sure each day bursts with realized possibility. I hope I look back on that long and winding road and say, “What an incredible ride! How lucky I was to have it and to know all of the gorgeous minds, spirits, and faces who made it possible.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about mastery lately because I am still, 7 years after graduating from business school, considering the value of being a generalist versus being a specialist. I see both sides of the argument. Being a generalist lets you see the insights and patterns that occur when you analyze seemingly disparate disciplines. Being a specialist lets you delve deeply into a specific area where you become an expert. Can we know a lot about a little and a little about a lot, all at once? I’m puzzling through that now. I don’t have any answers yet, but I’m searching for them. If you have any insights on this one, I’ll gladly take them!
Yesterday Sing After Storms hit a huge milestone: we’ve now run every scene in the show, I’ve met with all of the production team members, and marketing materials are hitting the streets. A play is a vertical journey up a mountain and every once in a while you hit a plateau in the road so that you can rest and gather your thoughts and emotions for reflection. It’s a brief though necessary rest stop. We’ve got all the pieces; now it’s a matter of refining them and putting them together to tell a story that’s authentic, powerful, and memorable. I have no doubt—not one—that we will get there. Here’s another sneak peek at the work going on behind-the-scenes thanks to the abundantly talented photographer Marita La Monica and her trusty camera.
“I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” ~ Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou and Walter Mitty taught me about the importance of taking action. Maya Angelou’s life is an example of the beauty that unfolds when we learn to sing after the most horrific of storms. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty shows us how a man’s life unfolds if he thinks about what he wants to do and his life if he actually does what he wants to do. Action is everything. Absolutely everything.
We must get our ideas out of our heads and into the world. If they stay locked away inside us, they are no good. When we release our words, we free ourselves. By freeing ourselves, we free others. Action creates freedom. The one thing we all want, wherever we live, whatever we do, whoever we are, is to be free. And the best part is that we have the power to free ourselves through our actions. Freedom is a choice we can always exercise.
I feel lost and found. Lost because I’m drifting away from my consulting work because I don’t enjoy it. Found because Sing After Storms and our amazing cast and crew have made me fall madly in love with the act of creating theater again. I literally run to rehearsal and never want to leave. I relish the roles of playwright, director, and producer. They make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in a very long time.
I don’t know where this road will lead. I just know I have to keep following this road as far as it will take me because it feels so good to take this journey.
“Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” ~ Corrie ten Boom, Dutch writer
I’ve been trying to let go of worry. To leave tomorrow to tomorrow so that I can enjoy and learn today. After all, the answer to tomorrow’s question might be in front of me at this very moment, and I don’t want to miss it.
