I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
“To bring the end safely home is the goal of the creative mind.” ~Dr. E.O. Wilson
Creative work is messy. Stay focused on your creative project’s goal as you wade through the chaos of the creative process. Transform the chaos into energy, fuel. Let all the doubt, fear, and difficulty of getting what’s in your imagination out into the world, motivate you to work harder and reach further. Dare to go far beyond any limitations you think you have, and bring back what you find.
“Everything exposed to the light becomes the light.” ~St. Paul
Yesterday I revisited the writing I did on my trip to India in 2012 to prepare some of my essays for magazine submissions. In my re-reading I found this quote by St. Paul that is especially poignant in the wake of the events in Paris this week at Charlie Hebdo.
People all over the world have come together to stand up against the violence and intolerance of the attackers, and stand for freedom of expression, especially in the face of fear and grieving. With enough time, light always wins and that truth helps me to keep looking up. I hope it helps you, too, and those around the world who need this message now more than ever. Je suis Charlie. We are all Charlie. We are all light.
“You try the impossible to achieve the unusual.” ~Floyd Patterson, American boxer and youngest ever Undisputed Heavyweight Champion
When I was a kid, I went to the same church in New Paltz, New York as Floyd Patterson. He was an usher who collected the weekly offering and every week I wondered how someone so kind and gentle could punch someone in the face for a living. I would watch for some sign in his personality that he could even swat a fly. I never saw one; he was known as a quintessential gentleman by everyone in our small community.
He was very elegant and graceful with a broad and beautiful smile. He never sat. Instead, he always stood in the back of the church. I remember thinking he was rather small for a boxer with teeth that seemed too perfect for someone who had such a successful career in the boxing ring.
In those years, Floyd Patterson helped me understand that people are very complex creatures. With his example, I couldn’t and wouldn’t judge anyone through a one-dimensional lens. From him I learned that what we do isn’t all that we are. There is always more to us than meets the eye.
“Be crumbled so wild flowers will come up where you are.” ~ Rumi
I know a lot of people who’ve had a tough year. Maybe you’re one of them. You feel a little broken by life, by the holidays, or maybe you feel a little broken and you’re not even sure why. Maybe someone you love is facing this reality right now. I came across this quote by Rumi yesterday in my reading and I think it’s an important one to keep close. Know this: perfection is a myth. Truthfully, we’ve all got small cracks, chips, and breaks somewhere in our lives. They aren’t always visible, but they’re there and there’s some comfort in knowing that we’re all on this imperfect journey together. So don’t be embarrassed or afraid or feel despair for the parts of you or the people you love that are a little crumbled. The flowers are on their way.
“What cannot be said, will be wept.” ~ Sappho
At our darkest hour, we need protection and this week’s news has shown us that too many people in this world don’t have any. Too many people have been rendered powerlessness, their voices held hostage by institutions that bill themselves as just and moral though in reality are anything but. While so many people in the news this week, many right in our own country, have been left powerless, I am not. There are countless ways that I can show my support and be a part of the solution. I can help, and I will. Knowing that I can is what’s getting me through this week, tears and all. My sense of hope is still intact.
“Come quickly, I am drinking the stars.” ~ Dom Perignon right after he created Champaign. Quote from The Fault in Our Stars.
This quote explains exactly how we should feel whenever we create something whether we write, paint, tinker, or bake. We should be delighted by the process and the end product. Once our creations make us feel like we are drinking the stars, we know we’ve found everything we’ve been looking for—happiness, success, wonder. Creation isn’t a luxury; it’s a vital force of human existence. It’s the meaning of life and it gives life meaning. It protects us from oblivion. Have courage. Create.
People say they care about issues, but what people really care about are people who have issues they care about. To motivate someone to reflect and then act, we need to give them a flawed character, someone who’s far from perfect but incredibly likable. Give us a hero or heroine to root for in an against-all-odds quest that forces him or her to grow, evolve, and rise up to a seemingly impossible challenge. We care about that, and that is the seed of all fiction. It’s about character.
My novel, Where the Light Enters, is about Emerson Page, a 15-year old girl who’s been dealt a tough hand and is forced to take an improbable journey that only she can take to save a world she never knew existed and that we all desperately need to remain intact. My book is really about the two greatest sources of magic we will ever have: love and stories. It’s about being brave enough to follow the light that is within us. It’s about the goodness we create when we have the courage to manifest the gifts and talents we are all born with and to celebrate our ability to craft a world in which we take care of each other.
Fiction isn’t invented. It’s with us all the time; it’s the very best part of us. It’s grounded in our potential and our aspirations. Fiction is who we are and who we want to be. That’s why I’m writing a novel: to inspire everyone who reads it to figure out who they are, who they want to be, and how to cross the bridge that connects the two. That’s my issue.
For the team that worked feverishly on-stage and behind-the-scenes at Sing After Storms, I will be forever grateful, forever standing on my feet and giving you a standing ovation of wild applause for your courage and commitment to create. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
We didn’t win the Thespis Theater Festival in the traditional sense.* We were one of 6 finalists nominated for best play out of 39 plays presented, and we didn’t walk away with any prize money. To me, we won in every sense that matters: getting down a painful, powerful, and thought-provoking story to free it in the hopes that it helps to free others.
Theater is hard, so damn hard. It’s more difficult to create than many other art forms because we must build it together. That togetherness must then be orchestrated and tuned with a light, but steady and confident hand. It’s about giving boundaries—the story lines, the confines of the physical space, time—and then just letting people play within those boundaries. It’s a heavy burden and a limitless gift. We put our story out there into the world for judgement and critique, and then allow others to change it, color it, and give it its own life separate and apart from the life the playwright infused into it.
It hurts to let a story go out into the world to fend for itself, and yet in that letting go it saves, serves, and heals. Perhaps that’s the greatest gift that this show has given me—the chance to be free and whole all at once, and the chance to find and sing my song.
*Comparing large-scale musicals to intimate relationship-based dramas, and films of staged shows to live performances, seems a bit odd to me. It also seems unfair to expect a show that was staged two and a half months ago to pull a cast and crew back together with 5 days notice over a holiday weekend to give a performance to be judged against shows that closed much more recently. However, I’m willing to put that aside now that I’ve written it down and expressed my opinion so I can feel nothing but pride for our team. Thanks for allowing me to digress for a moment.
My beautiful and intensely wise yogi friend, Sara Kleinsmith, sent this to me as I was telling her about my decision to write full-time and to make whatever life adjustments I need to make the writing life a reality. In response, she sent me this quote. And I just love it. And her. And all the people who don’t give a damn about the odds but instead care deeply about happiness and the courage to create. Just go for it with everything you’ve got. We make our own odds. (And if you find yourself in Austin, Texas, then you must go to Sara’s yoga classes. She’s magical.)
People see your value. Many are looking for a bargain, a way to use what you know for their benefit. Understand work is a two-way street, always. Yes, you are being paid by someone in some way to do the work you’re meant to do. But don’t you dare let anyone, anytime, anywhere make a bargain out of you. You are precious. You, your talents, and time have a real and hefty worth. And if people don’t get that then they don’t get you. Find the people and places who value you for all that you are, and then some. Don’t seek a check. Seek respect, appreciation, gratitude, and growth. Know your worth and never compromise it. Your worth is not negotiable.
Christa Avampato 