Fearlessly go where you need to go! I wrote this phrase just over a year ago and did I ever go in 2010!. I also did a lot of letting go. I let go of my business, a series for television that I put aside developing and my dear father Clarke who passed away just a few months ago.
Last year I said it always astonished me how much easier it becomes to do fearless acts as I take more leaps. That is true but hopefully in the future the leaps are more calculated so that I don’t necessarily have to tumble into to the deepest abyss to learn my life lessons.
I have always had a huge appetite for adventure and personal growth and the "trial by fire" approach has worked well for me in some circumstances but there is a price to be paid. I paid that price many times over so now that debt has been handled it’s time to create with joy again! Just like when I used to paint as a child. It was fun! I took a York bar chocolate wrapper and drew a horse around it and apparently it was a brilliant enough work of art to be hung over the desk of my fourth grade teacher for all the class to see and appreciate.
So now to the reason for this blog. I am a writer of sorts and have been since 1994. Mostly having penned a few screenplays, plays and an original tv series. But it has been over a year since I have attempted any writing of a serious nature, So having just returned from an inspirational writers conference in Ojai, California with a few days of healing sun in Palm springs I am ready to get moving! I cheerfully reconnected with several of my dear writer friends ( “Dames at Sea”) from the Alaska Writers Cruise I organized last August and this was especially good for my soul. Many of these women have inspired me to continue on with my writing goals in spite of my fears and past let downs. Because I have also witnessed the immediate results of my clear focus over the past few months which was all about “Letting go,” this new self emerged and it was a self that could place my priorities first and for once be selfish about taking care of me and no one else. Did it take my father’s passing this past November to allow that luxurious indulgence into my life? Hell Yes! But who cares because that profound an experience is bound to stir the soup a bit and so now I am once again back to my own power to create. I feel ready to attach my thoughts on paper once again.
So…..I am now officially writing my first memoir and it is entitled “Feet off the Ground.” It follows the meandering and often chaotic journey of my life struggle with being an artist and of course coming from a workaholic Jewish heritage, this was no easy task, trust me! The book will illuminate the moments of joy, pain, grief, celebration and ultimately the lessons I learned on the pathway to accepting my gifts and becoming responsible and committed enough to share them. There were huge lessons that nearly put me in a hospital last year as well as many accomplishments, albeit never enough for my hungry ego. But these adventure rides had me freezing my face off in -60 below winds in the tundra of Nunavut, to “svitzing myself into a coma on the beaches of Costa Rica! But by far the best of these journeys put me into a wonderful position where my husband and a few family members (in short stints), managed the summer tourists coming to visit a 400 year old Chateau in the Southwest of France. This was a most interesting dual life as I was also a sales manager for an internet company out of Calgary at the same time and they didn’t have a clue! In fact one day I can write a novel on just that experience alone. I think I may call it “Under the French Umbrella!”
In spite of such great stories to share I am still terrified that I will be labeled a dilettante and a fraud! Who I am to write such a memoir? Yet the old phrase I coined over a year ago (when I went into development with my tv series “Empress of the North” ) has once again delivered me the encrypted password - " Have the fear but be fearless anyways!” So I urge you all who are reading this blog - Be bold and brazen and don’t rationalize away life’s greatest opportunities waiting for the “Some day” syndrome to be busted open. I will attempt to be more fearless and learn to savor each experience without judgment and with the least amount of pain. Because I really do finally get that creation is our obligation and we need not suffer to create our art. We must not sacrifice the call to do whatever it is we are called to do for any reason.
Keep posted to this blog for the updates on the development of my new business venture with my wonderful sister. Our company “Out of the Box Events” will be launching this April and it too is going to present some exciting new challenges that I hope will lead to some more great stories to share with you in the future.
For now…my message to my fellow food, travel and writing lovers is be bold and create. The clock is ticking and we are all anxious to see what you bring to the buffet this year!
