Live the dream...

To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.  I have caught life.  I have come down with life.  I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly.  Light and sound poured in.  Voices began to describe me and my surroundings.  Nothing they said could be appealed.  They said I was a boy named Rudolph Waltz, and that was that.  They said the year was 1932, and that was that.  They said I was in Midland City, Ohio, and that was that.  They never shut up.  Year after year they piled detail upon detail.  They still do it.  You know what they say now?  They say the year is 1982, and that I am fifty years old.  Blah blah blah.

                                            ~ Kurt Vonnegut (Deadeye Dick)

To the young who have more years ahead than behind, whose dreams of an unknown future dance and flip circles in your bellies.  Hold that belly and dance with all of your might in the light of the the moon and sun, it will all unravel and come undone in time.  Right now you have more questions than answers, more queries than wisdom gained through experience.  Your youth is a strong garment of praise, it's a sheath untainted by unbelief and negativity.  Right now you believe you can do anything and though I am but a few years ahead of you, let me tell you, you're right.  You can do ANYTHING.

Now the years will come and will try to give your dreams rigormortis of the of the bone, atrophy of muscle, calcification to the arteries of their soul- but right now-before the years and people do their damage to the soul most like God, sit fully in this green pasture of innocence, where your belief touches the clouds and stars and the unknown and hidden blessings of time resonate so beautifully within and you have no words to describe this session that occurs everyday and right now it seems that it will always be this way.  But rest assure the demons of negativity will come and try to cause your soul despair and tell you that your spoken and unspoken dreams won't fair.  They will look you in the eyes and tell you that your dreams can't ever come true, they will tell you that you are too this or too that, or not this or not that and in-fact not anything monumental at all.  But this is spoken by the dreary masses who have forgotten how to dream.  

So years from now when you have way more years behind than in front of you, visit that green pasture of dreams where the miraculous is possible and the dream has it's own life and won't die, and...LIVE THE DREAM!

Even I, Even You~

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
                                                     ~Rudyard Kipling




Here's the thing.  We all have dreams and desires.  We all feel different things calling us.  The only thing is, many of us don't have all the shiny tools to do whatever it is that's calling our name in the dark and telling us to follow her.  Many of the things we have in our hands are bandaged, broken and weak...or at least it seems like this to us.  So what are we going to do?  Sit back and talk about how broken our tools are and how we don't have enough of this or enough of that?  I have found that this doesn't yield much as far as results go.  But what has really been blowing my mind is that what I have in my hands is always enough.  I may have to look at it differently and wait to see the thing that I have been looking at for some time in new light and in that new light a new purpose of it's being-ness emerges.


I have seen a school desk become a bed-side table, an old soda bottle become a perfect soap dispenser, and shoe string budget have enough for countless beautiful stories told.  So you see, worn out tools can build build'em up.  Even I, Even you...it's what they want to do.     

This Moment~

Doing the Best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment~Oprah


I am working hard at being about the business of my birth.  I am old enough now to embrace why I am here and to know that it is valid.  When I was younger it was easy to dismiss the longings in my heart or the unctions that I felt since they never seemed to line up with what I saw or assumed others felt.  


Then I got older and knew I couldn't ignore the "thing" I felt calling me, so I tried to satisfy in a way that would fit the constructs I knew and understood: the constructs I felt surrounded me.  To no avail.  I tried marketing firms, art galleries, poetry nights, publishing houses, real estate...you name it, I tried it.  What I was doing was trying to fit what I loved to do and honestly felt I was born to do into existing platforms.  Deep down I felt that what I was to do, I would create.  But I wasn't ready.  


So then I figured that God would just make it happen since I didn't know the steps needed to make "it" happen.  So I waited.  And while waiting I started doing what I felt I was born to do right where I was.  I started talking to people and getting their stories.  I started helping find meaning in their stories and before long, others wanted to tell me their stories.  Ahhhh...I was in heaven.  I would set up an interview and film it.  And, by the end me and the interviewee were both inspired.  I felt in my groove.  This is why I am on this planet.  This is my birth right.  But how do I take it to the next step?  How do I follow through to do what I feel is holding my hand and asking me to come this way?  For the voice never says what "this way" clearly is, it just nudges and pulls me further.  


The next thing I knew we were back in Charlotte and I was going to Broadcasting School and getting the skills I needed to go into the next moment.   I hadn't heard of this broadcasting school nor was it in plan, I just went to the next step, which was Charlotte.  When I did that the school appeared.  I got a scholarship and the rest is history.  I graduated in June and now I'm at the next step.  I now have a production partner and he and I are creating content daily.  I have interviews lined up weekly.  You may be asking, "where the heck are you going to show all this content Cha?"...


I don't know, but I know it's the next step.  And life has taught me that the next step always arises~ 

The Pieces



 If you wait for all the pieces to come together and for you to know everything,  You will do NOTHING~ cha


I'm starting a talk show right now.  It is the dream of my heart.  The reason I feel I was born.  It's exciting, challenging and the learning curve is great.  I have to learn how to do every aspect of a show.  I find myself directing, producing, perfecting the voice over, editing, writing, set designing...you get the picture;EVERYTHING!  The challenge is that I am not an expert in any of these things.  It is so easy to sit back and think about doing something once I know it all and feel properly positioned to launch out.  I'm guilty of this very thing.  I didn't realize I was using it as an excuse to not start.  I really thought that I was just making sure I was properly prepared.  I didn't want to be a flash in the pan who gets derailed mid way or even at the beginning because I "didn't know".  The thing is, as I started trying to be prepared, I kept running into another thing that I did not know, and another, and before long I was scared crap-less and overwhelmed.  Then when I could stand it no longer because this dream that keeps me up at night and walks with me through my days kept demanding me to start, I started.  Just start, I heard it say.  Don't worry about the foreseen and unforeseen issues that may arise, just start.  And as I have started, things have come together.  I mean I have seen the pieces come together with such grace it feels like a well rehearsed play.  I could not have anticipated this.  I pictured big holes where I didn't know fully, but instead of holes I find the answer appears in many different magical ways.  I feel assisted on this journey. 

Today I made a mistake in the editing room.  I dropped some footage into the time line and it landed in a bit of an array.  I don't know what I did.  But when I played it back, the "mistake" was beautiful.  I mean, gorgeous.  It was the kind of "mistake" that I couldn't have planned or replicated.  It was the kind of "mistake" I needed.  It's these kinds of mistakes that show up once you start.  Whatever it is that's on the inside of you and is screaming to get out...do it.  The pieces will come together as you start and walk it out.  I promise.  When Indiana Jones stepped out...the ground appeared.  The pieces came together~

Who told you to stop~ Marty Kantrowitz

I, sometimes, imagine my life with no husband or child...Or maybe I imagine my life before them and what it could have been. Not in a "what the hell am I doing with my life" sort of way but, in the nostalgic, "what could have been" way.

We all have dreams. And if we are alive, we keep living and seeing that some of our dreams and wants are not happening or did not happen as we thought, as we hoped or as we dreamed. And I find it so easy to romanticize that which I have not lived as being the perfect version of me and my life. I imagine the things that I wanted so badly when I was 10 years old, being what I am today.

And then I am struck with the wonder of what IS. I mean what really is! It's so easy to think that which could have been and is not, is the perfect scenario. It's an easy cop out: I know this cause I've walked down this road many times before. It's so easy to feel constricted by the demands of our today and hear a, "stop dreaming, you will not and can not be what you longed to be". It's easy to hear that someone else is stopping us and telling us, "No!": our husbands, our children, our jobs, our...LIVES.

What takes energy and gives such purpose is seeing...I mean really seeing what is before me and the beauty and magic it holds. A husband who loves me and in no way asks me to be anything other than who I am. A daughter that thinks I hold the moon and the sun in my hands and wants to be me when she grows up. A life that offers me unconditional love and support. I couldn't have dreamnt this! It's better than the nostalgic, "what could have been". It is alive with what IS and teaming with possibility.

I watched a movie called, "A walk on the moon". In this movie the wife cheats on her husband with this incredibly sexy free spirit of a man who sells blouses...(I know, but he looked AMAZING). She cheats because she felt robbed of the life she dreamnt of as a young girl. She felt that she couldn't dream and do anymore, that she had stopped existing and had disappeared. When her husband finds out, he, of course, is pissed. She tells him how it wasn't him, but her. she had dreams and she needed to try to touch them. He asks her one question, "who told you to stop (being you)?". He tells her he had dreams too. Opportunities dashed and what could have been, not being.

You see, he never did tell her to stop being who she was. She heard it from life rolling as it does and her not taking the steps to reinvigorate her life be who she hoped to be. It's so easy to look around and blame our not living life out loud and in compliance with the BIG DREAM of our childhood, on others. On life. But maybe, the life that we have is different and better than the dream and our living with each other changes the terrain of the dream, giving it more depth and richness. Maybe the living is better than the dream and if the living isn't better, then WE make the changes! Because, who told you to stop? Not me~