Prodigal Writer

Well, well...look what we have here! The prodigal writer has returned home to blog once again. Obviously, I've strayed far from the 90 day path, abandoning the logging of many a profound thought. But what can I say, I saw the movie Julie and Julia a couple of days ago and I was convicted. Many critics I've seen have said they could have just done with the Julia part, but I needed that. I can relate to that "what do I do with my life" funk, the "how do I make my life mean something" stagnation.

I've made it to California, to Fresno, "Where California takes you into its Heart." What a strange city this is, big but small minded. Sprawling not too much of anythingness. A place of dry heat and humid quietness where it seems even the trees try not to disturb in their rigid sway. I came here for one thing and one thing only...to sing, and so far I have allegedly made quite the impression in these parts. On August 2, 2009, I sang my very first opera role ever, Suor Angelica. And what a place to start! Though he never knew it, Puccini wrote this role just for me to sing on this day at my age and history pressed up against its gripping drama. This wasn't an accident, but rather a collision with purpose. And isn't that the goal of a life, to create timeless works of art that collide with person after person, universally? Thank you, Puccini!

But here I sit in the afterglow of the ill-fated Suor Angelica and fear that I have somehow never gotten up off the ground from the final high 'C' I was staged to sing flat on my back. "Salva mi" I cried into the rafters of the Shagoian theatre, so the review said, speaking not only for Angelica, but for myself and all the uncertainties waiting to greet me in the wings. the opera was certainly a success, but the woman behind the singer is still in need of salvation. How will I survive the months, years before true success manifests and my name precedes me and I don't have to worry about how to pay rent and how I can be mobile without a car.

This is the cross I bear today and the reason why I filled the final pages of my "Faith" journal, one that I've been keeping for about four years, with words of lament. One may say that these are trivial problems that can be easily overcome, that I should keep my head up because it will all work out. But the root of these difficulties are far more ugly than the symptoms. I'm in need of a cure, a remedy to live this life in a better way, a new way. A way that will lead to the extraordinariness I feel I'm called to, a final way around this mountain and up the steep hike to self-actualization. Wow, now there's a term! Talk about the road less traveled! That final journal entry was a catharsis, a purging of phlegm, of congestive matter that although still sniffling, has helped me see that in a few days I will likely get better. And then I will fully appreciate what it's like to be well, whole. But until then, my back is pressed to the stage floor, SAVE ME...

Question of the day: What do you most often need to be rescued from?