So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?
Scene: A dark restaurant. New Orleans. Heart of the French Quarter.
The food was outstanding (accompanied by the lazy ritual of watching filtered water drip through a sugar cube to opalesce a glass of absinthe). The ambiance romantic (we sat side by side and gazed down the bar from inside the three walls of a private booth). The waiter was the right blend of friendly and discreet (and even sported a classic New Orleans accent).
The Bombay Club was a find, but the real reason we ended up there was because in my sweetie’s cursory search on his iPhone for a good dinner spot, it was the first to advertise live jazz.
Last Tuesday night this turned out to be the stylings of vocalist/pianist Amanda Walker, the jewel in the Bombay Club’s ambiance crown.
We tipped her on the way out, but as the door closed behind me I paused.
Creative abundance requires courage
If I didn’t want to live with regret, it was time to screw my courage to the sticking point.
“Just a minute,” I said to my sweetie, and went back inside, heart pounding.
“I’m a singer too,” I told Amanda, who had just finished a song. “We’re visiting from California, and I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your music.”
Thus began a little friendly conversation. A simple thing, but a challenge for this still-sometimes-shy native-introvert.
Creative abundance requires courage.
CDs were exchanged (jazz singers, I’ve found, tend to be a friendly and generous tribe). “Too bad you didn’t tell me earlier,” Amanda said, “I’d have let you sit in.”
Then: “Actually, you can sit in right now if you want.”
90 seconds later I made my New Orleans debut.
To an audience of about six people – plus waitstaff and my sweetie – but hell, I still played New Orleans. And those few minutes are one of my best memories of my first visit there.
All because I took a risk.
Creative abundance requires courage
Every time I post a blog I run the risk of people not liking it, unsubscribing, or worst of all, deciding I’m boring.
Every time I put a piece up for sale or show, or send out my not-quite daily ArtFix newsletter, I run the risk of a negative response, or worse, no response at all.
Every time I get up in front of an audience to sing and make them laugh, I wonder if all the other times were flukes, and this time I’ll fall on my face. Or hear the sound of crickets.
It’s scary shit, this putting-yourself-out-there thing.
But consider the alternative. Do I really want a small life, keeping my gifts entirely to myself? Do you?
The only way to grow, to vibrate at the creative abundance I desire, is to take the risk.
Jump.
When I look back on my life so far, I have no regrets about the times I jumped; only about the times I didn’t.
Creative abundance requires courage
So tell me, what step are you taking today to live your own creative abundance?
