Celebrating 8 Years!!

When I started this blog eight years ago, I had no idea what it could become and how much it would nurture and support me. It’s been a wonderful journey through literature, art, politics, social issues, interviews, and anything and everything to do with creativity. During this time, I have grown as an opera singer and developed a writing career, finished two book manuscripts, and completed an MFA. This blog has been there for me during some very very difficult times, which is a testament to the healing power of art. 

In my first post on September 30, 2012, I paid tribute to my favorite American author, Willa Cather, the Grande Dame of American letters. It only seems fitting to pay tribute to her through a quote from The Song of the Lark, in which she describes the heroine’s artistic awakening in her soul after seeing the Chicago Symphony perform. The heroine, Thea, realizes this inner light is so powerful and yet so fragile, and she is afraid that it could be taken from heron her crowded journey home. Cather writes, 

“They might trample her to death, but they should never have it. As long as she lived that ecstasy was going to be hers. She would live for it, work for it, die for it; but she was going to have it, time after time, height after height. She could hear the crash of the orchestra again, and she rose on the brasses. she would have it, what the trumpets were singing! She would have it, have it–it!”

This breathlessly passionate scene in the novel was what propelled me forward and led me to where I am today. I can only recommend that everyone find what magnificently inspires them, that ecstasy that drives you forward and can’t be taken away. 

Thank you, Willa, Lev, William, Oscar, Wolfgang, Giuseppe, Antonín, Jan, Niccolò, and all the countless artists of all media, dead or alive, who have magnificently inspired me!