Reasons to be Reckless

I am reckless.

A couple of years ago you may not have recognized me; a systematic physics major at a private school in California with an office job and a meticulously organized schedule. Yet upon a subsequent realization that my true passion had always been the performing arts, I decided to change my major accordingly…and move to a different continent…on a whim…without telling anyone.

So began my recklessness, which fortunately translated into an artistic freedom on stage that has landed me career opportunities in the most unlikely of places. I’ve swung over audiences in stunt shows, twirled in a lyra 30 feet in the air, sang with tech crews who didn’t speak any English, and undergone pyro training so that I could dance with fireworks exploding under my feet.

I’ve had to utilize the phrase “I’m lost” in ten different languages, lived on three continents, and found my unyielding search for adrenaline rushes becoming a part of my daily routine. Through this madness I’ve earned SAG membership, worked as a musical director, obtained a university degree, become an accomplished classical pianist, and gained a fervor for life that takes me on adventures I’d never dreamed of.

I’m thrilled to currently be singing and dancing in a rock show on a resort island in Southeast Asia where I have to cross over an ocean every day to get to work. I look forward to writing about ways to freely live life to its full potential by filling it to the brim with what you have passion for: the arts.

Caution: philosophical side note story (….there will be many throughout this blog)

When I ran away to London, I walked 40 minutes everyday to get to a beautiful, out of tune grand piano, secluded in a dark concert hall that seemed to go unused. I need the piano. I’ve played everyday since I was four, and often I “play” my feelings better than I can speak them. It seemed there was only one other person in all of London who knew about this hidden gem in the East End, and often traversed through the foggy rain to get to it: an Italian medical student also studying at my school, with broken English and an obsession for Chopin comparable to mine.

One night, with half-frozen fingers, I was playing Chopin’s Premier Ballade when I heard rustling behind me…apparently this Italian student was also planning to commandeer the piano that night to practice. He tried to ask me about my music but a language barrier between us was preventing most successful communication. I got up and gestured for him to play the piano if he wanted to, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say. And with that, suddenly, I could understand everything he wanted to convey.

We met up often at the piano until we finished classes that year and parted to different countries. Fortunately modern-day technology allows me to stay in pretty close contact with my Italian pen pal** (see below footnote). Several weeks after I moved to Asia on my new contract, he wrote me an email in his broken English and stereotypical, overly romantic Italian verbiage informing me that “something in my soul had changed” over the past several weeks. This was not due to my change of country, my new job, or my isolation from everyone back home…it was because I hadn’t played the piano in weeks. I had not told him that I was in serious need of a piano-fix, he just new as a fellow artist, that if you remove my means for creating art, you remove a piece of my soul.

I broke down later that week and spent my first paycheck on an electric piano that has successfully restored my soul to its full art-producing potential.  Suffice to say, I tell this overly emotional, dramatic tale to convey that art is a crucial part of our being. Don’t let anything keep you from doing what you love; be it monetary constraints, social pressure, or uncertainty in this challenging career. For me, I need my daily dose of Chopin to settle my soul, for others it could be a decision of what to major in or whether it’s time to pursue your “backup” career because things aren’t going as planned. Keep going, your soul depends on it.

**I have an affinity for different languages, this is fair warning to all my readers that you may occasionally need to keep Google Translate handy when divulging into my blog.