OH, IT WILL HAPPEN SOMEDAY! by Diana Rissetto

Diana Rissetto is a native New Yorker currently in the midst of her quarterlife crisis. She has been published in Teen People magazine, was featured on Access Hollywood as “the Teen Who Touched Frank Sinatra’s Heart” and has naturally curly hair. She hopes to write for the stage and screen…someday…and would like to sing and dance on Broadway as well, but she can’t sing and dance. Her two current goals are to meet Prince William (just so he can shake her hand and go, “Ah, yes … that is an easy name for me to remember.”) and to do something that will get her famous enough so she can be a star on Dancing with the Stars.

When I was 21, I got my first New York City job. Nothing in the world made me feel more proud than to be able to say that! In fact, even just going on the interview was enough of a thrill for me…it all could have ended there and I would have been happy enough.

I was working as an intern for a Broadway public relations firm. Broadway had become a very sacred part of my life, and most weekends, I’d hop the train from New Jersey and get off at Penn Station and enter the magical world of the New York City theatre district. I lived for student rush tickets and for meeting my idols at the stage door after the show. Bernadette Peters had given me hope that a small, pale, curly-haired girl like myself could become a huge sensation. 

For the summer before my senior year of college, I worked part-time at Barnes and Noble and worked at the office four days a week. I barely slept, and my mother became concerned that I looked too thin from running around and not eating enough, but I was thrilled as I lived the life of a typical intern … I was getting paid $5 a day (that was actually for transportation, but considering I was coming in from NJ, my transportation was $18 a day. And it didn't even count for college credits. So, that internship actually cost me! (I think it's probably considered slave labor somewhere.)  I fetched coffee, looked for a nanny for my boss’s child, and, in one afternoon, made dozens of calls to bakeries trying to find out just who had the best brownies in New York City. We were trying to lure a certain actress to come to a party we were throwing, and word got out that this actress simply adored brownies! (Yes, I am sure she did nothing but sit around and eat brownies and watch the Lifetime Movie Channel.)

My fellow intern and I made phone call after phone call. The exchange went something like this:

Us: Hello, are your brownies especially spectacular?
Bakery: They’re … good …
Us: No! They have to be more than good! They have to be spectacular!

Our boss stood there and coached us on what to say, telling us that if we were going to be publicists, we NEEDED to learn how to ask things like that.

The next day, I rode in a cab to the Upper East Side to deliver especially spectacular brownies to one of Primetime television’s biggest stars. I handed the package to her doorman and caught a glimpse of how the other half lived.
           
She didn’t come to the party … but I’m sure she loved the brownies. “Brownie Delivery Girl to the Stars.” That would look nice on my resume, I thought. This was part of playing the game, I told myself. This was just a pit stop! Today, I am calling bakeries asking them how they’re brownies are…tomorrow, I am running the world!

Thursday in the city in the summertime (at lunchtime in midtown) is a magical thing. From 12:30 to 2:00, the casts of all the different Broadway shows perform, and our story takes place on such a Thursday. That entire summer, I kept dreaming about the afternoon that the show my office (a little show called Chicago) represented performed, and how I would get to stand under the tent with the stars of four of Broadway’s biggest shows. I would attend these concerts every year, and sit on the grass sweating with the other folks on their lunch breaks. This year would be different. This year, I was on the other end!

On that magical Thursday, I helped carry feathers over to the park (for Billy Flynn to sing "All I Care About is Love" with, obviously) and tried to suppress my giddiness. I knew my constant enthusiasm and fascination for Broadway grated on my boss' nerves, and I honestly couldn't blame them ... I was pretty obsessed.

This is why I had slaved and suffered all summer long…to stand under an air-conditioned tent… an air-conditioned tent!!! AN AIR-CONDITIONED TENT!!!!! …  with the stars of four of Broadway’s biggest shows. When my boss told me to take some Vitamin Water from the bin (it was roughly 300 degrees that day) I looked up at him in awe and wondered if I really could just take this sacred Vitamin Water from the same bin that the Broadway stars were reaching into. To this day, red Vitamin Water will always be special to me, even though I have long-traded it for sugar-free green tea.

Thoroughly Modern Millie was one of my favorite shows running.  It was bright and fun and happy.  I connected so much with Millie … she was just a simple young girl, but when she started singing and dancing on that stage, all I could think was, “What I wouldn’t give to be her.” I cried every time I saw that show. (Which made no sense, I know, since it was billed as the “feel-good” hit of the year.) And, it also ended with Millie finding out that she really did love Jimmy, even though he didn't have any money...only to learn that Jimmy actually, like, OWNED New York City. What girl doesn't dream of that?

That afternoon, the star (well, actually it was her lovely understudy) of Millie sang “Gimme, Gimme,” the show’s 11o’clock power ballad. (Millie would wear a sparkly red dress when she sang that song, and ended it with her hands thrown into the air. Ah. That’s what life was all about.)

Today, she didn’t wear a sparkly red dress, just a t-shirt with her show’s logo and jeans. Still, I watched in awe, and said out loud to myself (or to anybody who might listen, as I have a habit of often doing), “Every time I see that number performed, I just get so upset because I know I will never be up there!”
           
Because, of course, I couldn’t sing to save my life…or dance…and I wasn’t taking lessons or auditioning in anyway. Yes, it was a pretty safe bet that it really never was going to happen to me, and I had to accept that … sort of … .
           
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice say, “Oh, it will happen some day! It will happen!”

I looked up (far far up, as the owner of the voice was over a foot taller than I) to see an impossibly attractive young man with impossibly blue eyes and an incredibly warm smile. (I fought back the urge to laugh in his face and go, "Nope, it really isn't going to happen, but thanks for the encouragement, kind sir!")

He wore Thoroughly Modern Millie t-shirt. He was a chorus boy and an understudy, and that day, he was performing in place of the male lead. We spoke for a few minutes…he really was as kind as his smile implied, and as I walked away that afternoon, I introduced myself and told him it was really nice to talk to him. He said, "It was nice talking to you, too, Diana...I'm Cheyenne! (I did have a brief, "No, really, what's your real name?" thought.)

Thank goodness for Google. Back at the office, I looked up this fellow, who I learned was Cheyenne Jackson (and, yes, Cheyenne really WAS his real name), he was fairly new to the city, and Thoroughly Modern Millie was his Broadway debut. I was able to send him a message through his official website. Within a day, he responded (actually, that was the day of the Blackout of 2003, so it was delayed a bit, because, you know...the city didn't have electricity) and, for some reason that I will never quite understand but am eternally grateful for, that tall good-looking boy in the Thoroughly Modern Millie t-shirt and I struck up a bond via email over the next year.

A year and a half later, I watched and cried (once again, I was crying at a very, very happy show) as he performed the lead in the new musical All Shook Up. It was his first original role, and the audience fell in love with him. His picture was soon on a 30-foot billboard in Times Square and the reviews raved, "A Star is Born!" I couldn't have been prouder of him if he had been my own brother. Just a small-town boy with a dream! I'll always remember that afternoon in Bryant Park and smile.

You just never know who is going to (literally) tap-dance into your life.
When that summer ended, I was terribly sad to leave my internship. (Despite, you know… the tears, the frustration, the lack of salary, and the slavery).  I would no longer be a member of the Broadway community. However, I had something very special to always remind me of this experience … a Playbill from the show Chicagowhich had my name listed next to “Press Intern.” I handed out copies of it to all of my friends and relatives. My name was in a real Broadway Playbill! (I later learned that you cannot eat or pay the rent with a Broadway Playbill with your name listed after “Press Intern.”)

However, I still stare at that page at least once a day and think back to that summer when it wasn’t rare for me to go home in tears some afternoons…but which I would never trade for anything. For three months, I was actually a part of something that I loved as much as the New York City theatre community. That summer, it really felt like anything was possible. I finally felt like I was on my way! 

AGORAPHOBIA AND ANTHROPOLOGY by Molly Doane

Molly Doane is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is currently studying producers of fair trade coffee in Chiapas, Mexico, as well as the roasters and consumers who purchase it in the Midwest.

I feel like lately I have read quite a few accounts of agoraphobic middle-aged women. They don't like to grocery shop or go to work or otherwise leave the house. I think, "of course you are agoraphobic." I think, "agoraphobia is an irrational fear of the outside world. What is irrational about fearing the outside world?" I became a gardener in my late thirties after years of doing nothing of the kind: before I cycled and ran and spent hours at the gym. The garden is an extension of the house, surrounded by fence and foliage; it is an outdoor room enclosed from the city streets. I always thought it was kind of cruel to keep cats indoors. They should be allowed to roam as is their wont. Why should cats be restricted for their own good, like so many Victorian wives? Yet lately I have become an indoor kind of cat. I cannot precisely place the transformation. I feel however that I have less and less interest in what goes on outside of my house. I have no interest in meeting new people. I don't like to try new restaurants. I don't know what this is exactly. A creeping fear or shyness, sensory saturation, diminishing returns? My husband, who is perpetually writing four novels at once, feels we are mirror opposites. His surfeit of interests makes it difficult for him to finish anything and so he feels like he accomplishes nothing. In contrast, he thinks I have become overly specialized. I have narrowed down my interests so much that I am in constant danger of attempting nothing. And yet I must do something. I am a relatively successful anthropologist. But the struggle is there.

Where does the struggle come from? As I age, I do find it less satisfying to live an outside kind of life. The ambient vibes, positive and sexual, don't bounce from the pavement anymore. In fact, there is a negative or absent quality to my public face. Being in public I am no longer affirmed, and sometimes I am effaced. Recently, I was in a café awaiting someone I was to interview. We had not met, but we had exchanged descriptions: he, grey-haired, medium height, thin build; me "big" curly dark hair, on the short side. I saw him arrive, order his coffee. This was obviously my informant—he was the only grown-up in a small sea of Midwestern college students. I waited for him to approach my table. I watched as his eyes scanned the crowd and scanned it again. I watched him turn back to the coffee counter to see if I was there. I watched him turn to scan the crowd in my direction another time, his eyes never touching my face, as though they had an internal editor. At that point I hailed him enthusiastically, with a smile, and we proceeded with the interview.

My experience as a college professor has been disillusioning. Even in the enlightened university hamlet women ought to "be nice." If your colleagues find you pushy, aggressive, or bossy (a former boss's preferred adjective to describe me) within the department you might not get tenure. If you are not assertive, confident, and self-assured outside of the department you will never get past the negative reviews of your colleagues, essential if you want to publish and not perish.

And I am also more fearful. Out at a salsa club in Mexico a few days ago, I told some friends that I had once ridden my bicycle through Mexico. "And yet now I am terrified I will be hit by a car as I walk along on the sidewalk." It is just mortality, said my friend. You are becoming aware of your mortality.

Mortality, sexism, diminishing returns. These are all persistent themes in our lives, and yet we live them still. I notice the themes in Chiapas, Mexico, where I study coffee farmers. To get to the coffee communities, I take a collective taxi on a daily death-defying journey over curving mountain roads that the taxi drivers handle quite deftly. As they narrowly avoid the oncoming traffic, they tell me stories of migration. Pasqual tells me he was a gardener, a carpenter, and a handyman in Washington. I ask which Washington? He says the one that is the home of George Bush. We laugh. To arrive in Washington, D.C., he had crossed the Sonora Desert in Arizona. It took four nights of walking, with some hours of rest during the day. The polleros (this literally means someone who raises chickens) charged $2,500 and took him in a truck to Virginia. Life was very sad, he said, during that year, because he missed his family. But he said life in Tenejapa is also very sad because you can't earn enough money and that makes everything hard. You make maybe 80 pesos a day ($7.50) and you have to buy food out of that and everything else. (Groceries are running me about $10 a day). I have heard dozens of variations on this story. Some taxi drivers allude to the deaths of compatriots. Increasing border security has led migrants to across ever more dangerous desert routes.

Dangerous crossings are not new. Before roads and buses made it possible for rural people from the far south to migrate to the border, they made long journeys to the coffee plantations on the coast. What is now a bus journey of a few hours from mountains to seaside was once also a four-day walk. A snapshot. Alonso, Ana, and their son Umberto are together a nice family. They fill in each other's stories and listen to one another with interest and compassion. The couple is in their late sixties. Their unmarried son is in his thirties and their only helper. Umberto tells me they have had a particularly hard time in the last few years because they are Zapatistas and therefore have lost access to the few government programs that exist. They grow organic coffee for the fair trade market and organic honey. Alonso and Umberto dress me in a beekeeper's outfit to take me on a tour of their hives.

Alonso, the father, was an orphan. His dad died when he was ten of drink and his mother when he was 12 of fever. So he had to go work on a coffee plantation when he was ten, at first working in the kitchen because he was too young to work in the fields. When he was 12, he began agricultural work on the plantation under the care of a man from his own community. The man felt sorry for him and was kind, making sure that Alonso got to pick the most loaded trees so he could fill his bags quickly and earn well. Alonso worked seasonally for 12 years on this plantation. As an adult the work was much harder. He had to get up at two or three in the morning and work until five in the evening. He worked from about 1950 until about 1975 on the plantation where he often "felt lonely in his heart."

Eventually he inherited six hectares from his father's estate and married Ana. At first they grew peanuts for the world market and corn and beans to eat. Alonso continued to work seasonally on the coffee plantation. About thirty years ago he started growing coffee, which was promoted through a government agency called INMECAFE. At that time, the government had a lot of progressive programs aimed at raising the economic position of rural people. Growing coffee at home meant that Alonso no longer had to make the seasonal journey to the coastal coffee plantations. Coffee cultivation has brought some improvement for Alonso.

In the old days, Ana had to bring all of their water for drinking, bathing, and cooking from the well that was one and a half kilometers away. There is now tubed water, but even with this improvement, life is still very hard. Ana is too weak to grind the corn for tortillas, even though it needs to be done, and making tortillas is painful because she has terrible rheumatism. Ana says: I want to die already. I am ready to die. I am discouraged with this coffee. There is still no result. Look at my kitchen. It is falling apart. It is like the house of the black wasp [a mud house]. All of our work and I live in a house like this. I would just as soon abandon the coffee and go live in a cave! Ana starts to cry.

I know how she feels. I want to abandon it all and go live in a cave! Of course, unlike Ana, I get to escape the grind. I often retreat to my garden, my cave. It keeps me satisfied and sane. But when am I happiest? When hurtling irrevocably toward an oncoming semi, ranchero music blaring in my ears, the taxi driver busily looking for a new CD he would like to play. Or stuffed into a beekeepers suit, stiff as an astronaut, deafened by the whine of worried bees and blinded by smoke.

GOLD MEDAL MERMAID By Kelly Crowley

A life-long competitive swimmer with dreams of Olympic glory, Kelly accomplished her goal of making the Athens 2004 Paralympic team, where she won two gold medals in the relays. When she is not training, Kelly works as the Outreach Coordinator for a volunteer-based habitat restoration and education project at Ulistac Natural Area, the last 41-acres of open space in the City of Santa Clara.

When you're the odd kid out at a small Catholic grammar school, you're destined to get picked last for every kickball game. In my tiny class of 17, the odd kid out was me. I suppose it was not only inevitable, but also a precursor for every success I've had. But at the time, it was traumatic, since, as middle-school popularity goes, I had several things going against me.

First, I kind of enjoyed learning, which was completely uncool. I did my homework, I tried to get the right answers, and I refused to let anyone copy off me. Except for the boy I had a crush on. I helped him out once ... and then felt incredibly guilty for the rest of the week. I was, undeniably, a goody-two-shoes.

Second strike against me was totally out of my control: my family was not rich. We lived in "that" side of town, or as I like to joke, eight houses and one drug dealer from the freeway. The freeway separated my sleepy, boring town from the crime-ridden city, which would later be called the "homicide capital of the country." However, there was this handy little footbridge that went up and over the freeway ... right at the end of my street. Anyone running from police cars on the other side of the freeway could handily find escape in our neighborhood.

Okay, really, it wasn't that exciting or dangerous. We neighborhood kids played tag on our front lawns, and careened up and down the block on our bikes. Still, I did not have everyone over for swimming birthday parties in my backyard. The only pool we had was plastic and about 18 inches deep.

Strike three was my arm. My early medical records call my condition "congenital microdactyly." Yeah, exactly what the Latin says: I was born with a small hand. To be more specific, my right elbow is fused, the bones in my lower arm barely grew at all from when I was a baby, and I have this tiny hand with three little fingers. No one else in my tiny grammar school class had that, and although it made little difference in the early years, by the time we were in junior high, my friends had all abandoned me for the "cool" crowd, which was the rest of the class. And, at the time, I was utterly convinced the reason they all stopped wanting to hang out with me was because of my stupid, ugly, rotten arm. It was, in my young view, the cause of all bad things that happened to me. I would eventually discover that I was totally wrong, but that was my reality at the time.

High school couldn't come fast enough, as junior high dragged to an end. The last big hurdle before high school was The Eighth Grade Play. This was an honor-laden tradition, at my elementary school. The most popular kids always ended up with the lead roles. It was, I thought, my last chance at redemption, my last chance to prove to all those jerks who picked me last for kickball that I was, too, cool, and perfectly capable of doing anything I wanted.

While most of the previous classes got do actual known theatrical works, we got the less-well-known "Magical Musicals," which consisted of a seemingly random collection of songs chosen by the music teacher, who was drawing heavily on The Little Mermaid. There was a sprinkling of stuff from Little Shop of Horrors and Les Miserables, but most of it was by Disney.

As the solos got assigned, I sat patiently waiting for mine. I was in the church choir and was feeling confident. After all, I could hear when people around me were singing the wrong notes, when they were off pitch. I could pick out harmonies, and taught myself to read music more or less. Singing was something I could do. But at the end of class, when, as expected, the Queen of the Popular Crowd got the best songs, and the rest of the solos were handed out, I was without one. I was disappointed, but there was a ray of hope.

"That's it for today," our teacher said, "but we might add another solo or two. Probably Ariel's solo from The Little Mermaid. We'll talk about it next week."

On our way back to homeroom, I planned. I would have a solo part in The Eighth Grade Play, and then they would have to respect me. I made a mental note to look for my Little Mermaid soundtrack. Of course, I didn't have to look hard. The soundtrack was in my tape player, of course, since it was, secretly, my favorite movie. A little voice in the back of my head wondered if this really was my ticket to respect, since it was no longer cool to like The Little Mermaid. But I decided to ignore that little voice. If anyone asked how I knew all the words to the song, I could just say, "Oh, it USED to be my favorite movie."

I dug out pen and notebook, and set the tape deck next to me on the bed. Painstakingly, I hit play, stop, rewind, play, stop, rewind, for what seemed like hours until I had transcribed every single lyric into my notebook. I then spent the next week listening to the song incessantly, memorizing every beat. The next week in music class, I knew I'd get the solo. No one else cares enough, I thought, no one else would work this hard to sing a stupid Little Mermaid song. At that point, it wasn't about what song I would sing. Clearly, any song was good enough for me, so long as it was a solo.

The next week in music class we practiced and practiced the choral numbers. And we watched some of the soloists prefect their performances. We did that over and over for the next several weeks. I went in there every week, hoping that the teacher would ask for tryouts for the part, but she never asked. "She forgot," I said to myself one week near the end. "Oh well. High school is almost here. It doesn't matter."

In fact, that day, I had other, grown-up things on my mind, like the fact that I had, for the first time, gotten my period. Really, I just wanted to go home. Music class, let alone standing up in front of everyone to sing a song, one I would probably get teased for knowing, was the last, last thing I wanted to do. But it was apparently my fate. I ended up sitting in the exact middle of my classmates when the music teacher asked if anyone knew the words to the Little Mermaid solo. I looked around at my silent classmates. Everyone was looking to see who would put their hand up. No one did, and I finally, sort-of, kind-of half-raised my hand.

"Kelly?" was the surprised response from the teacher. "Um, okay, stand up."

Before I could think about it, she hit play and I was standing in the middle of my class singing along with Ariel. I finished, and the teacher hit stop. Our gymnasium was awfully silent. Either it was really good or really bad, because no one was even moving. And then it happened.

"That was really good, Kelly," I heard her voice say. No, not the teacher. The Queen of the Popular Crowd. Relief washed over me, and I totally forgot about wanting to go home.

"Yeah, good job," several of her minions chimed in.

I did it. See, they did think I was good at something—something other than school. I knew I was good at something, and now they did too, because I finally had the courage to just do what I wanted. I had been true to myself, and I had worked hard. The success of that moment was exhilarating.

That moment was almost fifteen years ago now, but it is still vividly real in my imagination, and its lesson enduring. In fact, I could have picked a hundred other moments in life when I dared to let Fabulous Me out of the box I tend to keep her in. Like many others, I sometimes hide, or disguise, or misplace the lady I discovered that day in eighth grade. It is a conscious decision to be fabulous, a decision I try to make on a daily basis.

Some days I'm more successful than others. On the really good days, the moments of daring, where I listened to my heart and followed my dreams and my desires, divorced from my inner critic and others' expectations, my life has shot off like a rocket in exciting and new directions. The results of such forays have been stunning: Valedictorian of my college class and two gold medals in swimming at the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games. Fabulous Kelly hasn't failed me yet, and honestly, I don't think she ever will.

ESL Drop-Out by Nana Chen

Nana Chen is a freelance photographer and writer whose work has appeared in Adbusters, South China Morning Post, Dynasty, Silkroad, Scanorama, and other publications.

"Have you considered taking ESL?" The professor said it loudly in front of the class. I said, "Yeah. Ten years ago," in perfect English, with a southern drawl.

"Did you take an English proficiency test this past summer?" I said I'd shown up on the day of the test and was told that if English was the only language I knew, I didn't have to sit through it.

"And English is the only language you speak?" She asked. I nodded. "You don't speak another language at home? What about your folks?" She was no fool.

"They speak Taiwanese and we reply in English," I said. She looked at me for several seconds, "All right. Well, if you want to pass this class, you need to make an appointment to see me in my office." At the end of the semester, I got a "C" and a lecture on the importance of writing well. I forgot it as soon as she finished.

A year later, I was in another classroom. This time I was an ESL teacher to Taiwanese adults in the evenings. I had decided to take a six-month break from college and follow my parents to Taipei. They had returned, bankrupt, and my mother deathly ill. A month passed and I was offered morning teaching hours through referral at a college. I needed the money.

When I asked to pick up the textbooks before classes started, the dean told me not to bother. Besides, the books hadn't arrived. I arrived to the dean's office the first day and waited by the door. A long line of students chatted as they waited for the dean to count their tuition money. She'd spread the bills into a fan in front of her and count them, five at a time. When someone finally brought her attention to me, she looked up, her money fan bent halfway from counting, "Oh. I thought you were a student. You're Nana? Come. Let me finish this first." She put the stack of money into her drawer and turned to hand me a stack of thick textbooks: "History of British Literature—1500 to 1700" in a hot pink cover, "History of Modern American Literature" with a picture on the cover. I felt ill. She took my stillness as rejection and told me I could just use these books until I found something better. She would order other titles.

That night, I'd gone to buy an anthology of short stories from around the world. I figured it'd be a lot easier to prepare for class if I could get through the stories the night before. So my education started, with my students. For the next seven years, I taught and wrote and read. When an editing job at a marketing firm came up, I took it even though I was terrified. What if they asked about my language background? Would I say English was my third language? No. I'd have to lie. A year after working as an editor, I got a raise, then a bonus. My boss told me I was so far the most popular editor in the company's history. I said maybe it was because I was a woman. She said it wasn't the gender. Slowly, I gained enough confidence to ask if I could work from home so that I could start running an English school for children in the evenings. She agreed.

By then I felt I'd come very far in my career and learning this troublesome third language. I should be content, I told myself. At least I wasn't waiting tables in Georgia anymore. I was a college dropout. I should be satisfied with what I had. Nothing helped. I was miserable. I didn't want to be a teacher. I didn't want to be a corporate trainer, nor did I want to edit consumer reports. But I had to be realistic, I told myself. Dreams were not to be lived and felt in my waking hours. There's practicality involved in life. What made me think I had something to offer? Who would want it? And people, especially other women, helped bury these moments of desire to be myself. I was a perfect ancient Chinese maiden if they saw me doing embroidery. I was a perfect girlfriend if they heard that I cooked well, a perfect mother-to-be if I was caught crocheting. I was never just a girl with talent. And for that reason, and my own insecurities, my natural inclination towards the arts remained buried until I was 30. So depressed by then, surrounded by luxury I didn't appreciate, mostly acquaintances who'd never be friends, eating and shopping to feel temporarily content, it was easy to hate myself. And eventually, my health started to suffer. I knew it was time then. Either start reserving a plot of land for my grave or learn to live the life I wanted.

I began by telling my companion of ten years to get lost. It hadn't been working. It never did. "And this time, please don't threaten to commit suicide or tell me you'll have a stroke. Let's just end it," I pleaded. So he threatened to go mad instead and told me everyone would blame and hate me. I learned to speak up, telling him I'd ship him back to his parents if he indeed became an invalid. No more playing with my mind.

Only when it was over did I feel ready to pay attention to myself. I finally quit teaching after 13 years and resigned from my well-paying corporate editing job. Instead, I went to work for a magazine that paid much less. It didn't matter because my brain finally felt active. I could read about topics I was curious about and write on them. What was even more assuring, I was good at it. Around this time, I dared myself to go further by submitting short stories. A few months later, the first piece, Uncle, was published online. So I continued daring myself until I became a travel editor for an online magazine, managing staff editors. Then came a three-book deal with a publisher and eventually an art column. Little by little, the confidence built and I came to like myself more.

I then dared myself to do the other things I'd never had the nerve to pursue. Hiding in a room with only a computer, I emailed examples of my art and photography to galleries and museums around the world. I've since had five photography and art exhibitions in Montreal, New York and Taipei. With each little success, I now remind myself the importance of remaining honest. With each little failure, I drown the bad feelings by working a bit harder. It seems to be working. I have now lived my new life for three years and am looking forward to many more. As for trying other new things, I also enrolled in a ballet class. There I learned to leave some things alone. There's enough to do.

DEAR TOKYO, MEET YOUR NEXT POP STAR by Kimberly Cooper

Kim Cooper lives and works in Toronto Canada. She works in the advertising industry but her love for writing and film keeps her busy in her spare time. She has started a website to support kids who have type 1 diabetes, where she also shares her experiences. She loves to be inspired and hopes to motivate others to find the best in themselves.

So who says a 5 foot 1, pudgy redhead can't go to Japan to become the next pop star singing in Japanese?

Well, most people actually. Reactions to my venture were predominantly full of laughter, surprise and doubt. It didn't help that I was approximately 20 pounds overweight as well. I had studied Japanese in University and lived in Japan for about a year before my adventure began. While in Tokyo, I fell in love with Japanese culture and Pop Music. After leaving Japan and coming home, while talking with a friend one day, we discussed my love for karaoke and singing in Japanese. I decided that I would try the impossible and go after something I really wanted. Not only did I have to start with basic singing lessons, I knew I had to engage in a serious weight loss program. This is where my physical transformation began. During a one year time frame, I cycled, walked, jogged, taebo-ed...But this was different from any other attempt at shedding pounds. I was engulfed in my dream, my goal, my vision. This vision made me stronger and encouraged me to push harder.

Within approximately one year, I had lost an amazing 15 to 20 pounds. Above all, I had done it properly, exercise and healthy eating. My physical transformation reminded me my possibilities were endless. Suddenly I was a healthy, cute and more confident red-head (with trendy blonde streaks!) ready to introduce myself to the world. Fortunately I had a friend, working in Ireland who got his media company interested in my venture. I was flown to Ireland to record music and film a video. It was a dream come true. I imagined me wearing earphones in a state of the art studio, wearing cool clothes and busting out tunes.

I landed in Dublin and quickly realized my dream was largely convoluted. I found myself in a studio that was actually a transformed guest room in a house, the size of a port-a-potty. My Japanese lyrics were put together to music written by a friend. The recording process was not glamorous by any means and I struggled with simple tunes. In fact the second demo song was to be a beautiful ballad, but in the wee hours of the night realizing my voice wasn't meant for love songs, it turned into a rap! Although embarrassed, I managed to push past it, still in shock over the recording studio. When it came to video time, there were no make-up artists, wardrobe consultants and background dancers. Instead I went to the nearest boutique, bought last minute attire with the full intention of returning it after shooting. It was a tacky light blue fluffy full-length coat, that cost a pretty penny, that won my heart over! Once again, the experience was long-drawn-out, taken with a camcorder that looked more like one that a family uses on vacation. I left Ireland feeling major disappointment and hopeless. I also left without any proof of performance in hand. I was told that the demo CD and promo video would be completed in a short time, and they would market it in Japan. I had no choice but to fall back into 9-5 office life. Here I was, potential future pop star in Japan, screening phone calls for a school director. Six months I waited patiently, working out, trying to stay hopeful.

Finally I was told the company did not have the resources to continue the promotion. My world was crushed. Fortunately it only took a couple of days of moping to realize that I wasn't finished. There was no way that I was going down this way. So, I got a hold of my demo and had a CD cover created from cheesy pop pictures I had taken. Next thing I knew, I quit my job and was boarding a plane to Japan. Crazy? Yes, itt was. Considering I had little savings, and didn't have a well thought-out strategic plan, it was absolutely irrational and unheard of, but....incredibly gutsy. I knew my mind and heart would not rest until I gave it a true attempt in my own mind.

Japan was a miss-match of adventures; I went from singing in a live-house with a Hawaiian band to auditioning for a rap group. This was met with days of eating on a budget of 500 yen, and teaching ESL to a rambunctious group of kids in cram school.

Only a couple of years from the big 30, I realized that I would need years of dedication, more extremely hard work, and luck. As my resources dwindled and a paranoia that my voice sounded like a really poor contestant on an Idol show, I decided to put my pop star life to rest. I was surprisingly relieved with this decision however I needed closure. Herein came the video.

I was fortunate enough to meet a fabulous writer and director along my travels who latched onto my idea with delight and amazement. He suggested we put a music video together, which absolutely thrilled me. Well, the video also wasn't as glamorous as I imagined, but it did put some closure to my quest. Of course on a budget, we managed to pull things together nicely: borrowed some clothes, convinced some break-dancer to be my background dancers, and let the backdrop of Japan shine brilliantly. I couldn't have asked for more. The video did just as I had hoped, brought some amount of closure to my adventure.

I returned to Canada broke, but with a full sense of pride. Although my dream hadn't played out exactly how I imagined it to, it was an experience that changed my life. When I watch my video, it seems surreal. It is a constant reminder that I can be or do anything in this life. Whatever is next is going to be just as jaw-dropping.

HEART by Julia Butterfly Hill

Julia Butterfly Hill climbed a 2,000-year-old Redwood in order to stop loggers from cutting it down. Little did she know she'd remain in its canopy, defying the scare tactics of the logging company, for up to two years! She came down only when the loggers agreed to save the tree she named LUNA, along with the grove that surrounded it. This is her DTBF story of how and why she did it.

The root word for courage comes from the French and means “heart.” True courage can only come when we are speaking out or taking action from the heart. For me, this seed of understanding took root and began to grow in December of 1997.
While traveling west with friends, I experienced the ancient redwoods in person for the first time. I was deeply and profoundly touched by their beauty, majesty, and ancient wisdom. I felt like I had walked into the most sacred of cathedrals.
A few weeks later, I found out that over 97 percent of these trees—that grow to be 200 to 300 feet tall and 2,000 to 3,000 years old—have already been logged and that they are continuing to be cut down with highly destructive industrial logging practices. I could not believe this was happening. I felt like I should do something to try to help stop this atrocity from continuing, but I didn’t know how or what to do.

Then, I heard that people were living in trees in order to protect them from being cut down and to try to bring attention to the issue. I thought to myself, “I could do that!” I grew up with two brothers and no sisters, so I knew how to climb trees! I wasn’t quite sure how to be an activist. I wasn’t even sure what that meant exactly. But tree climbing was something I knew how to do, so I volunteered.

When I climbed 180 feet up into the branches of a 200-foot-tall, over 1,000-year-old redwood tree, now known as “Luna,” I thought I would be there for three weeks to a month. It turned out to be over two years, 738 days to be exact, before my feet would touch the ground again. In that time, I faced many challenges that left my heart, spirit, and body broken. There were so many moments where I wanted to give up. Yet every time I felt myself in this space, I would pray and ask for strength. The funny thing is I would always get sent more challenges. Finally, I realized that I was receiving what I had asked for because the only way we get stronger is through exercise, including the exercise of heart, mind, and spirit. Every challenge then became an opportunity for learning and growth.

It was in this way that I realized that every moment, every day, every choice is an opportunity for courage. Every time I choose to act consciously out of my love for my world, no matter what the status quo says, no matter how difficult the choice might be, I am living a life that has meaning, joy, and true power. No matter how dark things in our world seem sometimes, I am the only one who can consciously choose to shine a light of caring, commitment, and courage. It really is a moment, by moment, choice. Yes, we need the “big” acts to encourage and inspire us, but it is only through looking at these as examples to empower ourselves, that we find the extraordinary person that lives within the heart of each and every one of us.

PLAY ON by Susan Richardson

"When you come over, we'll go camping," he says down the phone from 3,000 miles away. "I know this little island – we'll drive north, then rent a canoe. An island just for the two of us – how does that sound?"

I haven't seen Jeff in over five months. We met two years ago when we were both graduate students at the University of Toronto. He was completing a PhD in psychology and I was on a scholarship from Wales, studying drama. We've had a pretty turbulent relationship, but it's somehow managed to endure, even though I've moved back to Wales to work as a playwright for an educational theatre company. Whenever my work commitments and finances allow, I fly over to Canada again to see him: on this particular occasion, we're going to spend eight precious weeks together, as one of my plays is to be performed at a Toronto theatre.

It's a new play - a humorous, but, I hope, instructive piece about female sexuality set inside the body of a woman, with several fretful Hormones, an under-confident Vagina and a much-neglected Clitoris as the central characters. I'm thrilled that my work’s going to be seen in Canada – it's a major step forward in my career - but I'm also really terrified, mainly because I haven't yet come up with a convincing ending. Each of the characters is involved, throughout the play, in a quest for the elusive Orgasm, but as to how they should eventually find it, I really don't have a clue. At the moment, I've got a bold and brazen Penis appearing at the end with the Orgasm in tow, but somehow, it's just not working. I'm desperately hoping that when the rehearsal process gets underway next week and I see the director and performers in action, inspiration will strike and I'll know exactly how I should round it off.

For the time being, though, I'm going to try to stop worrying about the play and what the critics may say, and enjoy my weekend in the Canadian wilderness with Jeff. I'm not the most outdoorsy woman in the world but hey, it's going to be isolated and romantic and after five months apart, a groundsheet will be as welcome as a king-size bed.

I give Jeff a king-size hug when he meets me at the airport and we start to drive north towards Georgian Bay. En route, we stop for food and flashlight batteries and other essential items like chocolates and wine.

"I want tonight to be real special," says Jeff with an enticing smile. "There's so much we've got to celebrate."

Even though it's already midnight back in Wales, I'm wide-awake with happiness and anticipation. A certain amount of nerves are mixed in there too – being a non-swimmer, the canoe bit doesn't exactly fill me with glee, but I'm determined to go through with it and share in Jeff's island idyll.

The highway gives way to minor roads and the towns to occasional houses, and soon we're at the settlement of Dillon Cove, where the dreaded canoes are for rent. The nub of land for which we're going to be heading looks awfully distant and the water between it and us awfully deep. I don an orange life jacket, help Jeff load our gear into the middle section of the canoe and cover it with tarpaulin, then kneel in the front, clutching a paddle. Jeff, the experienced canoeist, meanwhile, takes up position in the rear.

I'm scared, really scared, as we start to propel ourselves across the bay, with just a few inches of canoe separating me from the pulsing grey water. I don't look at the sun sinking in the sky or the family of Canada geese swimming along beside us – just keep my eyes fixed on the tree-clad wedge of land getting closer with each tentative stroke of my paddle. I even forget to fret about how I'm going to end my play.

Fifty five torturous minutes later, we're close enough to land, but Jeff suggests we canoe round the island and pitch camp on the other side, as facing out into Georgian Bay rather than back towards the mainland will give us a greater feeling of remoteness. Though I'm desperate to be back on solid ground, I submit to another fifteen minutes of paddling until Jeff pinpoints a suitable camping spot. As we haul the canoe up onto the stony beach, I nearly collapse from a combination of relief and aching knees.

"Let's sort out the tent,’"says Jeff. "Then we'll make ourselves some dinner and open that wine."

Whoever described the tent as two-man was exaggerating wildly, so it looks like the night ahead will be deliciously snug. Jeff gets a fire going and I again try not to think about my unfinished play as I concoct some sort of vegetable stew in a pot. The wine is then opened against the backdrop of bullfrogs croaking and the gently lapping water of the lake.

"Cheers," says Jeff, handing me a plastic beaker.

"‘To us," I say, tapping it against the side of his.

While I empty the contents of the saucepan into two plastic bowls, he stands with his back to me, facing the water. The moon's rising over the bay now, putting the final romantic touches to the scene.

"It's a magical place, this island," says Jeff, once we've squatted close to the fire to eat. "I’ve been wanting to bring you here to see it for a long time."

"I'm really glad I've come," I say, sipping from my beaker with a smile.

"You know, you've made a real difference to my life over the past two years. And this seemed like just the place to come to acknowledge and celebrate that."

My smile grows wider. I'm glowing from the cocktail of his words and the wine.

"Seemed like just the place to come and talk about the future too."

My smile is bigger still: it's at least as wide as the canoe.

"Like I said, it's been two years. And that's long enough to be sure about something, long enough to be real certain."

He pauses.

The bullfrogs croak.

I've temporarily stopped breathing.

"And - well - what I'm certain of is this. You and me - it isn't going to be for ever. You're in Wales, I'm in Toronto - it's time for us both to move on."

Breath comes but words won't. "I - what - I don't -"

"We both deserve better."

"You mean you want -"

He forks some stew into his mouth, chews, swallows. "I think we should end our relationship, yeah."

"But coming here - you said it was special -"

"I wanted us to celebrate what we've had, not mourn its passing."

"But you can't just- "‘

"I've given a lot of thought to it and really, it's for the best. Yeah, it'll be a tough transition, but we can help each other through it."

I want to yell and scream and howl at the moon. I want to tell Jeff that if he thinks dragging me here to end things would somehow soften the blow, he's one hell of a lousy psychologist. I want to take what's left of the bottle of wine and smash it against the hull of that stupid canoe. I want to flee the island, flee Toronto, fly home- home-home to Wales, only I'm stuck here, can't swim, and anyway it's dark and in three weeks' time, I've got a play on -

Silently, I force myself to finish my meal. I use water from the lake to wash my bowl and when my eyes start to sting and fill with tears, I tell myself it's only from the smoke of the camp fire.

And finally, when Jeff's in the tent and the moon's at its height, I dig in my backpack for my notepad and pen and begin to write.

"Congratulations!" Another complete stranger throws her arms round me. "I haven't laughed so much in ages - and that ending - wow!"

I'm backstage after the opening night of my play. It feels like almost every audience member is backstage with me, along with the director and actors and all their family and friends.

"‘Those Hormones made me die! The play was, like, so funny but it really got me thinking too."

I'm overjoyed to hear these comments. It's been a highly pressured rehearsal process - not nearly enough time and rewrites often needed on the spot - and until I heard the clamorous applause at the end of tonight's performance, I was convinced my playwriting career was on the line. I scan the crowd for the director, Lisa; want to thank her again for doing so much to make the production a success.

Instead, though, my gaze falls on Jeff.

He spots me a millisecond after I spot him. My irresolute heart both sinks and soars as he starts weaving his way through the crowd towards me.

"Hi."

"Hello."

"Your play - it was great." He fiddles with one of the flaps of his multi-pocketed vest. He looks as out-of-place here as I must have done kneeling in the front of a canoe.

"‘So how've you been?"

"Good," I say too quickly. "Fine."

"Can we - "He fiddles some more. "Can we maybe go some place quieter and talk?"

A glass of champagne is thrust into my hand by Ally, who played the part of Clitoris. She was, without a doubt, the star of the show. Once I decided to get rid of the bold and brazen Penis and give more lines to Clitoris, my problems with the ending were over.

Jeff tries again. "I'd really like to talk to you."

I sip from my glass. "So talk."

"I've been - " Still more fiddling, with the zip of his vest this time. "I've been doing a lot of thinking since we got back from the island and - well - I guess I was wrong."

I take another sip. My tongue tingles from the bubbles.

"I was crazy to think we should end our relationship, totally crazy." His voice becomes more urgent; he leans closer. "Can we patch things up, d'you think - make a fresh start?"

From somewhere behind, I hear my name being called. It's Lisa - she and the cast, arms entwined, are having their photo taken and she wants me to be part of the picture.

"Well, can we?"

I turn away from Jeff and go to join them.

About me…
I am a writer and tutor of writing based in Wales. My work has appeared in a wide range of journals and anthologies including Acumen, Orbis, Poetry Wales and The Journal, while my poetic drama, Two of Me Now, is published by
Cecil Woolf in the Bloomsbury Heritage Series. Recently I was awarded a Churchill Travel Fellowship to journey through Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland in the footsteps of Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir, an intrepid tenth/eleventh century Norsewoman. I am currently writing a travel book (working title Three Islands and a Viking) based on my journey.

WRITING FOR PLEASURE by Sage Vivant

Ask anybody and they will tell you that in the mid-1990’s, I was one committed, consumer protection bank examiner. I loved my job, yet I never worked terribly late for the pure enjoyment of it. One day, though, I was asked to write “something funny” for the annual conference. (I wrote the humor column in the district’s monthly newsletter, so I suppose it was natural that they tapped me for this conference gig.) I got started on it that very day, and that night, it was nearly midnight before I realized I needed to stop and go home already. Midnight. At my desk. That had never happened before, but then, I’d never been asked to write “something funny” before.

I wrote a parody based on the Jeopardy television game show, where the dialogue was clever and the audience learned about bank examinations. As I watched my script being performed and listened to the audience’s laughter, something inside me that I can only describe as tumescent burst and spread some sort of hypnotizing elixir throughout my body. I knew at that moment that I needed to be writing and not examining banks.

It took two years, however, before I could figure out how to write without starving. (Bank examiners do not make sea changes without knowing there's a healthy inventory of life rafts.) I knew that a 39-year old former bank examiner would not be greeted with open arms as a budding comedy writer in Hollywood, so I crossed that option off my list early. I knew I had to write, but I also knew I had to write what people wanted to read because, let's face it, I wasn't getting any younger. Based on store book shelves, I figured people wanted to read about sex and that they had an endless fascination with themselves. I, then, would write about them having sex.

And my company, Custom Erotica Source, was born in early 1998. My concept was, and remains, quite simple. Customers complete a very simple questionnaire where they can tell me what they'd like and a bit about themselves, then I craft a story based on what they've provided to me. Voila. Customized erotica. I bind it and wrap it so it's pretty, and from there it often becomes a kind of keepsake when given as a gift.

From comedy to erotica, you ask? Believe it or not, it seemed like a natural leap to me. Both genres rely on universal experience as their core. We all know what it's like to ride in an airplane and feel frustrated by the tiny seats, so we can laugh at a comedian's jokes about his plane trip from New York to Washington. And we all know what it's like to secretly lust after somebody we've got no business thinking about;so we can feel aroused when a writer recreates that highly charged experience for us on paper.

I'd dabbled in erotic writing over the years, just for fun. Lots of people have done this but for some reason, it's a bit like masturbation;nobody likes to confess to it. My erotica experience had little to do, however, with my decision to write customized erotica. What I really wanted, as much as I wanted to write, was to help people feel better about their sexual selves.

I've always been disappointed to witness how ill at ease some people are about sexual topics. Many of them don’t ask for what they need because they don't think they're worthy. Others don't ask because they don't even know what they like or need. Meanwhile, punishment and ridicule hide behind every corner for the occasional brave soul who wants to stop feeling guilty about sex and start understanding its role in a healthy, well-integrated life.

As a woman, I also understood that I was an empathetic and careful listener. People and their motivations had always been a topic of interest for me. A career counselor might have taken that assortment of traits and recommended that I become a psychiatrist or crime scene investigator. But where would the writing have come in? Outside of journalism, most writing pursuits are rather solitary and don't afford the writer much human contact. As much as I love solitude, I always knew I wouldn't be happy with a career based on working all by myself with only my imagination to guide me.

Lest you think that my noble undertaking did not encounter a few snags, let me pause to tell you about some of the reactions I got from friends and family. "Youll meet all the wrong people," said my mother. "And we won't be able to tell anybody else in the family that you're doing this."

"Well, I wish you were writing bedtime stories for kids instead of adults, but if that's what makes you happy, there's nothing we can do about it. You're not a kid anymore," my father told me.

The Better Business Bureau would not allow me to be a member, Custom Erotica Source had to pay more for credit card processing services than, say, a gift shop would, and even some of my press releases were pulled from circulation because somebody somewhere might be offended by the very thought that sexual fantasies might benefit from being indulged in a harmless story. My bank, with which I had done business for more than 15 years, refused to give me a merchant account because they didn't approve of my line of work. It's clear to me that they didn't understand my line of work, but that's neither here nor there, now; I found another bank to do business with.

But I persisted because I knew that what I wanted to do was neither sleazy nor unimportant. I knew that these obstacles were actually small compared to the much larger need that existed in the public for sexual exploration through the safety of customized erotica. I loved my brainchild not only because it was the permission I needed to write for a living but because I was convinced beyond any doubt that lots of people were going to embrace the same idea that my bank, the Better Business Bureau, the press release distributor, and countless other businesses pooh-poohed.

I couldn't afford a Webmaster and so I had to learn HTML to build my own Web site. I didn't even own a computer (it was 1998, remember, so cut me a little slack, okay?) so I plunked down the money and bought one. I waded through the mire of business licenses and legal issues, and emerged slightly bruised but more eager than ever to get my business off the ground. I was also beginning to discover that I was a natural entrepreneur.

In my personal life, choosing erotica over something more innocuous such as children's stories or historical romance opened me up to guarded expressions of support at best. Most of my friends blushed when I told them my plans and one of them even asked me, quite incredulously,"but who on earth would order a customized erotic story?"

I'm so happy to report that over a thousand people can now raise their hands in answer to my friend's question. I and my company have been featured in a host of national magazines from Glamour to Bridal Guide, and my stories have appeared in dozens of anthologies. I'm also happy to report that customized erotica has not only affected my clients' lives, it's affected mine. I never could have imagined the satisfaction I experience when a client tells me my story was exactly what he or she needed. Still more astounding, though, is the insight into human nature and sexuality that I've been given through the brave, intrepid souls who confide their desires to me and rely on me to fashion something uniquely tailored to their preferences. I've learned that sexual desires come in all shapes, sizes, degrees, flavors, and colors. My definition of "normal" has expanded drastically and I feel grateful beyond measure. It has been a true privilege to get into the hearts, minds, and libidos of my clients. All this and writing, too.

Figuring out my unique purpose in this life fueled me with a level of energy I never could have anticipated. Did I mention that I met my husband through the writing contacts I met? I now have something I had always wanted: a meaningful, rewarding life. It's safe to say that everything in my life improved when I opted to write.

Who knew what lurked in the heart of that bank examiner ten years ago? Thank goodness I released it or you might have read some alarming news story about an imploding bank examiner.

About me… I am a writer who came to writing somewhat late in life--at the age of 39. I started my own company writing customized erotic stories for people and have never looked back. The changes in my life after making this decision have been nothing less than fabulous. …