From a Flushed Family Heirloom to the Stages of New York

Bold Journey wanted to talk about risk, about how a person learns to bet on themselves. I answered with a story my mother tells. The night she met her future in-laws, my grandmother handed her earrings that had been in the family for three generations. Nervous, my mother dropped one down the toilet. She went pale and confessed, expecting the worst. My grandmother just laughed and said, now your grandmothers will look good in heaven, and then asked for the other earring. On my mother's wedding day, that single remaining earring came back to her as a necklace, proof that we can make something beautiful out of any situation.

I live by that. There are no problems, only opportunities to learn and grow. It is what let me take the leaps this life has asked of me, as a mother, a businesswoman, a duathlete, and yes, as a woman who stands in front of a theatre full of strangers and speaks to the dead.

What most people do not know is that before any of this, I trained as a classical actor. I thought I would grace the stages of New York playing Shakespeare's heroines. Instead, after thirty years, I am finally getting there playing the one role I never imagined, myself.