There was a lot going on….neighbors cleaning up debris from the storm…kids playing…bikes trolling the boardwalk…other runners grabbing the chance to kick up endorphins …and an inordinate number of antique vehicles sprinkling the streets, their owners proudly displaying their treasure.

They sparkled. They shined. Their little black and white plates proudly announcing the year they were ‘born.’ It was obvious they were considered a thing of beauty to their owner. Well taken care of. Cherished. Protected. Loved. And most of them were the very same cars and trucks my friends and I rode around in during our teenage years. It was a sight to see…

 WHAT???????!!!!!(If I could make the sound of squealing brakes right now, I would!)

 Did I miss something? These beautiful, shiny, sparkling cars and trucks that I drove around in as a teenager are… ANTIQUES???

My mind started whirling. I won’t bore you with the trail I took – literally or figuratively – but I will say….antique vehicles? Me? Oh my. When did THAT happen? And how come nobody told me? Once I stopped reeling, I got it. Something really important. It goes like this.

Things that are cherished, protected and loved sparkle and shine, no matter how long they’ve been around.

If those ‘antique’ vehicles can sparkle and shine, then so can I. I can cherish the body I have been given, protect the peace I have so purposefully worked toward, and surround  myself with love. I can be well taken care of….by others and myself. I can glisten and I can glow. And I can give the same to others. Nothing less will do.

That seems so simple. So easy. So perfect. But it took a few well-placed automobiles to remind me of the road.

And the run? That’s simple too.

I picked up the pace.

And it was perfect. Just perfect.

They arrived, as promised, along with a great little note explaining their program, a thank you email to share with my friends (that gave them a discount) and a great little bag that my little shoes were cradled in. I loved them immediately but didn’t wear them right away. I wanted to look at them. I wanted to SEE them…to understand what they were and why they were so great.

For those of you who haven’t seen the AT&T commercial (featuring the founder using his phone as he travels around the world running his business) or heard about the remarkable sales of these simple yet comfortable little slip of a shoe, let me enlighten you.

If you buy a pair of TOMS shoes they give a pair away. Yep. That simple. One for one. Brilliant.

This guy, Blake (not Tom), went on vacation, saw a bunch of barefoot kids in a third world country, hooked up with some friends who were involved in a ‘shoe drop,’ saw preventable diseases and a vast need. He came home, developed a socially conscious business model, built in a small profit and wah-lah TOMS shoes is born! (I am sure a great deal when into developing this, so I mean no disrespect).

As I said, brilliant.

This is a regular guy with an un-regular idea. A regular guy who took a much needed vacation from the gerbel wheel of corporate USA. A regular guy who took some time off and found a whole new way to spend his llife.

That. Is. Spectacular.

We should all be so open, so aware, so willing to lend our expertise to meet a need. So the lesson here- look around, see a need, find a creative way to fill it. Or talk to Blake. He’s always looking for people to talk about shoes.

This book is priceless for anyone who yearns for a dream that is not becoming a reality. It’s a must for anyone who has a song to sing, a symphony to write, a novel to finish or a canvas to paint….for anyone who feels a burning in their soul to give something to the world or to start something new…for anyone who wants to do something.

Anything. At. All. 

This book is about Resistance. Yes. Resistance. The thing that keeps us from being…from doing…from claiming all that is ours to be, do and have. Mr. Pressfield hands Resistance up to you in a way that will make you sit back and say ‘ah-ha!’…sneaky little devil looks like that too???? Who knew….?

It is a remarkable little book that is packed with wisdom. When I finished it, I felt like I had been let in on a secret…a secret that had plagued me most of my artistic life….and I felt relieved. 

There had been times past when I thought I was lazy, a consummate procrastinator, a jack of all trades-master of none kinda’ gal…now I know it was none of those things. It is and always has been the same thing that plagues all creative-types (and others too, you know who you are)…but you’ll have to read it to truly get it. 

I’ll taunt you ever-so-slightly with a snippet of the chapter entitled,  Resistance and Self-Dramatization:

 “Creating soap opera in our lives is a symptom of Resistance. Why put in years of work designing a new software interface when you can get just as much attention by bringing home a boyfriend with a prison record?

 Sometimes entire families participate unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers, the whole starship lurches from one spine-tingling episode to another. And the crew knows how to keep it going. If the level of drama drops below a certain threshold, someone jumps in to amp it up. Dad gets drunk, Mom gets sick, Janie shows up for church with an Oakland Raiders tattoo. It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: nobody gets a damn thing done.”

 Yea. That’s what this book is like. Sharp, witty and to the point but oh so much more….bite off one of those snippets or chew through the whole thing at once. It doesn’t really matter how you get this one down….but if you do, maybe then, you’ll be kickin’ Resistance where it counts and making that date with destiny that was yours all along.

 Here’s an example of Hansel and Gretel-ing.

 I got an email one day that lead me to an organization called ONE (more on that in another blog). I went to the site, saw what they were doing in the world, cried and joined.

 Shortly thereafter, I went to a bookstore. As I was in line to checkout, I noticed the girl in front of me holding a magazine. I could only see the back cover. It was an ad for ONE.

 I checked out and went back in….following my pebble. I immediately found the magazine with that ad on the back page (don’t ask me how, it just happens when you are doing this). I bought it. The name of it was ‘Relevant. God, Life, Progressive Culture’ Never heard of it.

 I opened it to a page (ad or article, I don’t remember) about a guy who wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. It sounded good. It also sounded familiar. I looked in the basket that holds my ‘books bought but not yet read’ pile and there it was …Blue Like Jazz. I read it (of course), loved it and looked the guy up online.

 I noticed he had put together a DVD series called Into the Elements. It’s topic: writing. I am an aspiring writer. It looked interesting (remembering I am still Hansel and Gretel-ing here), so I ordered it. It came, I watched it, I liked it.

 I also noticed he had used a lot of material from Robert McKee’s Story seminar (which he had attended). I had that book too (in that basket I mentioned) and had often thought to take the seminar if it came to the east coast. I looked it up online and found the ‘Story’ seminar was being offered in NYC. The timing fit, so I signed up to go.

 I also discovered that the author of Blue Like Jazz is on a book tour for his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and will be in NYC at the same time. I, of course, will be there. At both…the ‘Story’ seminar by Robert McKee and the book tour with Donald Miller.

 What happens next is anyone’s guess.

 THIS is Hansel and Gretel-ing, at its finest. It can happen to anyone, at any time, in any space. You just have to open yourself up, really pay attention, and follow the promptings.

 Start little at first. Take a left instead of a right. Go to the store on a Tuesday instead of a Saturday. Listen to your instincts. Trust your gut. Follow the leads. They get bigger, you get wiser and everything conspires to lead you exactly where you need to go.

 Now, THAT is fun.