The Homecoming…

…Not a play by Harold Pinter (though it is), this is the story of a boy, who in the midst of frustration and depression left everything he knew on a whim to experience life in a different world, only to come back not just two months later…but two months wiser!

I have officially been back in New York City for a week and 1 day…8 days, and I have not wasted a moment! The day after I landed I was suppose to teach my little 3 and 4 year olds…there was a little confusion and I missed those class…ANYWAY! After that I saw and caught up with some good friends and called that Day 1. The following day, I am proud to say,was the epitome of NY days! I woke up early to get myself on an audition list, only to leave, pseudo-successfully teach the classes I was suppose to teach the previous day, went back to do the audition I’d signed up for and while there met up with a friend. Together we went to another audition, then to watch a staged reading, followed by a quick glass of wine as said friend and I parted ways…she was homeward bound as I was off to meet yet another friend to see yet another show. To teach a combined class of about 20 preschoolers in a park, have 2 auditions, AND see 2 shows?...You don’t get much more New York than that!!!

Since Day 2 I've gone on to see another show, go to another audition, catch up with many friends and even meet a small cluster of new ones. I am currently after my second day of training for my new bartending job and will officially be behind the bar as of Friday night. 

The thing about The City is that it waits for no one. It speeds past rather you’re ready or not. You can get on, or not, it’s that simple! Some may see it as The City “kicking butt and taking names,” but truly…The City ain’t got time for all that! The reason why it never sleeps is because of an incessant drive that lies within all of its inhabitants. The never-ending struggle to be better than the best, to be earlier, to shine brighter, to invent more and be new, to pay homage to the old, to create, to LIVE!

There was a time when I wasn’t ready. I was complacent and I was sad. I went away and saw a different kind of struggle…not easier, not harder, but different. It helped me to see the beauty in the exhaustion that feeds The City. I gave myself a purpose and I gave myself the reasons and I am ready!

The Quest has been exhilarating and it is everything I could’ve asked for! What is it that they say? “Careful what you wish for…?” I am a testament of the universal support that feeds us! I’ve always known it but now it’s been proven, and I can’t wait to share!

The Quest is far from over! Though another chapter has been closed. In front of you, I turn the page to begin the next! I hope you all stay with me through the ups and downs of this next chapter, as I am very excited to share it with you! I couldn’t thank you all enough for your constant energy! You build me up and give me strength! I am grateful for those known and unknown!

Endless Love!

~S

“Alchemy is transformation.

Through alchemy you begin the quest for perfection.

The goals of the quest---heroism, hope, grace, and love---are the inheritance of the timeless.”

-Deepack Chopra, “The Way Of The Wizard”

*I honestly had NO IDEA about this before I named this blog…isn’t that AWESOME? J

   

The Bitter Sweetness con't

It is now 6:30AM in Moscow…wish me luck entertaining myself until my flight leaves in 4 hours. I can barely keep my eyes open but instead of going to sleep, I am talking to you! If nothing else then just to vent about the man sitting next to me on the 4-hour flight I just got off of from Tel Aviv. That man took up a quarter of my already small quarters on this Transaero flight and if you know me then you know that spatial awareness and personal space are both VERY important concepts to me…HE WAS TOO CLOSE!!! Both him and the woman to my right…I didn’t realize Russians were so wide! I normally freeze on flight (Kind of the way I’m freezing at this airport) but this was a sweaty, sweaty flight sandwiched between the man who should’ve purchased two seats instead of one and the woman who dropped her used earplug on me. Come on people!

Then Ole’ Dude had the nerve to go to sleep with that “cute little” eye mask on…wincing, talking, gesturing with his hands and shaking his leg (Of course the one closest to me). I kept thinking “What??? Are you having a nightmare? TAKE THE MASK OFF IF YOU’RE FREAKING OUT! You know my brother use to get in trouble for shaking his leg like that in the car and here you are…A GROWN MAN!”

Bless my soul! If that wasn’t enough, it was time to start our initial descent. Turns out he had taken off his shoes prior to me finding my seat…I was impressed that I didn’t pass away from asphyxiation by an overwhelming fat-man-foot smell, but let me tell you… when it came time to put those bad boys back on, post airplane swell, there was a struggle in row 24. The man had to take 3, COUNT’EM, 3 breaks (yes, I counted), then, when he finally sat back “normally” He was completely winded! I would’ve chuckled had I not been so upset about him invading my personal space for so long!

Now all I see is a gray sky from the large windows of the boring VKO airport. I’m sure you’re all wondering “Stephane, where’s the sweet con’t’ed?” That’s when I say “Maybe if you had a little patience…” Lol! Stam! Just kidding…is it nap time? What? Who? – Ok I’m really done…AnywayS!

The silver lining of this gray sky (not even cloud…full sky) is that I am on my way home, and I cannot explain how EXTREMELY excited I am for my new endeavors and my new NY adventures! It’s the best time of year to be in the city with all of the free art and concerts in parks and outdoor venues, and I’m excited to start my new projects! Stay tuned to learn more about my next role as Stephane Duret: Life Coach! This is going to be great…as soon as I get back! In the meantime I will nap because I almost quoted both When Harry Met Sally AND The Wiz in the same sentence…sleep deprivation? Maybe…

~S

*8 Hours later, it isn’t the NY Summer I was expecting to greet me upon landing but I’m here! Hello America, Hello friends and family, Hello life “con’t” ;) So thrilled to be here…now lets go get me a job!!! ;)

The Bitter-Sweetness

(5/15/13)

It is 4am and I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the couch, maybe it’s the mosquitoes, or maybe it’s the realization that I want to go home. It has truly been a blessing being here with the love and support I was looking for. I’ve been validated with compliments, immediate work, and many empty promises. But I’m noticing that this is not it for me. Maybe the point of my trip was to feel more like a “somebody,” to feel important. Maybe it was a lesson in collaboration, coexistence, or the fact that no one can be completely 100% independent. Maybe it was to reconnect with my love for the American Musical that I somehow lost track of, or maybe I had to leave my country all together to see what I’d really be missing should I ever choose to leave it behind for good. These are all beautiful and important things to learn but what it boils down to is that there really isn’t much for me here. As an American non-Hebrew speaker in Israel already my options were limited, then to add to the fire that I’d have to bend over backwards for legal papers and documents to do things that I wouldn’t necessarily do on my own accord. My dearest friends are freelancers bouncing from job to job, working events (i.e. Bar/Bat Mitzvahs…i.e. teenage birthday parties) praying that they would’ve worked enough this month so that they could get paid NEXT month, and pay their bills. It’s the same struggle we have in the states except in a smaller pool with less competition at a much lower caliber. My friends are at the top of their game working to build a status quo that does not exist here and I want to make phone call after phone call after visits and stays in government offices to be thrown into that same fire?

I’ve learned that I want to work, and I have realized that I am willing to work to get work. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Action is a necessity and that seems to be the blue ribbon winner of lessons on this trip. I understand this now (as if I didn’t before). It will still be hard to jump through the hoops in the Big Apple, but at least I’ll be jumping hoops for a reason…in a language I speak!

It’s amazing how things come full circle…I’m remembering the sleep I lost when I decided to start The Quest (Note: I seldom loose sleep) and here I am filled with the same anxiety of what’s yet to come. Truthfully, I can stay up until dawn, I can pout, and cry, and be frustrated all I want but this will not give me the answers I want. No matter how many psychics you pay, you can never really know your future. All we can do is try and try again. Have a goal, make a decision, try until you can’t anymore then repeat steps 1-3 either until you’ve found your calling or until the day you leave the physical world. I’ve always had a hard time with this, but now as these thoughts leave my head through my fingers and my eyelids double in weight (no fat jokes!) I will rest my head knowing that I don’t know, and that I won’t know until it’s time. I tried Israel…and now it’s time to try New York again. A scary world for different reasons than many may think…but the goal’s been set, the decision’s been made, and now it’s time to try and try again.

I will start now by trying and trying to get some rest!

To all of you who kept such strong faith in me when I had no idea what I was doing, I love and appreciate you more than words can say!

  To trial and error!

~S

Popsicles and Gummy Sharks

4/29/13

Yesterday was a fantastic day! I had to be up at 8am, the absolute EARLIEST that I’ve had to be awake in the past 2 months. It was a hard, but what a pay-off…I FINALLY HAD SOMETHING TO DO!!! Rehearsal for a TV comedy show that I’ll be dancing in tomorrow! I have to be up at 5:30am for this one in order to get to the station by 7…wish me luck!

I got to rehearsal and was barely alive let alone coherent (not to mention COMPLETELY lost in the foreign language I still don’t speak). We entered the studio and began stretching, as professional dancers tend to instinctively do, when the choreographer walked in, laughed, and assured us that that wouldn’t be necessary. We learned 3 quick easy numbers and ran them a few times each for about 2 hours, then were released. “This is swell!” I told myself, still sleepy yet satisfied with my effort (anymore just would’ve been too much!) It always feels great to get up, and have somewhere to be, but to then be released early? Life is good!

My friends and I took advantage of the free afternoon, grabbed lunch, and vegged out for a minute. This was maybe the hottest day Israel has seen this year, paired with such an early morning we were all in rare form…slightly delusional. Being from Miami, I am use to heat but this heat came with a desert dryness that kept you thirsty. Still with time to spare before my friend had to teach a class he decided to take his girlfriend and I to one of his secret spots in Petach Tikwa (The “Western” suburb I mentioned a few blogs ago, except that it is, in fact, Eastern…The “Western Suburb” of Israel would actually be known as The Mediterranean Sea). It was an amazing Nature Reservation surrounding one of Israel's main water sources. We basked in the shade of a giant tree next to a pond, green with lily pads, and sat like children playing word games, singing, and back-up dancing for each other.

On the verge of dehydration, we decided to leave our little piece of heaven on Earth for some much needed refreshments, and of course, like children with a little allowance money in our pockets we left the corner store with 3 cases of water, 10 popsicles (They were 10 for 10 Shekels!), and a little bag of gummy sharks. We went back to my friend’s house and finished our popsicles while lying on our backs on the refreshingly chilled tile. It was a nostalgic flashback to one of those perfect “first day of summer” days…I can’t really tell if it was a flashback of my own life or of the movie Now And Then...regardless, it was nothing less than marvelous!

Wish you were here!

~S       

The Culmination of a Month

Today, April 20th, marks the completion of my first month in the international leg of The Quest. There have been many conversations about Art; from the joys of, the enrichments, and the vast difficulties. Talks of religion, tradition, the meta-physical and quantum physics. There have been days of enlightenment and fulfillment along with the most confusing and uninspired days of frustration. It’s been a whirlwind of emotions and such is life. As humans and constant learners and students of life, this is what it is, and what it will be until our last breaths. I am blessed…WE are blessed. The trick now is to manifest that blessing into something tangible. I wish us all luck on the journeys we can never turn away from as they ARE life!

Month 1 Lessons (or reminders):

*Patience is an absolute virtue

- We can’t expect everything to happen overnight. In fact, *expectations of any kind are often detrimental.

- Once we’ve put ourselves “out there,” then we’ve got to patiently listen and be keen on the reception, there is where the next step will be found. 

*Action is the most important key to success

- We have got to put ourselves out there in order to be received. Humility is useless when your voice isn’t heard.

- How can we get anywhere when we’ve got so much to offer but never offer it?

*A solid support group of friends is IMPERATIVE

- A lot of important realizations come from conversation. If you aren’t conversing then you are stagnant…still water doesn’t flow!

- The more like-minded and supportive people you can keep around, the better you can understand the needs of that world, and provide. Leaving you with a clearer purpose (Note: a clearER purpose isn’t necessarily CLEAR).

- Then there’s the fact that we can’t always pick ourselves up off the ground, sometimes we need to be helped to our knees before we can stand on our own again. (did that sound dirty? :P )

+And if for nothing else, then for a place to rest our heads…a very special Thank You to all of my Homes here in Israel. You are all more generous than I could have imagined! But really…you are LIFE savers!!!

And the final lesson:

*LOVE is and always will be right

- It is the fuel that energizes us to be, to try, to work, to learn, to share, to provide, to help, to grow, to live!

-Whatever comes from a place of Love will be “right” (and I don’t even like that word!)   

Stay turned for scenes from the next chapter! ;) 

The Awakening

So I’ve been in Israel about 22 days now and things are…fine! J It’s crazy to think I’ve been here almost a month…seems like the time is racing past and I still have so much that I want to do. Two week ago was the week of Pesach (Passover) and thank god we can eat bread again. I am grateful and so blessed to have had the time to spend such amazing traditional holidays, with such tremendous people, but The Quest must continue. Our physical states may have holidays, but our spirits do not, and now it is time to play catch-up.

The point of this blog is not to gripe about my “inaction” for the past month, but to talk about an amazing conversation I had with an amazingly wise man, a guru, if you will. I spent 4 days with a good friend and his family in a Western Israeli suburb. My friend’s father is what they call “A Religious” here in Israel. A religious man who keeps kosher, wears a kippah and a “tallit katan” (a poncho-like garment with a hole for the head and knotted fringe hanging from 4 corners) everyday, with a long beard and fantastic white curly hair coming only from the sides of his head. On this night, the last night of Pesach, after our Hag (holiday) dinner, we sat around the table conversing and he explained to me the reasons why he turned his life back to religion.

 “It is sometimes hard to know how to be a good person, but when there is a God and a Holy Book…a guide to follow, it makes life much easier to live”

As a non-religious person I first thought to myself “COP-OUT!” Keeping this exclamation to myself, of course. But then the comment was made that “all religions are the same.” I leaned in, having believed this for some time now. Be it God, Jah, Ala, or any of the many gods any religions praise at any given time, these figures are spirits. Energies, not in human form, rather created or discovered to guide us to live by the Golden Rule…theoretically. This belief or faith in a higher power is imperative to the survival of many people in a world where humans seem to be left to their own devices. It can be a very confusing and seemingly purposeless world without something, or someone to believe in, so religions were created, and are still observed and followed today.

The conversation started with an analysis of romantic relationships, with an emphasis on coping with disagreements and hardships. “When you are A Religious, it isn’t just the two of you in the relationship…there is also God,” my friend’s father explained. He went on to tell me that now, there’s not only a disrespect for the institution of marriage, but there is also a great deal of ego in today’s society…apparently this is an international problem. The Ego says, “I’m right and you’re wrong…I’m leaving!” When, in fact, “right and wrong” is completely ineffective, where a proper, mature adult response would be to find a solution through compromise or a widening of communication to better understand any situation.

According to my friend’s father, True Love cannot happen until after marriage. Once you take those vows, and make that promise to be there for each other before the eyes of God, you now have an obligation…and not just to yourselves, but also to God. And with this obligation (especially with one being solely based on blind faith) it is much easier to Make It Work. To excuse the Ego of it’s futile duties and to be open and more “user friendly” with the partner YOU have chosen.    

The conversation didn’t end there. It broadened to the responsibilities that we also have to ourselves. Again, in a generation with a large lack of respect, including for oneself, it is very easy to be “a slave or a prisoner” to the world around us. The pressures and over-stimulations of today that make us feel that we MUST run faster and jump higher to break even. “I heard we have to dance AND sing AND act AND play a musical instrument…They don’t call it Performing Arts for nothin’…” Yes, I did just quote FAME: The Movie. My friend’s father gets encouragement from God to take time, slow down and listen to his heart. He has created a comfortable, quiet space inside of himself for God to come in and give him the answers he needs, and the peace he asks for in every prayer, 3x a day. I believe that it is imperative for all of us to create such a space inside of ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily need to be for God, but if that’s what get’s you to a place of ease with minimal stress then do it! It seems to have been working very well for my friend’s father and his wife. For me, having ME in that space is all I need to want to be an overachiever of Good, it’s finding the time to nourish my inner self that can get a little difficult, but getting back on that fallen bike is much easier to do when you see the effectiveness in the glimmer of a wise man’s eye!

The Awakening has begun!!!

History

It's amazing how there are no mistakes in life! Nothing is by accident, and the "wrong choice" isn't ever an option. Everything that IS is actually more than just IS but is actually BEAUTIFUL!
Make sense?
The past 2.5/3 weeks have been my longest time spent at home since my junior year of college, and to be honest, I was afraid. What would I do? Would I be bored? Would I feel stifled, or lazy, uninspired, or overall counterproductive???
I ate a lot...A LOT, and I was a touch on the lazier side, but the rest was well deserved considering the amusement park that was my first year and a half in New York City. I was sort of inspired, and exhausted. I was thrilled to be in the center of it all yet couldn't wait to get away. I was having a hard time finding my niche, my avenue, my place, my purpose. I wondered with a furrowed brow and a large question mark above my head. Thus began the quest! I ended my life as I knew it in NYC and bought a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv, Israel, but not without a pitstop to the original stomping grounds. The bit of earth that nurtured me into the confused and lost person you read about right now...Never would I change a second!

While here in Miami...In the room that I spent my high school years in. The bed that I went to sleep in every night and woke up in every morning, the desk that I sent my first IM from, the bathroom that I cried in when I heard Aaliyah had died...this is what I call home. My historical landmark, the vatican of my life. This very room, this space that was mine was where I felt ever feeling and emotion under the sun and known to man, this was the epicenter of my life and I'm not back in it for nothing.

Being here with the things I knew, and reminiscing with the music that I'd heard here, in this space, for the first time, magically transported me back to the mental states I was in 10+ years ago. The songs that I fell in love with and the loves that I dedicated them to. The art that I started to learn about and the passion and dedication it brought out of me. The fantasies that brought me such hope for the future and such disdain from the rejection that would regularly follow until I'd get over it and continue to the next. The dance of the adolescent and the pre/mid-pubescent.  

I often find myself pondering about the past. Wondering if I was sad because I decided to be sad, or if there were actual external factors that kept me feeling negative, insecure, inadequate,  and the list goes on. Was it the slow jams that were filled with so much emotions that I couldn't help but internalize? Was it "kool" and artsy to be a martyr? Was it the people that I fell in love with but who didn't love me back? The people that I wanted to be? Was it real love or just infatuations or just a need for validation? Where did ALL of these feelings come from, and why did I FEEL them so strongly???

What I've discovered here is that the question "why" is irrelevant. Those feeling where there...they WERE. And now they ARE. And what they ARE is BEAUTIFUL! The love that I felt then may not have the same definition that I give it today but back then it WAS love. What made me feel, and why it made me feel no longer matters...what matters are the lessons that those sensations taught (and continue to teach) me and that, my friends, is invaluable. The lessons that make you feel like you're alive, the lessons, that teach you about yourself, and about others, those around you. The lessons that keep you questioning and redefining words like worth, inspiration, passion, and most importantly Love!

I was here, I felt, I left, and I have now come back to remember all of my loves and all of my passions, and now, with all of this, I continue my quest outside of the country!!!

I continue living!!!

I give thanks to this room, to this space. To my parents and the rest of my family for growing but still being the family that I've always known. And to my past, for every sensation, every lesson that has gotten me to be the person that I am today.

Special thanks to two ladies I had dinner with last night, both of whom I fell in love with yet left me heartbroken because they knew more about me than I knew about myself. It maybe wasn't the love we know and seek today but it was Love...and if you notice, it still is, over a decade later. And to the other one there that renders me speechless from the stage...I've literally spent the past 45 mins trying to find the words to express what you do and how you do it and how it makes me feel but I'm left without words. The show itself was amazing...but I see you and I remember why I fall in love. Passion is now an understatement...you are joy, you are love, you are LIFE!

Wish me luck and I will see you all on the other side!!!