Feeding the Soul

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
— Anne Lamott

 This morning I was reading my own personal Tumblr feed and I stumbled upon this quote. I don’t know Anne Lamott. I haven’t read anything by her. I did look her up on the always-reliable Wikipedia, and I’m definitely curious enough to check out a couple of her books from the library.

But I LOVED this quote.

One of the things I love the most about it is that it references both the creators of the art as well as those experiencing the art that has been created. “Writing…decreases our sense of isolation” and that writing can restore our sense of buoyancy as readers. “Singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship” despite the raging storms of life that are always present.

This really spoke to me and to what I think we will (and hope to) accomplish with Café des Artistes both throughout the process and once we are in performance.

I’m looking forward to decreasing any “sense of isolation” we feel in our everyday lives by working those issues into our art, as Tashina said at our first meeting, and creating something out of them. I’m excited to “change the hearts and spirits” of each other as we work on this project together and then do the same for our audiences.

Let’s do it.

—Mandy

(Note: this is cross posted on Sundown Collaborative Theatre's Tumblr (please note there are two separate hyperlinks there for Sundown's site and the Tumblr site!), where the cast members of CdA will be posting once a week about the process, our inspiration, and anything else that comes to mind. I strongly suggest you follow that Tumblr and follow Sundown on Twitter!)