Undisputed Passion

My husband and I watched a show not too long ago about Scott Hamilton. You know, the figure skater who won gold at the Olympics and is known for his back flips on the ice. What a great and talented guy he is…and inspirational too.

He was adopted at six weeks and at two years old “contracted” a disease that kept him from growing. He wore a feeding tube up his nose as other children might wear head gear for their braces. The disease was never correctly diagnosed, but at a very young age, he began to skate and suddenly began to grow again. He only grew to be 5’ 2 ½ “ tall but was a very healthy man.

In 1997 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and successfully beat it. He continued to skate professionally until 2001. Soon after his retirement, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I don’t remember what they called it exactly, but it had something to do with his pituitary gland which controls many things, including producing growth hormone for normal development of height.

In Scott Hamilton’s words, when he found skating, the disease went away. When he stopped skating, it reared its ugly head again. He beat that cancer too, and went back to skating and performed that back flip at the age of 51 (I think). I’ve never been able to do a back flip.

I think we all have something in our life that is healing. I mean a passion, something that gives you pure joy. Something that makes everything okay. Something that you can totally lose yourself in for hours and hours. For some it may be photography, or antique collecting, or sailing, or gardening, or writing. In my case, it’s singing. When I sing, I am at peace.

I started singing professionally when I was 19 and continued until around three years ago. At the time that I quit, it was a good decision. I no longer found that peace in singing. Several different circumstances had sucked the joy and fun right out of it. It became a chore rather than an outlet for my creativity and passion.

But, I am happy to say that I have started a new venture with an incredibly talented pianist (keyboardist) friend of mine. We’ve worked together in the past and I am thrilled to be working with him again and once again enjoying that “something” that brings me pure joy.

I was a little nervous at first, just because I’m a little rusty. If you don’t use your voice in a singing capacity for a time, well, you have to whip it back into shape just like you would any other muscle that you might neglect. I’m still whipping away.

We have our songs, we have our business cards, we have our web-site, and we almost have our demo. Now it’s time to get out there and start shopping it around. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

My question for the day…What is your passion? What makes you forget about everything? What can you totally immerse yourself in and come out feeling like a million bucks?

SIS Bren