It has been said many times ‘the only risks in life are not taking them’.
I concur. I always told my children, ‘you can do anything you wish in life as long as you don’t hurt anyone along the way’.
My life has been a series of risks as you can read in my memoir, “Seen From the Wings”, published by Amazon. Risks that opened doors. They ranged from new horizons of beauty and excitement and yes, some falls from which I learned, picked myself up and moved on. Risks offer an education that a lot of schooling cannot.
Two of my greatest risks opened doors to huge horizons and opportunities for new and extraordinary experiences.
Here are only two of a myriad of them.
It was late. I had just left my Italian friends at the famous San Lorenzo restaurant in the hip part of London. I wanted to leave the so-called English Establishment I had been raised in. I was tired of parental control. I bought a ticket on the first plane out of London for Milan and with only $25 in my pocket. It was like jumping from a cliff. I spent two days looking for work and was hired by a big Advertising agency. Five months later I became engaged, against my mother’s and father’s approval, to my first husband. I was 20. That marriage produced a beautiful, wise and amazing daughter.
I divorced my first husband at twenty five on a hunch the marriage would never work. So with bag in one hand, three year old daughter in the other and with $30K of dowery money I had saved from my parents, all carefully rapped it up in Tampons, ( there was a moratorium on bringing currency out of the Italy) I took off. I knew this marriage had been a lesson well learned and it was time to move to new horizons. I flew six thousand miles to California, I might add to the horror of my parents. Again, they reminded me of the mistake I was making. Placing my daughter in school, I made a living for us with a job directing an art gallery while using my writing skills freelancing as a journalist, which I had acquired as a sub editor for Harper’s Bazaar in London.
Nine months later on a beautiful summer evening, I left my daughter playing on the beach with neighboring friends at our house in Malibu, dressed up for a party in West Hollywood I didn’t really want to attend. I knew no-one other than the hosts. I made up my mind, as I sat at a never ending red light. If the light did not change in thirty seconds I would turn around and go back to bathing suits and a beach picnic with my daughter. The light change. The risk was open. I took the chance and moved on. It was at that party I met my second husband. From that marriage came another beautiful daughter and life became a rollercoaster of roller coaster of adventure and more lessons learned.
The adventure never ceases. Sometimes we have dreams yet the journey seems risky. Live your dreams or you will never know. Following my husbands passing, life was a series of ups and downs. I told myself Never Again would I be with another. But Again, I took a risk and allowed with trepidation an introduction to one who turned into greatest joy I have known in a long time.
Most dreams carry risks. Standing still is the riskiest danger. It stops us from going where we might find amazing corners to be discovered.
So step out and take the risk. May be the best you ever took. If it does not work, you learn and you are still one step further than you were before. Have Faith, live large, enjoy the moment. And above all know the truth within you defines who you are.
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