Just when I thought there was more than enough change at work in my life, another opportunity arises, bringing with it still more change.

Two weeks ago, the Chair of the Livermore Commission for the Arts asked me to host a monthly event called Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word. Sponsored by the Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center and Peet’s Coffee and Tea, the new literary series occurs on the second Thursday of each month as part of the City’s Art Happens program.

Although I enjoy sharing my writing and reading my work aloud, I had never considered creating or organizing a literary event such as this. That was something my friend Karen Hogan did. But Karen and her husband Tom Darter are in the process of selling their home and starting a new chapter of their lives in Sequim, Washington. I’ve known Karen and Tom for nine years, and while I’m happy for them, I’m sad for me and my daughter Katie. For nine years their home—along with their office, known as the Fourth Street Studio—has been our home too. I’m incredibly grateful for the time I’ve spent with them. Their departure leaves a huge hole, and they will be missed.

So the task of hosting Storied Nights has fallen to me. I’m excited, thrilled, and maybe just a little overwhelmed. I had a week to schedule the first batch of featured readers, two weeks to wrap my head around the idea. I’ve been scrambling to assemble a mailing list and promotional materials, develop a submission process, and decide on programming. With determination and a little luck, things are falling into place.

But in the frenzy of ramping up for Storied Nights, I haven’t devoted as much time as I would like to my law firm launch. I began to worry: was this the right opportunity for me? I asked friends and the members of my business mentoring group if I was making a mistake. Everyone felt I should proceed. I found a wonderful co-host, Marilyn Kammelgarn, to help me with the workload of this volunteer position, and still I wondered how would I pull this off? How would I juggle this new project along with everything else I had on my plate?

The epiphany I came to was this. When I originally practiced law, I dreamed of being a writer. When I was a writer, I missed practicing law. Throughout it all, I squeezed in nonprofit work because as I said in my last post, I’m a nonprofit girl at heart. The truth is, I need all three—Author, Attorney, and (Nonprofit) Advocate—in order to be truly happy and fulfilled. This might not work for you, but it’s what I want and need.

It’s taken me thirty years of adult life and a whole lot of changes to understand this about myself.

It’s also what I’ve been moving towards, ever so slowly, since Katie was born and I became a parent, since my marriage floundered and came to an end, since I met Karen and Tom in the quirky house that was Fourth Street Studio. I’ve been moving towards it, and now, at long last, it’s here.

Do I know how I will balance these competing demands? Hell no. Do I think it will be easy? Probably not. But whatever happens, I plan to embrace these pieces in all their messy and glorious complexity. Which explains why, when all is said and done, I’m happy to be launching a spoken word event along with an autism nonprofit and a special needs law firm.

My task now is to figure out how to make it all work.

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Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word takes place on the second Thursday of the month from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. at Peet’s Coffee and Tea in downtown Livermore, California. You can find it on Facebook at http://facebook.com/StoriedNights

Until next time,
Cynthia Patton