by Erica Miner
Journaling has been my passion since I was a teenager. In the two years since I published my journal-based novel, Travels With My Lovers, I have been on a mission to inspire people to journal via my lectures. Wherever I go, I am asked to motivate people to express their inner thoughts and gain personal insight through journaling: the perfect activity for any Spirited Woman to express her emotional freedom.
My most recent stint as special lecturer on Celebrity Cruise Lines symbolized a voyage within a voyage: the journey from violinist to writer and lecturer. How did I get from that journey to this one? How did my life path lead me to a cruise ship? How did I morph from professional violinist to writer and lecturer? Gazing at the retreating skyline of San Diego from the deck of the ship, I contemplated this strange but wonderful journey of mine.
As a child of Russian immigrants, growing up in Detroit, it seemed natural for me to be drawn to the arts. My mother had directed ballet in her native Odessa, and I started ballet when I was five. My father, a talented violin student in his youth, first put a violin in my hands when I was nine.
But, in fact, I started out as a writer even before I ever touched a violin. When I was seven, the wise elders at my elementary school determined that I be placed in an after school creative writing program (in those days, there was actually money in school budgets for such things). I remember plunging into writing with more passion than I had ever done with ballet, and my love for writing was thus fostered early on.
Later, when I was about to start high school my father - ever mindful of my artistic potential - gave me the date book he had been given at work. He was also a talented writer; but for some reason, he thought it important that I have it.
Even at the tender age of thirteen I realized that this date book could be my faithful companion through the perilous journey of adolescence. I wrote it in everyday, with a passion, pouring my heart out: my self-doubt, my hormone-driven angst, my ecstasy and confusion about my first boyfriend, my delight at the camaraderie of the three wonderful girls who would become my friends for life - this all went into my daily journal, until I left for college.
After college I got married, had two kids and began my professional career as a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. There was little time for journaling, though I did sometimes manage a few pages. But I was devastated when my husband left me - for another man.
Suddenly I found myself single, with two little kids to raise and support while holding down a high-pressured job. I was so overwhelmed I could barely keep myself from leaping out the window of my ninth-floor Manhattan apartment. I was indeed a ‘desperate housewife’ who desperately needed help. My spirit was temporarily shattered.
Help came from a caring friend who gifted me with a book of blank pages. I knew then what I had to do to renew my spirit. Each night after coming home from the opera, I curled up in bed with my journal and spilled out my guts at the injustices of what I was suffering: being abandoned and heartbroken; being solely responsible for the needs of two school-age children; being exhausted from running back and forth from family to workplace, not allowed to ‘bring my problems to work.’
My journal was my best friend, my lifesaver. I survived. During summer breaks from the opera, when the kids were with their father, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of traveling to Europe, the place of my roots. My adventures were so intriguing that I journaled them, then put them aside. (After all, I was a musician, not a writer). And when my children were older and less dependent on me I was lucky enough to meet my present husband, who gave me the love and support I needed. I felt blessed in my new life. My spirit had prevailed.
Then one day a speeding motorist crashed into me as I was returning home from work. I had months of intensive physical therapy for the injuries but couldn’t sustain the grueling Met Opera schedule because of the pain. Utlimately it became evident that I would have to give up my professional life as a violinist at the Met.
Again, I was devastated. But I knew I would need to find a creative outlet. It was my passion for writing that helped my spirit win out.
After finishing my fifth screenplay, I had an urge to write a novel. I remembered the journals I had written during my travels in Europe and came up with a story line: a young mom who suddenly finds herself single when she learns a dark secret about her husband finds adventure in far-off lands and rediscovers her spirit through travel. Travels With My Lovers was born.
But I had absolutely no clue about how to promote my book. I began to network, getting out and meeting people who would steer me in the right direction. I attended seminars, hired a speaking coach, sent press releases to local newspapers and was invited to give talks for book clubs and women’s clubs. I took to lecturing effortlessly: my 'inner spirit' was ecstatic.
Then I was asked to give lectures on cruise ships, and after interviewing with a booking agency within a few weeks I found myself on a Celebrity Cruise to the Caribbean as a Special Interest Lecturer.
It was a role I would never have imagined for myself, but it felt so natural. I lectured on renewing my spirit via my re-invention from violinist to novelist. I spoke of the joys of journaling. I shared stories of "Opera Stars I Have Known." My post-cruise ratings were off the charts. Perhaps, I thought, this is really what I was born to do.
But the journaling lectures were by far the most popular, and I decided I would focus most on those. I would show others how to become spirited through journaling. These were all voyages of discovery, both inner and outer.
As a lecturer, you are part of the ship’s diplomatic corps. A ship is like a floating UN - so many languages being spoken at any given time, by passengers and staff. My spirit absolutely thrives on this. As a traveler and lover of languages, I feel most spirited when I can ‘meet and greet’ people of different international backgrounds.
But it was when I got up to talk to a room full of devotees who asked me to sign copies of my book afterwards that my spirited woman personee began to emerge. I realized then what it meant to share my spirited passion with others.
"I'd given up journaling but you inspired me to begin again," one woman enthused.
"I’ve been trying to motivate my teenage daughter to journal," another woman told me. "You’ve given me the tools to do that now."
Reactions like that are what make me feel truly spirited. Reactions like that make it all worthwhile. Mission accomplished. In sharing my passion I am constantly reconnecting with my own Spirited Woman - not with the music from my former life but with melodies of my own life journey.
And it is a journey that I am most privileged to continue: to be alive and well and raise my spirited consciousness. Isn’t that what life is about?
© 2006, Erica Miner
Author of Travels With My Lovers
Fiction Prize Winner,
Direct from the Author Book AwardsTop-rated Lecturer,
Celebrity Cruise Lines
http://www.ericaminer.com/
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