Queens Impact Awards Impact Others

Usually I write about being in a room of creatives and loving the energy that wildly erupts. Well, last night I was in a room full of do-gooders who were being recognized by the Times Ledger through the Queens Impact Awards. It was a wonderful night. Lots of gratitude. Lots of love. Lots of service. These 27 recipients covered all of Queens as well as the areas of arts, medicine, higher education, civic scene, entrepreneurs and community service. Whether it was Salvatore Lopizzo creating YANA – You Are Never Alone – in the Rockaways to help the post-Sandy community or Audra Fordin creating Women Auto Know – empowering women about car mechanics, we were all united by one common goal:

To be of ultimate service to others through our best talents.

My friend, Valerie, says that 50% is showing up. I agree. Just by sitting there and listening, I am inspired to do something. And I do with Theatre Beyond Broadway and Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery.

Here’s a great note on inspiration:

When I slow down and listen I find inspiration. In contrast, when I was young, I thought the creative process was putting blinders up to the world with the idea that I could make something ‘uniquely from Me’. I thought that if I could come up with something no one had ever seen before, I would be special; I would be somebody.

Me, Me, Me! I was constantly reinventing the wheel and I thought I was clever in the process, but my resources were limited and so was my output. My childish misconceptions, My Ego, were suppressing my true creative flow. Later, attending artists’ workshops and poetry readings, I came to realize that the creative process is an act of opening up to, not shutting out from, what other artists are doing. I am one, my life stops at the corner of my experiences.  But, when I slow down, and open up to listen to other artist’s stories, I can grow exponentially. My life opens up to the corner your experiences.  It is about being present and listening so we are part of the ebb and flow of taking-in–putting-out –taking-in. Great people have been thinking and rethinking, feeling and re-feeling, since the beginning of time. Ideas are not new. I only have new ways of synthesizing them. When I show up, slow down, and listen, authentic creation comes. I can grow at a faster pace. It is as if I take the ideas and feelings I’ve collected home in a basket and rocked them in an old comfortable rocking chair until they become new again.  – Patty Marcinek Yaverski