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I said all that to say this:

I guess not much has changed in the 200-plus years since Goethe wrote Faust. At least not for me! While I haven’t sold my soul to the devil (nor do I plan to), I do seem to be today’s version of Faust, often feeling alienated and always needing to come to terms with the world in which I live. In that respect, I don’t think I’m alone.

No wonder Goethe’s quote sums up my philosophy on life. Because I’ve had to call upon it – in both good times and bad – to move forward. And the beauty of it is that whenever I have “been bold,” and taken that leap of faith, something more powerful than I has always made sure that I would fly.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that pushing myself (or getting pushed) over the edge has always come easy. More often, it has not. I’ve struggled with feelings of fear and guilt and shame and “I’m just not good enough.” Trust has never been “standard operating procedure” for me. And yet, trusting that something “out there” has my back and will not let me fall has gotten me out of some pretty gnarly messes, off of some rocky roads, and onto the best path for me, taking me all the way to where I am today. And if I do say so myself, that’s a pretty great place to be.

The Experiences That Made Me

My parents are from Sicily. My brother, two sisters and I are first-generation. While that’s kind of cool now for lots of reasons – including the inherited “no need to measure anything yet still cook up a tasty storm” genes, being able to speak Italian fluently, and always having a place to stay during visits to Italy – the truth is that growing up in the late ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s as an immigrant family with ESL parents, meant being different from all the other kids at school. It also meant becoming the translator and helping out at home more than maybe a kid at age ten ought to.

What complicated things most, I have to admit, is the fact that my mom was pretty sick for a long, long time. And not just a broken bone kind of sick that could be set, healed, and forgotten about. No. Mamma was sick in her head with what doctors back then didn’t know much about: Paranoid Schizophrenia. To this day, doctors still don’t know much about it, other than it’s genetic (in my family, it’s hereditary), requires a cocktail of medications not to cure it but to try and silence its symptoms, and that it can destroy not only the person who has it, but all the people who love that person, and in the worst of cases, sometimes innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know a lot about that.

I also know a lot about what’s “normal” and what’s not. Not just in terms of symptoms associated with mental illness, but with behaviors natural to girls as they are coming of age. Flirting and testing out one’s wings and becoming sexually aware as a young teen is normal. Being blamed for feeling what you’re feeling, experiencing what’s natural, and for being who you are is not. Nor is having adult authority figures shame, abuse, or take advantage of you.

Coming to terms with my own world took me a long time and nearly killed me, and others around me. I grew to 365 pounds and nearly put an end to me and all of my pain. But then, even in my darkest hour, I trusted and took a chance on a stranger who for whatever reason thought I was worthy even when I didn’t and who was willing to take a chance on me. And in being bold, in not giving up, in fighting the good fight just one more time to survive, mighty forces once again came to my aid. And now, years later, I haven’t just survived, but I am grateful to say I’ve learned to thrive.

What I know about these topics above could fill a book – and that’s what I did – that’s what my first book The S-Word is all about.

The Storyteller in Me

That’s me standing on the chair with my Uncle Joe (my mom’s eldest brother), mom herself and my siblings. Lord only knows what I was thinking to muster up that face, but what I would guess is that my storyteller-self had taken off to some other place to further celebrate my birthday. I imagine I had winged-unicorns and magical fairies at my side. For as long as I can remember, one word or a single image from anyone anywhere would immediately launch me into my own fantasies. I’ve been a storyteller my whole life, initially inside my own head, and later when I found my voice and the almighty pen and paper, to anyone who would listen or be willing to read.

Straight out of college, a major daily newspaper (circulation 150K) in Illinois decided that what I had to say, their audiences would want to read. The Daily Herald newspaper hired me, and I began interviewing some of the most ordinary and yet fascinating people, and researching some of the most unremarkable and remarkable places and things, and writing feature stories and then cover stories for the paper’s weekly special sections. I also was gifted with my own column. Three times each week, I was given a platform to talk about anything and everything that might be on my mind. What I had to say and the stories I had to tell did, indeed, resonate with readers.

As much as I loved the written word, I longed to tell stories in many more formats and venues. When an opportunity came up to direct publications and public relations for a major non-profit – The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired – I jumped at it. Despite the fact that it took me out of my suburban comfort zone — literally, as its offices were located in one of Chicago’s roughest West side neighborhoods — and that I set myself up for a rapid learning curve that included staging events and major fundraisers and creating major publications like annual reports, charity calendars, direct mail pieces, as well as producing and directing video content including public service announcements and mini-documentaries and promotional pieces, while also pitching to and dealing with the media, I loved every aspect of it. Who wouldn’t? So many new stories to tell and new ways to tell them. My spirit soared and I continued to succeed.

My professional storytelling career took me to meet people I always dreamed of meeting. I interviewed Jimmy Stewart, James Brooks, Robert Zemeckis, Phil Collins, and more well-known personalities. Equally as engaging, however, were the stories of non-celebrities, such as the kid from Taipei with his self-taught sounds on the steel drums or the former National Geographic photographer now confined to a wheelchair rigged to allow him the ability to photograph microscopic household critters. I soon merged my journalistic storytelling with my marketing capabilities and began to win awards for my work…my work that told and promoted the stories of others.

I dabbled forever in writing personal fiction and non-fiction. I loved movies and tried my hand at writing a couple of screenplays. In the early 2000s, I submitted a few to competitions and ended up winning two of them – not the biggies, but big enough and good enough for me to validate further that my stories mattered to more people than just me.

For a long time, I kept my most important story secret – my own. While I always knew that my experiences were bigger than just me, and while I always had felt that my purpose in this world had something to do with sharing my life story and using it to make a difference in the lives of others, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I made the decision to – once again – be bold and try. And – once again – mighty forces have come to my aid. The results are what you see here on my website and in the books I have written. The S-Word is my first full-length book, but as you now have learned, it’s surely not the first story I’ve ever told or have had published. It’s just the one that matters most to me. Hope it matters to you, too.