Dear friends,

What's your life's purpose?

Heavy question, right?

I'm recording a solo album later this summer.

This project feels so RIGHT, like a culmination of everything I've been working on for decades - my destiny project!

But recently, as recording time approaches, the work has started to feel a little heavy.

It's a BIG DEAL, and it could be GREAT, and all that potential has started to really weigh me down.

. . .

Then I read a great story about Elizabeth Gilbert (the Eat, Pray, Love person) in Suleika Jaouad's Book of Alchemy.

Rich and famous author Elizabeth Gilbert was walking down the street one day and saw a man working on a ladder.

He was working alone, and rich and famous Elizabeth Gilbert was worried that he would fall, so she stopped and held his ladder.

And while she waited for him to complete his work, the thought occurred to her that maybe THIS was the actual purpose of her life.

It might be the reason she was born.

And the rest of her half-century on earth had been just . . . extra stuff.

Apparently, this experience was creatively freeing for Elizabeth Gilbert, because she realized that she might have already fulfilled the brief of life and could relax about her writing a little.

Reading her story made me remember something that happened to me five years ago.

. . .

Our family went to Colonial Williamsburg one summer to do all the usual stuff - firing a musket, hammering a horseshoe.

As we approached the Governor's Mansion, my kids noticed a demonstration on the lawn - hoop rolling.

You know, that ye oldey hoop and stick thing.

We all tried it, and it was about what you would expect - the hoop falls over, it's hard to run at the same pace as your hoop, etc.

Except for me.

I felt like Harry Potter mounting a broom for the first time! The stick was an extension of my arm! My stride was exactly the length of one hoop-roll!

I was a natural, and I rolled my hoop to the Mansion and back on my first try.

The nice teenager in the tricorne hat said it was "the best hoop rolling I EVER SAW."

And I thought, "THIS is my talent????!!"

This is not what I would pick!

Also, not useful in modern times!

I felt like an idiot.

Being good at hoop rolling seemed somehow WORSE than being good at nothing.

Like, if I can't be good at something NORMAL like basketball (or ideally, singing!), could I please be just a normal schlub and not some kind of hoop-rolling phenom??

I forgot about "the hoop incident" for years, but it came back to me when I read about Elizabeth Gilbert holding the ladder.

Maybe . . . I fulfilled my life's purpose that day on the Governor's front lawn?

And all this other stuff - my work, even MY DESTINY ALBUM - is all the cherry on top of an already successful life?

Of course, it's absurd, but the idea of the Moirai saying, "Look at her go! She's nailing that hoop thing! Nothing else to see here, let's go see how Liz is doing with that ladder." really made me laugh.

And it made this recording feel a little less heavy.

So what's your story? Have you held a ladder or rolled a hoop?

What's your life's purpose?

Colonially yours,

Laura

p.s. In preparation for the recording, I'm going to give two recitals at the end of June and I would LOVE for you to attend if you're nearby!

The Tuesday program at Epiphany will be a slightly abridged version of the program, about 45 minutes long, and Friday evening's will be the full program.

RITUALS: Art songs by Charles Ives, Reynaldo Hahn, and William Bolcom​
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Tanya Blaich, piano

​
Tuesday, June 24th, 12:10pm
Church of the Epiphany
1317 G St. NW
Washington, D.C.

Friday, June 27, 7pm
Westmoreland Congregational UCC
1 Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD