Followers and Friends

Since I started From A to Zoë in October, I have been so pleased and delighted to watch more of my friends join me on this site and others to share stories, interests, and updates. Some have chosen a specific path of focus, like restaurants, culinary creations, or home decor and other visual aesthetics, while others blog merely as a bridge to friends and family, a sort of online diary or life itinerary. I have friends whose blogs are really their websites, where they post news, ventures, and photographs - tools to identify who they are in a larger sense.
I wanted this blog to be an opportunity to unload my thoughts, the things I come across, and the thoughts I have. I'll admit that I try to have a theme, it's where my inner control freak comes out to play, and that I like for it to be a place to rest one's eyes and be comfortable. As more people embrace sites like this one and offer a url that I can visit to learn about the latest in their lives, I am contented. Life moves so quickly and it's important to allow transparency and disclosure to continue, even when our normal modes of communication have been replaced by Google Reader updates. I check the blogs I follow and read about travel, great eating spots, love, new technology, big steps and small victories, and think, oh the places you'll go!

Resilience, From A to Z

At a party last summer, I met two former theater majors who had moved to New York to pursue a career under the bright lights of Broadway. They had arrived just a few months before and all possibilities seemed endless. It is now almost a year later and while the world is still their oyster, in true recessionista fashion, it is important to think outside the box. Alisha Zalkin hasn't appeared on Broadway, but she is writing a documentary, appearing in an independent film and just released her first album, Finally Free. I had the pleasure of watching her perform in a cabaret and was amazed but her presence and powerhouse vocals.
It has been wonderful to watch my friends achieve dreams and reap the benefits of following their hearts. We are in a unique position, graduating from college and directly entering this economic climate, and it is an incredible feeling to conquer something that you may never have tried if things were a little easier. Hats off to anyone who has layed in bed at night, creating new dreams and reworking the old. The possibilities are still endless, and the world is still our oyster, now we just have to employ a little more creativity and a lot more faith.
And to Alisha, with her new album and the beginning of a career in the works. I can't wait to watch her shine under the bright lights. Listen to her CD here...