Stanley Tucci & Why I Started Writing Publicly.

Earlier in the week I'd been out with my parents and we stopped into Barnes & Noble. The second I walked in I inhaled a deep breath of joy at the smell of the pages lining the rows of shelves holding every adventure you could dream of.

Book stores hold a deep part of my past. And while I wandered the shelves, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness as the novels I passed didn't call to me as they once did. I was in a new season of life. A new chapter of my own and I'd yet to fully understand where it was leading me.

That's when I saw the rows of magazines. A friend had mentioned I should make an old school collage vision board, so I wandered over to actually read the covers — something I'd never really done — and was instantly drawn to Town & Country because it had a black and white photo of Stanley Tucci. I mean, who wouldn't want to see what THAT was about. The cover blurb read: "STANLEY TUCCI. That's All."

Um, yep. That's going home with me.

A few days later I was sitting on my front porch, forcing myself to relax into the warm late afternoon sun. Those of us who have had to survive life tend to not rest all that well. But I'm on a journey to slow down and live more, and this was one of those moments I didn't want to rush. I wanted to enjoy it. I cracked open the magazine and began reading about Stanley.

I found myself smiling. And I actually chuckled a few times in awe of this incredible individual I've admired for years. Because in the span of a few pages, Tucci was just — an everyday person. The interview began with him at a café table, waiting for tea because he had a mild cold. He didn't feel well, but he didn't let that stop him from having the interview. From living his life.

There's a moment in the article when journalist Jessica Pressler quotes him talking about how the older he gets, the more he enjoys simply being himself. He gets bored easier. Making movies feels repetitive. By 3 o'clock in the afternoon he's ready to go out and do something different — typically to some fantastic restaurant he's already thinking about, planning to invite whomever to join him. That okay, did that, now what? growing impatience.

I felt that to my core. And I'm barely level 39.

(That sounds better than almost 40.)

We tend to romanticize celebrities. Keep them on a pedestal where they're untouchable, almost not real — like a character in a novel you have to imagine. They feel otherworldly. But in truth they are everyday people who just happen to have a job that created a celebrity status.

And OMG — did you know Stanley had throat cancer? Any-whoo. After he recovered, like any of us who've lived through a life altering situation — not just illness related — he took a closer look at how he spent his time. He admitted entering a new phase, a new chapter where he wanted to devote his energy to different things. First it was a passion for acting, then writing and directing, then food and books. Now he's on to the next thing. Which he's yet to fully discover. At the time the article was written he was spending a lot of time cooking, painting, and sculpting, while also filming his shows in Italy.

The man is an icon for sure.

But more captivating was how his ambitions and thoughts weren't any different than mine.

THAT is what turned the spark of an idea for writing into a full bonfire blaze on a beach at sunset.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was about ten years old but never really knew what to do with that, so I ignored it. I'm an avid reader — not the kind that consumes every dark fantasy there is, though I have read quite a few (Rhysand fan forever). Literary fiction, multiple Auschwitz memoirs, business books, self help, psychological thrillers, detective stories, lots of sci-fi. Reading has been my passion hobby for as far back as I can remember. I've written countless journals, letters, and partial stories.

But I didn't believe I had anything to offer. I'm not great at grammar. I've no editorial etiquette. My degree is in Graphic Arts. A masters in English does not make you a great writer — I believe that firmly. I mean, I got a D in WR121 and the lady who almost wouldn't let me graduate said "if you ever want to be a writer, you should take the class again, you clearly need it" — I let that be my truth and talk me out of something I loved anyway, because one person didn't like what she saw.

Not every article could be housed on Substack. Some of it needed the breathing room of simply allowing myself to write freely, without the pressure of knowing I had an audience who paid to read it. A place for everyday life, written from every direction. No limits. Like an oil painting — it's not supposed to be fine art. Realism and impressionism, united.

That's what this is.

And I'm deeply fired up about it.