Takin' It to the Streets

It's funny just how jam-packed a life can become when you are living fearlessly. I'm approaching the 6-month mark of a resolution to take it to the streets.

I'm putting more miles on the car, spending more time with real world people, meeting one on one with exceptional folks with stellar track records, and finding myself moving forward on many fronts. I'm filming a video that has teenagers enthusiastically asking to participate. I'm following a big idea dream that has talented people jumping on board. I'm aiming for backing from the WHO and the CDC. I'm watching legislative committee meetings. I'm reading political blogs.

Just in the past thirty days I've interviewed a pilot home from Charlie Wilson's war, spent two hours in the office of the executive director of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, bent the ear of a National Urban Fellows graduate, and made plans to work on a storyboard with a filmmaker in Austin. I've attended a freelance writers' seminar, registered for the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, and listened to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Chair of the Cullen Trust for Health Care speak on tobacco and health disparities.

New words in my vocabulary include ecological momentary assessment, MPOWER and F-scanning.

The people around me inspire me: I learned that my next-door neighbor is on the board of Africa Rising, that James Protzman's political blog rocks, and that altruism is alive and well at the Splinter Group.

My community is asking me for more. I've been asked to speak at two state employee functions, to write a letter to the editor of the local papers and to consider how I would like to contribute to leadership in the American Lung Association.

All of this for a girl that used to be chained to a microscope. Now I'm holding on to whatever I can find.