When I was young I was very angry and jaded with life. Due to a great number of reasons I had built up a protective layer of scar tissue around myself and would not let anyone close to me no matter how hard they tried. It was not a pretty sight. Even though I was painting Byzantine icons for the most part I was pretty much creatively blocked.

This began to change a couple of years ago when out of necessity I spent the summer learning not to have a temper anymore. And then the day came three years ago when the real peeling of the onion began. It was forced upon me and I did not ask for it but looking back now I am greatly thankful for it. Shortly after this tragic event I met someone whose view of the world was totally foreign to my view of the world and yet had a strange familiarity to me. She promised me that if I stayed on the course that I was on that my world would change and so would my Outlook on the world. Slowly I started to find that I would meet like-minded people in totally unpredictable situations and that we would have an instant connection. Most of the time the connection was over art and creativity but sometimes it was over things such as dogs. The more the layers of the onion were peeled back the more conductivity I found myself having with people. This brings me to today when I was giving a gentleman a ride from East Liberty to Mount Lebanon and we were discussing life and various things. When I dropped him off at his apartment he said to me I look forward to reading your book someday because you have lived a very interesting life.