Namaste

The first time I practiced yoga was enchanting. The soft breeze from the Mississippi River tingled on my skin as I stretched my arms high above. Looking up to the sky, the sun warmed my face as it gleamed over the landmark St. Louis Arch. My newly-purchased yoga mat was lying on the freshly-cut grass of the national park. And I was positioned perfectly in front of our yogi, Maury. Surrounding him were a few dozen people who, like me, were taking advantage of the free lessons and the perfect weather.

The morning couldn’t have started better. I didn’t even think twice that I ran into my boss in traffic on the way downtown. It didn’t matter to me then where she was going as she abruptly, some might say rudely, cut in front of me on Tucker Blvd. But when I looked at my cell phone after the hour-long yoga session and saw the missed calls and voice mails, I realized that she must have been on her way to meet with the human resources representative at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The entire time I was guiding my body to be one with the universe, two people were spending that continuum of space trying to inform me that I no longer had a job.

So here I am, an unemployed journalist. I wrote more than 540 stories and took hundreds of photographs in the two years that I was employed by the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. I’ve also worked at the Belleville News-Democrat and several publications in my hometown of Detroit. I have been blessed to be paid to write. As it stands today, writing is no longer my profession. But it is still my art.

So in pursuit of that which feeds my soul -- my art -- I present to you Saint Louis Stories. My first Saint Louis Story was my own. But future Saint Louis Stories will be about the people and places that make up this richly cultural and diverse metropolis.