My Second TEDx: The Stage, The Nerves, The Return

I performed my second TEDx yesterday at the beautiful Coolidge Corner Theatre, and what surprised me most wasn’t the stage itself—it was when the nerves finally arrived.

The bright lights, the large stage, the lack of a teleprompter or slides—none of that scared me during final rehearsal. I felt ready. I knew the talk, I trusted the material, and I’ve stood in front of audiences enough times to know how to hold a room.

But then I looked out.

I saw familiar faces. I saw strangers. I saw people who knew me well and people who had no idea who I was, only what I was about to say. And suddenly, in the final half hour before stepping on stage, it hit me: this might not go perfectly.

And of course, there was a tiny snag. Toward the end, I forgot the quote I wanted to share and the person I meant to attribute it to. For one brief second, time stretched. That inner critic tried to creep in. But then something stronger took over—the part of me that has done this before, the part that understands that perfection is never the goal.

The rest of it felt priceless.

Not flawless in the technical sense, but flawless in the ways that matter. Present. Honest. Connected. Full of moments I’m genuinely proud of.

What struck me most afterward was how much the body remembers.

It reminded me of learning how to ride a bike. Once your body knows, it never fully forgets. Even after time passes, even after fear creeps in, even after doubt tells you otherwise—you still know.

Creativity works like that.

Speaking works like that.

Courage works like that.

We spend so much of life being afraid to start over. We think if we pause, pivot, or step away from something, we lose it. That if we stop painting, stop speaking, stop creating, somehow the door closes behind us.

But it doesn’t.

Your hands remember.

Your instincts remember.

You find those same color relationships again. You relearn how to trust the process. You return to that childlike place of experimentation and curiosity.

This is something I teach constantly in my art classes and workshops. The hardest part is rarely technique. It’s releasing the outcome. It’s allowing yourself to be imperfect long enough to find flow.

That’s true on canvas, and it’s true on stage.

Don’t be afraid to start over.

Sometimes starting over isn’t failure—it’s remembrance.

It’s giving yourself permission to come back to who you were before perfection, before fear, before the pressure to get it all right.

Whether it’s stepping onto a TEDx stage, picking up a paintbrush again, or simply allowing yourself to begin something new, the lesson is the same:

Just give yourself the chance to return to yourself.

At The Plein-Air Art Academy, this is the work we do every day—through art classes, creative workshops, and spaces where people can reconnect with presence, process, and possibility.

Because sometimes the bravest thing we can do is begin again.