A bit more than six months ago it was brought to my attention that I had basically given up on living and being a part of the world. It was an abrupt and shocking revelation, more so as I realized it was true. An unintentional but highly curated diet of anxiety, depression, and sense of failure had grown about me a kind of mobile tomb.

I have long had unacknowledged tendencies towards social anxiety and introversion which I often let interfere with my ability to live outside my head, but in the last several years I had let those tendencies become controlling forces, and realizing what I had allowed myself to become was a painful and disconcerting wake up call.

Thankfully, with the help of a loving, supportive family and a bit of medication, I was able to begin the process of deconstructing that tomb, acknowledging and facing my struggles with anxiety and depression, start finding my way back to being alive in the world, and to sharing that life with the people around me.

Part of that path has included discovering the treasure trove of local live performance venues and the many talented people willing to share stories and songs and bits of themselves in spellbinding and life affirming ways.

Almost every Friday night for most of the the last six months my wife and I (and my mother more and more often) have made our way to one of these venues to experience the comfort of being with people and sharing with them joy.

So far for 2018:

Crowns (Mahogany Ensemble Theatre) Shreveport Little Theatre is a beautiful, comfortable, well equipped theater and is easily my favorite venue.

Crowns was billed as a musical exegesis on the evolution and role of hats in the community of African American women of the South, something I was eager to learn about.

In truth, the hats themselves, and there were a great many, were never really explained as social artifacts so much as being lead-ins to stories about what it meant for black women in the Jim Crow South struggling to gain and maintain a sense of dignity and worth. A vastly more important lesson.

Neverlyn Townsel as Mother Shaw and Wilma Moore Young as Mabel sang with such power and grace it was hard not to be moved.

Taste of the Norton I've become a big fan and supporter of the Longview Museum of Fine Arts, and after my stop over in Chicago last year where I was able to spend an afternoon at The Art Institute of Chicago (Thank you, Luke!) I've discovered a deeper enjoyment of art in general.

When the opportunity to mix adventuring to a new museum along with sampling exotic food came up, I bit at it. We had a wonderful time at The RW Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport enjoying the art inspired nibbles of Chef Blake Jackson.

I was particularly enthralled with the works of Albert Bierstadt. The way he used light to bring his landscapes to life was like nothing I've seen before. I could be absorbed into 'Garden of the Gods' for days.

We stayed until our feet wore out and we still didn't get to see everything.

The Lyons (Stage Center) Central Artstation in Shreveport was a new venue for us and we ended up in the front row of a stage-less performing area for this dark comedy about a deeply dysfunctional family.

Sitting directly in front of Earleen Bergeron, who spent most of the play in her role as Rita Lyons dispensing the largest share of the plays dialogue from a hospital room chair, she did an amazing job, and I was deeply impressed with her performance by the end.

That said, the opening of the second act was creepy and fairly disturbing, beyond what the point it was trying to make needed, as far as I was concerned, and the presence of the father's ghost was lost on me.

Peter and the Starcatcher (Texarkana Repertory Company) An origin story for the characters of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys based on the novel by humorist Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, I am lost for superlatives regarding this performance.

An incredible cast (particularly John McDonald as Black Stache, Emily McDonald as Molly, and Alex Rain as Mrs. Bumbrake) executing complex roles as actors, props, and scenery flawlessly. What these lads and lass did with boxes, lengths of ropes, and their own bodies to help tell the story was innovatively, hilariously, brilliant.

The second act got a little weird, opening with a musical number by cross dressing mermaids, but the cast was committed, and it was a truly wonderful way to spend an evening.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this ends up being our favorite show of the year, and I'm looking forward to seeing more by TexRep.

Vinegar Tom (Panola College) A variation on The Crucible focusing on, as much as anything, the way social systems designed and controlled by men not simply affect, but are often internalized by women, thinking back two days later I feel like I have a better sense of the play's intent than I did at the time.

We saw The Crucible last year at Kilgore College and found the story to be rather bland (I had not read or seen it before), so came into this performance with limited expectations.

Things lifted early on as we recognized the female leads from their roles in last years moving performance of Steel Magnolias. It was fun to see how much they had improved in the intervening months, seeming more comfortable in their lines and actions.

I will say this variation was more interesting, and more relevant, than The Crucible, I'm just not that into stories about old timey witch hunts as tools for exerting social power. But I'm still thinking about it days later, so a win for the author and performers.

And we're only two months in! This year we're planning to expand our Friday evening adventures to include the local ballet, opera, and symphony, and I'm looking forward to the start of this years Texas Shakespeare Festival and spending more time sharing the experience of being amazed and wondered.