Nancy Colasurdo

Alive in the Sunshine Nancy Colasurdo

Alive in the Sunshine is the story of a 40-something woman's journey from established professional to active seeker. It is a call to simplify and awaken, to live more authentically, and to find meaning and beauty in our everyday lives. Nancy Colasurdo's memoir, covering a decade of self-reflection and change, begins with the staggering effects of 9/11 and her subsequent layoff as a television producer. Her well-ordered life falls apart completely as she struggles to find her way, continually questioning and seeking a life beyond that of the conventional Italian-American Jersey girl she was raised to be. She finds a new profession in life coaching, divorces the Catholic Church in the wake of the priest scandal, and seeks love, often with devastating results. Eventually she attracts a man who shows her her capacity for love, opening her up even further. One day Colasurdo picks up A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf and falls in love with this quote - "[W]atch in the spring sunshine the stockbroker and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that five hundred pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine." The quote describes a way of being very much at odds with the spiritual wasteland Colasurdo had fallen into. Ultimately, Alive in the Sunshine is about learning to pay attention to signs, appreciate simple pleasures, and be present in our lives.