Z's and 3's

Act I finale: Zorro, with sword in hand, inflicts three violent indentations on Ramon’s chest. Triune slashes that form one symbol: a “Z”. Each evening seeing this dramatic event performed reminded me of me, a being created in 3: physical, emotional and spiritual.  Three parts that make one entity: a human.  Three indentations that are there for all the world to see. 

Zorro was ten weeks of physical exertion.  My ensemble track was a marathon and after the final curtain would fall each evening I would be utterly exhausted. Costume changes with extensive sword fights in addition to climbing what seemed like thousands of stairs added to my body being beaten. Then adding to my daily role, I understudied the role of Ramon who was required to be shirtless for a sizable amount of Act II, one of my greatest insecurities in life. Knowing that, I drastically converted my diet and work-out schedule. After several weeks I found myself 15 pounds the lesser and two pant sizes smaller, arriving at a semi-comfortable place to bare my skin. Nonetheless, I was still apprehensive and timid. 

Zorro was also ten weeks of emotional exertion. I’m a sensitive person; it’s the way I have always been and I would never want to be independent from that attribute , but when I am physically exhausted, my sensitivity heightens.  Let’s add a book to my heightened sensitivity: Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. It’s a map to treasure.  I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially theatre artists, because we hide, we numb, and we have little or no clue that we are even broken. The book pricked my skin. I’m still trying to digest major points discussed, in that it’s grueling to examine your brokenness and shake hands with the pain, heartache and dysfunctional life system we operate out of.  Ms. Brown’s key word: vulnerability, is something we all fear to participate and engage in, but the greatest requisite to connection with others-which is why we are on this earth, to connect.  I started practicing vulnerability more with a coffee-bean-sized courage. Scary and freeing congruently.  I also, with the same coffee bean, began taking more initiative to ask for help. This isn’t an easy practice for me, but a necessary one. Without fail, my faithfuls around me dove in head first for support.  

Most importantly Zorro put me back into the spiritual practices of meditation, prayer and unconditional love. Taking a truth and meditating on the words that bring life and resilience to my spirit, was the greatest of sustainers for this time period. The phrase that became my cornerstone, “Be still”  accompanied my times of silence and stillness. It’s remarkable how quietness authorizes your heart to be heard. In the silent moments I received revelation of many of my numbing distractions: Facebook, Instagram, Books, iPhones, unhealthy vulnerability-vices that steal my true connection to my God and to the beautiful creations He put around me. This lead to another disarming moment, the notion that one can’t really love God or others properly without loving oneself. I still need a flashlight in this cave. I’ve never loved myself because I’ve faithfully carried the boulder of false humility on my back, the dictated lesson of my childhood legalism teachings. Yet, loving yourself in a proper healthy way is the crux of truly connecting and loving beyond yourself. Brene Brown would call this worthiness, Brennan Manning/Henri Nouwen would call it being the Beloved, and I through frustration and disdain called it necessary to attempt. I’m now commencing that attempt. 

The environment you cultivate within you is the environment you cultivate around you. Daring greatly means that as you stand dead center in the colosseum, blood on your hands, dirt on your face, you know you are fighting to live life rightly. You’ve taken the extreme step to gird yourself with whatever courage you can muster and walk unrepentantly in front of the crowds that jeer and mock. But you have the determination to not only truly live, but to live wholly. 

I’ve stepped into the arena. I can’t exit...not now.  With indentations on my chest, scars on my body, taunting names in my ear, my triunity being challenged at ever turn, I know this is the only chance for survival, sanity and life. 

Dimly Present

     During my visits to NYC, it always seems I'm poked and prodded in ways that I'm never expecting. Partly because I get to see good theatre and partly because the older I am, the more I have released myself from personal defensiveness towards the city. In years past the city would require all of my energy and effort, but getting to know this culture of individualists it's daily rampage and the way it all cyclicly operates, it has become easy to manage, and more so, enjoy. My last two trips have rendered nothing more than excitement and an invitation for a quick return.

     I was able to see the musical “Once” based on the Irish film released several years ago. The musical was the recipient of last years Tony Award for “best musical.” It's impossible to tell you how mesmerizing this piece of theatre was. It's rare that I have found myself so emotionally invested in a theatrical piece. At it's conclusion I wanted everyone to be quiet, stay in my seat, regroup, gather my thoughts and figure out what just happened to me. Reflecting on the story from the stage, I gleaned shadows of a greater story, and in this particular evening that overarching backlit shadow was hope.

     In the beginning of January I was privileged to spend some long-awaited time with a dear friend of mine who carries large amounts of wisdom and discernment. Speaking to her is like having all of your words, feelings and thoughts filed correctly into a clarity filing cabinet. She has the ability to diagram, order and shape things in a way I wish I could. In speaking about certain situations in my world, she concluded with a certain thought: hope was lost. Without hope the specific situation I was living was bleak, dismal and dying. Yet to season the situation with even the slightest sprinkle of hope would refashion the entire life-concoction before me.

     One of my favorite moments of “Once” is the first scene. The character named “Girl” steps onto the stage in a dimly lit area and listens at a distance to the entirety of Guy's song. Her back is to the audience, but her spirit so present. From that moment on, Guy's life is challenged, pushed, and prodded. Girl, with her rough-edged drive, stringently stands in the midst of Guy's blurred dreams and his complacent and to him complicated hopes. Girl was presence and presence challenged Guy's vacillation. The presence of anything, no matter where it's spacing in the room, still makes it present. Presence makes it living. Living makes it active, and activity calls for movement, one way or the other.

    I was singing a beautiful song alone in a big room with no one to hear it but myself. And the song had a wonderful melody and beautiful poetic lines, but there was no honesty or reality behind the notes, the phrases, the content. I was filling the room with sound and nothing more even though I knew the song like the back of my hand, but I didn't really know the song because I was singing it just for me.

     Then across the way, quietly entering--hope, faintly seen, stood at a distance and listened. Hope heard all the notes, the words, the crescendos, the denouements, but wasn't affected by my song. Yet hope stayed and was still present. After singing the song over and over expecting a different result hope asked me to stop singing. Then hope began to sing the same song but it was different. After a moment hope asked me to join in. In harmony we sang. I invited hope to stay.