How I survived myself

In last months O magazine there is an article by Abigail Thomas on how to write your own memoir. In it she says, “the writer of a memoir makes a pact with her reader that what she writes is the truth as best as she can tell it. But the original pact, the real deal, is with herself. Be honest, dig deep, or don’t bother.”

I am not currently in the business of writing a memoir, but I am in the business of getting real with myself in order to find my centre, my truth, both as a perfomer (and I use that term only because it encompasses a variety of mediums) and as a spiritual being on a human journey.

As woman in my early twenties I am only really just starting my journey towards connecting my past with my present so that I can move forwards as a strong and peaceful woman. Seeking truth is about peeling away the excess to discover what is at the core. It is stepping out from behind all the things we hide our true selves with. As an actor, I have spent a great deal of my practice hiding behind characters and costumes, and make up. I am just beginning to discover that I need to rid myself of all these distractions in order to be truthful. Real. I must trust that the truth is just waiting to be revealed. As a writer, I hide behind the delete key and struggle struggle to write the truth out of fear that my words, my uncomfortable truths, might jepoardize all that you think I am. Thomas writes “You cant get away with anything when its just you and the page”. And that just aint comfortable. I often revert to my 15 year old brain whenever I get close to the walls of my comfort zone. In other words, I kick, I cry, I fight, and I scream. And then I run so far inside myself not even I can find me. My 15 year old world was one of chaos. I did not know the truth from the lies. I could not trust anyone. I could not trust myself. I did not know joy. I only felt pain. I learnt to fake it though. I had to. If I’d spent every day in the sadness I dont think I would have made it. I had to pretend in order to survive. I was a good girl disguised as a bad girl disguised as a good girl. I went to dance class, rehearsals, voice lessons. I aced essays, I sung in the choir, I went to football games and parties and I acted like I cared. I acted like everything was perfect when it was pitch black inside. And then I’d throw it all up and watch the anger and the sadness get flushed down the drain. I learnt to control the choas with self hatred. And I thought I was hiding it all pretty well until the sadness got bigger than the lessons, and the parties and I couldnt hide anymore. I fell apart then. And you cant let yourself fall apart when your trying to pass math 20. But failure gave me something to cry about. Get pissed about. “I’m just so bad at math” was easier to say than “my mommy left me and I cant handle it”. So I let myself cry. And cry. And cry. I was desperate to be saved, but I could do nothing to help myself. I learnt this the hard way when the first boy I’d let myself love, let myself trust, left me because he “could not handle my constant sorrow anymore”. I wanted to hate him for that. But I understood it. So instead, I hated myself for not being happy enough to make him stay. I decided my sadness hurt me, so I’d better try something new. I chose anger.  This led to the my expulsion from my dads home and the hurt of my sister. The lesson: ”I drive everyone away”.  I have discovered, that in the end, I abandoned myself. I stopped loving me the same time I believed everyone else had. And for 5 years now I have been testing the limits of love.

  For all the stupid things I did to hurt myself because I needed to, had to, hate myself more than I hated the people I loved, I also found ways to escape to a better place. I danced, I sang, I wrote. But I could not go so far as to dance or sing or write the truth. I could not trust that I would be safe both from others, and from myself. I could not get so deep for fear I’d have to face the darkness in my soul. I was pretending to be, instead of actually being. I was make believing my happiness, instead of believing that I was worthy to be free. Only now do I understand that that is what kept me safe, but is also what has held me back.

Faking it works for awhile, but its so easy to see to through the lie. In my second year of acting school, I got a lot of feedback about my inability to trust myself. I thought this was useless information. I wanted to know what I could do to improve.  ”trust yourself more” wasnt sufficient. I wanted to know how. I am learning, that trusting myself is a process. It is about being willing to seek out both my darkness and my light and accept that I can create whatever I choose with it. And what ever I create is a reflection of how much I trust that through both sadness and joy, I discover how to live truthfully and love truthfully.

Today I give thanks. For the moon and the stars. For the dew on the grass. For mouthfuls of coconut rice between mouthfuls of conversations. For my eyes, my fingers, my lips and my toes. For his eyes gazing in the same direction. his fingers interlaced with mine. I give thanks for all the tommorrows we’ve had. For warm water dancing on cold mornings. For 5 more minutes before the alarm. For big thoughts. For starting over. For forgiveness and for the ways I will. For the very best of friends. For the exhale. The letting go. For feet pounding the pavement to the rythm of traffic and the birds. For FREEEEEEDOM at 5 o clock! For hard work. For awkward silences. For the places in our hearts we arent afraid to go. For missed opportunites and caught buses. For the walk sign. The stop sign. The green in my tea. For the angels I cant see and the ones that I can. For the morning. The midnight. The memory of water. And for you.

I made a comittment to myself to write once a day. This was 3 weeks ago. I havent written once. I stare at the blank screen and feel paralyzed. Like if I write a single word everyone will see how fucking scared I am. How overwhelmed. How panicked. How lost. The following are not my words. But then, these days, I am not myself.

Suppose I said
I am on my best behavior
And there are times
I lose my worried mind

Would you want me when Im not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?

Suppose I said
Colors change for no good reason
And words will go
From poetry to prose

Would you want me when Im not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?

And I, in time, will come around.

  At a spiritual service I attended this weekend, a number of questions were posed. About love, about science, about life and death, and about God. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?  They are questions that I don’t have answers too. They are kind of questions that lead me to more questions.  I was brought up by parents who believed in our right to choose our own faith. I went to sunday school and learnt the stories from the old testament. I enjoyed them as much as any story. I especially enjoyed giving them my own spin. In the third grade we were asked to draw a picture of one of the days of creation. I chose the day where god created animals. There were mice, and bears, and cats, and birds and they were all lounging poolside drinking pina colodas. Ms. Hammond and I had a nice little chat about that one. I found some answers in Sunday school but I wanted to know how come this angry god talked about doing unto others as you would wish others to do unto you and then went around giving everyone plagues?  I wanted to know why people were killing eachother all over the world in his name? Why did missionaries want to abolish ancient faiths? If I believe in this God does that make everyone who doesnt wrong? Why is God a he? What day did God create the dinosaurs? Who were the witches and where did they come from? Is my Opa with you? Is my dog there? Why can’t dogs go to Heaven? How come babies that arent baptized can’t go there either? Why does God love me when he doesnt even know me? Are you there God? Can you hear me?

And while I made a choice to be baptized as a Catholic and I prayed each night my soul to keep, and I had ashes placed across my forehead, and I drank the blood of Christ, I could still see faeries splashing in puddles after the rain. I still believed in magic and bed sheet sails and wishing wells and Apollo and Aphrodite and Ganesh, and Buddha too. There have been times when I needed to believe that God was the other set of footsteps in the sand and that my prayers would be ansered. And there have been times when I was so angry at God and I thought it was his fault and could not hold myself accountable. And there have been moments where I believed in nothing at all, but I would go to church because I had too…and then I’d start singing. And the hymns would lift me up and carry me away to a place where I could not ignore the voices of the angels all around me.  

 There is not a single faith that comes to mind that does not somehow integrate song or chanting into its practice. The voice in some form may just be the one common thread. The one uniting factor that we might all be able to agree on. We might not all be singing the same words, but when we listen to our neighbours, and strive to find the rythym, the beat, the harmony a magical thing happens. In order to live, one has to breathe. In order to sing together, to be one voice, we have to breathe together. In choir, before the start of a song, Mrs. Gunther, our director, would invite us to take a deep breathe in. We would do so, and then with a motion of her hand, in order for the first note to be heard, we would all let go. We would exhale. And riding the exhale like a wave, our voices would lift upwards to the rafters and out across the silent air. You can take in all the air you want or need, but you will not make a sound if you are not able to let it go. 

  There is a prayer that asks the lord, “make me an instrument of your peace.”   If my voice is my instrument, what song am I singing?  Am I spreading joyful music? Am I really listening to the choir around me? Am I off key? In tune? Am I singing at all?