How I survived myself

 Evey Tuesday for the past 8 months I have spent the better part of the day with a group of actors and councillors facilitating an after school acting program for junior high students in at risk neighbourhoods. The program is finished for this year, and my Tuesday feels incomplete. 

  This program has been my first real foray into the world of forum theatre. A form of theatre created (or discovered) in the 1970s by Augusto Boal. It is an interactive session in which the spectators become actors and can change the course of action of the characters who are facing real life challenges. The intention is to start a sort of theatrical debate in which experiences and ideas are shared in order to bring about a sense of solidarity, understanding, and empowerment. 

  For  the purposes of our program it is also a form of therapy and of prevention. We are dealing with kids being raised in lower income neighbourhoods, which though not inclusively or exclusively, puts them at risk for certain behaviours and problems like drug use, abuse, crime, neglect, and the list goes on. The hope of our program is that by having the kids “act out” these different scenarios in a safe environment, it will help to moderate the fight or flight response so that they are better prepared to make wise, empowered decisions when they face these issues in real life.

  The course of these last months has been challenging, hair raising, rewarding, and eye opening. We have discussed tough issues, played games, gotten creative, and had a wild time doing it. On our last day in our closing circle one boy put up his hand and said, “Thank you for being here. I didnt think I’d like it but I had fun and I’ve learnt I’m not alone.” 

  If that is what he learnt, here is what I have learnt; That I am blessed. I am blessed with people in my life who support me and lift me up. With a father who gave me the gift of knowledge and information, nature, laughter, and bed time stories. With a mother who instilled creativity and compassion, and the sense that I can do anything. Parents who have given me the gift of worth. A sister who shares with me her spirit, her ingenuity, and her friendship. A family of blood and a family of choice who share their kindness, adventures, and hearts in every way they can. I have been blessed with a beautiful childhood filled with barbies, and Disneyland, and sleepovers and love. But not every child is so blessed as that.

  Some of the teens I met this year were not easy to like. They had foul mouths, didnt follow directions, fought, came to session stoned, you name it. For some of them, this was the last place they wanted to be and they had no problem letting us know. Some of them stopped coming, some went to jail, some went to rehab, some were 13 years old and had given up hope. Some of them stayed. Not always easy to like, but hard not to love. 

  As their stories came out, a few words at a time over the course of months, I was left speechless. Wordless. If I write down my outrage, my sadness, it makes their stories true.

  Not every child is so blessed as I. Some have parents who hit them, who hurt them, exploit them, who leave them and dont come back. Some have parents who drink, use, overdose, and get locked up. Some children have parents who call them slut, idiot, fag, and worthless. Some children have a mom called the TV. Some kids dont get to go to disneyland, or have sleepovers, or learn about Mozart, or mountains, or love. And I would guess that some of these children have parents who never got the gift of worth too.

  And all the the love and all the theatre in the world cant change their pasts, but I have hope, that what we are doing today will bless their futures.

  Once upon a time there was a little girl who looked in the mirror and through the glass she would see a vision of a beautiful princess. A young girl just like her with the same fair hair and soft complexion as she had. And the same smile and the very same twinkle in her eye. And as the little girl would begin to dance the little princess too would follow suit. They would twirl in unison as they moved to the rythym of the song in thier heart.  When thier pink skirts swirled like a carousel around their knees they would collapse in piles of laughter. The kind of laughter that cant help but escape, but then, there was nothing stopping them anyway. A lifetime of possibility stretched out before them as they would skip and leap across the floor and proclaim with the kind of enthusiasm only princesses and little girls can “I am beautiful”. And it was the truth.

  The little girl is not so little anymore. She is a teenager now. She nolonger see’s the vision of the princess in the mirror. She is staring instead at a girl just as plain as she is. With the same mousy hair and pale skin and the same frown and the twinkle is gone from her eyes. And the girl doesn’t dance anymore. She would look silly in front of her new friends. And she certainly isnt wearing a pink skirt. She wears torn up jeans and sneakers and you certainly wont catch her twirling. And she catches herself when she feels the laughter trying to escape.

 And I look at her and wonder what happened in the 7 years since I saw her last. Why can she nolonger see the beautiful princess staring back at her from the looking glass?

  I want to tell her that I can still see her. That she is just at as beautiful as she was back once upon a time. I want to erase the years that have stolen the truth away. I say goodbye as the girls head out of the workshop I have just finished teaching. The room is empty now. I take a breath and as I turn to leave I catch a glimpse of a woman in the mirror with hair like night and skin the colour of milk  and I make a note to book a tan and a hair cut and I wonder what happened to the princess I once saw looking back at me. We used to dance too. We used to believe that we could do anything, be anything. We used to know that we were beautiful. And for a moment I am six again. I do not know that I will soon believe that I need to be thinner, taller, blonder, smarter. I look at the little girl in the mirror. She stares back at me with the same smile I have and the same twinkle in her eye. “You are still beautiful” she whispers. And I believe her because princesses dont lie.