Owning your art – making brave choices

A few days ago, I had to answer the question: “Are you talented?” My first instinct was to answer, “I don’t know, you tell me…”

When I first started acting classes, and then acting in community theatre, I didn’t feel like an actor. In fact, I didn’t feel like an artist at all, and I SO longed to be one.

I dove into training, hoping to feel like an actor. One day my exasperated acting coach told me “I can’t MAKE you want this, I can’t put the desire IN you!”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. I was there, wasn’t I? Hadn’t I driven 3 hours to be there? I WANTED to act. What I didn’t realize was that I had gotten sidetracked. I was so worried about doing it “right”; finding the director’s version of the character, pleasing my acting coach, being the “right” version, etc… that my discovery of the character was drowned out by all the others I was trying to please.

A few days later I was looking through some old photos and I noticed an odd phenomenon: Pictures of me for the last ten years all have a “deer-in-the-headlights” look to them. In my five-year-old university ID picture, I gazed through the camera as if I was looking at an oncoming train; frozen, vacant.

I remember that day I had the picture taken. I was new on the campus. A “non-traditional” student, I was old enough to parent 80% of the students I was in class with. In fact my eldest daughter and I were on campus together for a time. I distinctly remember as they took the picture I was thinking,“Can they tell I don’t belong here?” I stayed on campus for over four years, completing two degrees in natural resources, but my pictures never lost that glazed look.

For years, I have punished myself for wanting. I married a younger man, and a voice in my head told me, “You don’t deserve him. How dare you take him away from the NORMAL life he could be living?” We moved to a small, beautiful town, and the voices clamored, “You’re outside the box, GROWNUPS live in suburbia, where the kids can go to soccer games, and you can work in a cubicle!” When we moved again to the college town and I started classes, they whispered, “Oh SURE, go to school with your kids. They all notice it you know. You’re old, you’re frumpy, and you dress yourself funny.”

Somehow, I became convinced that I didn’t have the right to take up space on the planet, that I didn’t deserve to WANT. I steadily gave away ownership of something precious: my deepest desires.

No wonder I didn’t feel like an artist. I was still giving away my power.  Like the shy seventh-grader waiting to be asked to dance, I was waiting for others to grant me my place; induct me into the sacred art of acting.

I then recalled the moment that acting and I fell in love. I was sitting in a Tucson hotel room, and as understanding blossomed in my soul I saw that an actor stands in a sacred doorway where fire dances and hearts meld;  I want to feel that heat.

As I remembered that heart-pumping epiphany, I realized: you don’t become an artist when other people tell you that you are one. You don’t even become an artist when you produce art. You become an artist when you fall in love with an art. Your relationship to your art is intimate and unique. It is difficult to define, but it is yours to own – no one else can bestow it.

So, am I talented? Yes. Am I an artist? Yes. Do I still struggle with seeking approval? Yes (dammit). I especially struggle with fear of being wrong, or of commitment. This fear is so bad, I often up with four flavors in my ice cream bowl.

If I am going to make it to drama school, and even into professional acting, I have to make brave choices both on stage and in life. It will take laser-like focus and discipline. It may not seem like I have trouble making brave choices, (after all, I wear read Converse hi-top shoes with WAY more outfits than most people think is ok) – but I do.

Sometimes I don’t make a choice because I truly don’t know what I want, and I end up at that “deer in the headlights” spot. Right now, I am working to discern ME. I don’t fully know myself, which means it is really hard to bring the fully-formed human being that is me to my art.

But I do know this: I am past asking permission to belong. I am past waiting for that invitation. Perfect or not, I must press ahead. Like in Junior high, if I want to dance and no one asks me, I shall dance bravely alone.

I suspect many of us struggle with making brave choices, seeking approval, or just knowing what we want. I’d love to hear from people: what tools do you use to know yourself better? How do you make brave choices?