An Open Letter To Those Who Love Me

Written 28 September 2013, 8.07pm.

I found this deep in my drafts folder the other day. I thought it was the perfect manifesto to start off this year. It has not been edited since July 2017.

(I'm not actually as depressed as the title makes it sound.)

Dear people in my life,

I think by now ya'll have noticed that I'm not exactly following your dreams for me. You know, the corporate dreams of me being some big-time lawyer or doctor or some other kind of genius. You have told me so many times over the years how smart I am, how smart I am, how smart I am. I get the sense that you figured I was some kind of a child prodigy or something. Cha-ching. Don't think I don't hear those cash registers in your heads.

Now, that may be true. Maybe I am a genius. I don't know. It depends what you're talking about, really (because if we're talking math, I am most definitely not a genius). But whatever the case, you all see me as intelligent. And I am not living up to your expectations of me.

I may be wrong (correct me if I am, I really do want to hear your honest take on this), but it seems to me you expected 'more' of me. I was to graduate high school and then go to college for perhaps a psychology or a medical or law degree. Something that would accentuate any speck of intelligence I possess. Something you could brag about to your co-workers to make you sound like you had some serious connections. And then, after spending four or perhaps ten irretrievable years of my years institutionalised, I would be ready to take on the world, to be the messiah, and you would have the privilege of saying you knew me before I was 'great.'

But it didn't work out that way. I graduated high school with... I don't know, integrity, I guess. I was willing to admit I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And, perhaps more damagingly, I was not willing to commit to what I didn't know. I did not want to go to college for a degree that I wasn't sure I wanted, only to decide after three or more years' worth of money had been sunk into it that it really wasn't what I wanted to do after all. And then I would have been dishonest -- to you, to the school that would have had the misfortune of hosting me in such a case, to myself.

And I cannot be dishonest.

For two years you secretly hoped and outwardly 'spurred me on' (to put it politely). And then -- a miracle! -- suddenly the announcement came. I was going to college. Your hearts pounded. You were so excited. Finally I was going to live the life you had planned for me. Finally I was going to make good use of all my brains that I had been wasting for so long...

And now for my side of the story.

I have never been interested in committing more time than necessary to anything I am not fully interested in. Even in grade school: math. Math never interested me (nor did it make sense, but that's a different discussion), so I hated it. I would do whatever it took to do as little as possible... to waste as little of my life as I had to on such a pointless pursuit. (I know now that there is a point to some math, but that was my perspective at the time.) Second example: You all have had the misfortune of trying to make small talk with me. I'm not interested in small talk. 'Share how you really feel or shut up' has pretty much always been my guideline for conversation (for better or for worse). I'm not interested in small talk -- I hate these little social lies we tell each other -- so I don't do it. Like, at all.

By the time I graduated, I was keenly aware of the fact that I have one life to live. I have already used up twenty years of it just getting to this point. That leaves me with roughly sixty years remaining (give or take a decade or so). And there's no promises that I won't die earlier -- say, from an accident or something. Is it really wise to spend four years of those precious remaining years on school? School that I don't really want and may never need?

This was my logic behind not going to college immediately. I wanted to think it through first. I wanted to be sure what I was doing with my life, then decide if college would be necessary for that.

For two years I thought about this -- believe me, I thought about it. Hardly a second went by that I wasn't thinking about my future, praying about it, asking God what He had created me to do. It looked to you like I was just being lazy and mooching off my parents. Believe me, this was not the case. At the very least, it was not the intent.

Two years I pondered this. Two years I agonised. Two years I prayed.

I have to drop this train of thought now and back up a bit.

You didn't know this -- nobody really knew this till recently. You know I have been dancing ballet since I was six. What you did not know was that I have been making up dances in my head since I was seven. I didn't know it until those two years between high school and college, but I had found my passion by the time I was seven years old.

Choreography. Imagining dancers on the stage, coming together as a choir of movement, creating beauty. It captivated me.

At seventeen I began to take this seriously. At eighteen I choreographed and wrote down my first complete dance. Here is where this news began to leak out... that I was doing choreography.

You didn't know it, but I did. I had found my passion. This was my calling.

In those two years, I researched so much about careers in the arts. You have no idea how much I tried to spin it different ways, wanting the worst-case scenario so I knew what to expect, but wanting the best-case scenario so I could tell you something you could be proud of. So you would stop taking jabs at me for being lazy or stupid. Because I was not being lazy or stupid -- in fact, that was exactly what I was trying so hard to avoid.

I will tell you straight. Even the choreographers for big-name TV shows make about $20,000 a year, often less. And it's straight commission. If you don't have a project that month, you don't get paid that month. You are your own boss, and there's not a lot of demand for a choreographer. There's a reason you don't meet a lot of choreographers. It's because we don't need a lot of choreographers. Because nobody cares about the arts anymore. Ballet (true ballet, not this 'contemporary ballet' crap) is fast becoming a lost art, and hip hop, the dance of choice today, is largely choreographed by the performers themselves. When a classical ballet company does tour, they often mount the old classics -- Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Swan Lake... There is no need for a choreographer; those works already exist.

In fact, this is reality for the arts in general. Artists are overworked (mostly as volunteers), and they are severely underpaid. Some of the most talented artists of the past century languish in a furiously creative flurry... unnoticed. Loved only by a loyal handful, but misunderstood and rejected, then ignored, by everyone else.

This is the life I am called for.

I am called to live a life that not only has no retirement plan, it has barely enough money to buy the groceries every week.

I am called to toil in obscurity, perhaps for decades, not because of the quality of my work, but because perhaps God has seen fit that I choreograph for only a few.

I am called to a life of intense loneliness. No-one can understand what it's like to create a dance from scratch until they have done it. And even then, those without the passion cannot begin to imagine the thrill of the soul that so captures our imagination that we dream of pointe shoes at night; that demands we return, again and again, to the music, to the stages in our imaginations.

I am called to a life that no-one on this planet will ever understand. It will look intensely foolish to anyone who has never tasted the wine of creativity, and in this day and age, that's almost everyone.

I am called to daydream with a vengeance.

I am called to a life throughout which it is highly probable that I will be broke or near-broke, lonely and largely ignored, obscure and taunted by those who do not understand. I will very likely struggle, not because I'm not smart, but because this is my God-given passion and the gift He gave me. And when God gives a person a gift, they can not and will never be truly happy doing anything else.

So I will choreograph. I may dance, I may sing, I may play an instrument. But no amount of criticism from you will make me change my mind. I will not be happy doing anything else. Let me be happy doing this.

Can you live with that? Can you accept the fact that I will not be a doctor or a lawyer with a 'thriving' multimillion dollar practice? Can you accept the fact that I will sometimes ask aloud where my next meal is coming from -- when I know there are other, higher-paying jobs out there?

Day 21

I feel useless -- again.

I was laid off from my job (due to the virus) after working only three weeks. Three weeks of feeling like a human being with something to give to the world. Three weeks of being finally free from the vice-grip of 'how am I going to pay for this wedding?' Three weeks of sweet freedom from the despair that maybe I actually am unhireable for some unknown reason.

As an artist, I feel a certain responsibility to the public in general. Historically, in times like these -- when all the world seems upended and topsy-turvy -- it falls to the artists to make the Herculean effort to find and present hope to society. It's our job to bring encourage flagging morale and point to the hope of rescue, of a brighter day.

What then, of those artists like me who are drowning in it themselves and can't find it either?

Well... those ones are failures.

So I'm a failure. Again.

I hate it. It never gets easier to be the failure. I hate it so much.

The Useless Artist

It's been a difficult, discouraging week.

To start off, my beloved word processor Lila may be dead for good -- including some newly-written scenes for Kyrie that hadn't been backed up yet. She's been with me nine years, and I genuinely cannot imagine life without her (what? I'm single, it's not like I have a human to use that line with anyway). There was a scare in February, but she came back... she's a tough little thing, and I thought it was just a bump in the road. She alone was my companion in my teen years when I was isolated in the middle of nowhere, raising four kids, bullied at church, and trying desperately to stay on the nonexistent right side of an abusive parent without also compromising the safety of my siblings. She came with me to Saskatchewan and prevented boredom on many slow days at work. She was a key player in twelve novels and has been a huge part of the Kyrie revision so far. Without her, I don't know if that revision will ever get finished.

I'm living my dream now -- a west-facing window with both a skyline view and a mountain view, my tap floor in the basement for practicing whenever I want (within reason -- the walls are shared with neighbours), but yet, I'm trapped in the house because if I go out anywhere, I'll end up spending money. Money I don't have. Because literally nobody in Canada will hire me for even a basic, entry-level cashier job, let alone anything else I apply for (yesterday morning alone I literally applied for 36 jobs). All I have to live on for probably the rest of my life is a couple hundred dollars. I have zero income to replace what I'm spending on rent. (I'm not spending it on gas because I'm not going anywhere and I'm not spending it on food because I have no motivation to eat and also the money will last longer if I don't eat.)

I can't even make audition videos or even dance videos because I need a new memory card for my video camera. But I can't afford one. In today's online world, you literally CAN NOT get anywhere without the ability to record video and post it online. That's the only way people even have a chance to see what you have to offer.

So there it is. I'm in this beautiful city I can't explore, I can't write, I can't really do anything dance-wise, I'm locked out of a lot of auditions, and I can't even get up and go work a menial 9-to-5 because literally nobody thinks I'm employable... I, who have worked in literally three different fields and have a Bachelor's degree in yet a different field entirely.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can at least buy life... or at least a life worth the air I'm breathing. Right now I'm just taking up space and bringing nothing to anybody. I'm just sitting here quietly spiraling, and since I have no friends here, there's nobody to stop me. I feel unseen and unheard and of no consequence to anybody. For an artist -- for someone who has literally spent their entire life trying to create things that change people and make them feel -- this is the literal worst thing that could possibly happen. If nobody can see or hear me in any of my avenues of expertise (writing, dance, or theatre), that means I'm not having an impact.

And that means I'm useless.

Post-NaNoWriMo Debrief

This was the hardest novel I think I've ever written.

Mind you, I don't particularly remember the trenches of writing my other novels. But usually I have a pretty good sense of which novels are decent and which are... not. And this one is trending to the latter camp.

First of all, my plot only percolated for about 36 hours before I started writing it (usually it's simmering in my brainpan for five or six months by the time November hits), so I felt like I didn't really know the story. It was like trying to eat an unripe fruit. It might have been good, but I was asking too much of it prematurely. My mystery story was a mystery even to me, and in fact, the plot grew murkier as the book went on. When I started the story I knew exactly who the murderer was, and by the time I hit 50k I had narrowed it down to three people. (No, that's not a typo.)

It was also hard writing without M. Even in the years when she didn't write a novel herself, she still commiserated with me as I wrote mine because she knew from the inside the madness that is writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days and got, more than anybody else, the strange heady mix of elation and hilarity and angst that co-exists in the speed-novelist in those thirty days. But this year, I couldn't message her my characters' latest escapades and have her laugh along with me instead of taking a vague 'smile, nod, and back away slowly' approach like most everyone else does. I didn't have any of her insightful/funny comments on my NaNoWriMo Facebook posts. I never got to see her dramatic updates of her own novel. I didn't get to offer her ludicrous ideas and steal ridiculous plot points from her.

Artists -- true artists, who follow their calling with such passion and intensity -- are so rare already, and although we are often perceived as working alone, the fact is we can be pretty closely knit and when we lose one of our own, it's like taking a support beam out of a building. Although M and I worked on our novels in our own separate rooms, communicating almost exclusively online, she was integral in my own creative process and now that she's gone, my own work has grown paler, simply because she's not a part of my life anymore. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I would also argue that it takes a village to create art. Take one person out of the picture, and the whole composition of the photo is altered. Colours are missing -- the blue eyes, the blonde hair, the bright clothing. The light is different -- the reflection of the sun on her face, the sparkle in her eyes. The shape is different -- one less figure, one less shadow, the loss of shape and symmetry, a literal hole where there used to be a whole fascinating personality. You can tell me to get over it because she was 'just' a friend all you want (as opposed to a spouse or a child), but the fact is, she coloured my life and by extension my artistic output, and now with one of the arteries of my art severed, my art -- and therefore I -- can't help but suffer.

I digress.

I did make 50k though. I completely filibustered the last 10k. I had about four plot points of any kind, so I basically dropped one in every 10k and then milked it in great repetitive word-padded detail for as long as conceivably possible (and then some) before dropping in the next tiny plot point and milking that cow absolutely dry and so on. I lost my motivation somewhere around the 25k mark and honestly it was sheer force of will that got the book to 50k (I'm not calling it 'done' because nothing's wrapped up because I don't know how to wrap it up). I have never been so thoroughly, consistently uninspired for a novel. Even my 2016 novel (which only made 37k that November) wasn't this difficult to write.

Maybe in eight months when I get around to re-reading it I'll feel differently about it, but right now I'm not looking forward to that day. I can't complain too much though... my main goal coming in was not to write an amazing book (although that would have been nice), it was to write 50k in a month for the first time since 2015. And I did that.

Next writing project: back to revising Kyrie.

Extraordinary

When I go visit my family, one of my favourite things is listening to my sister practice piano.

She's someone you probably wouldn't expect to be a pianist. She's almost a tomboy -- short hair, loves the outdoors, loves bugs in particular, owns a pet rabbit and co-owns about twenty outdoor cats, perennially in jeans and running barefoot, and can throw a punch or two if necessary. She's kindhearted and small and feisty and you don't mess with her if you know what's good for you.

Yet, she sits down at that piano and spins beautiful smooth melodies out of it so effortlessly. It's hard to believe it's my own little sister -- the rough-and-tumble farm kid -- making music like that. It never ceases to amaze me. Two of my other sisters are violinists, but somehow that seems more natural -- they both have a personality more stereotypically like that of a musician, plus in violin you see their arm moving the bow across the strings. With a piano it's just your fingers hitting keys. It's a lot more impressive to make a piano piece smooth and emotional.

The other day I was backstage at a show and got talking with a few other choir singers that I sort of knew, but not very well, and in the context of a different conversation it came out that I'm working on a novel. They were in awe and peppered me with questions. They were so impressed. I was a little taken aback. Having written fifteen (and a half) novels in the past ten years, I often genuinely forget that people don't just write novels in their free time. To me it seems normal. To them, it's extraordinary.

So I write this to you, my fellow artists -- whether or not you think you're worthy of the title. You are extraordinary. Yes, your everyday life consists of practice and rehearsal and research and fine-tuning and critique, but the average person's life doesn't. I especially write this to those of you, like me, who are in this world full-time and all your friends are from this world of practicing and rehearsing and fine-tuning and you feel lost in it. You (and your friends) are all extraordinary. You are not the norm. It feels like the norm, but it's not. You do incredible things. For me -- I write novels. Whole novels. For fun. People don't do that. That's extraordinary. I practice dance multiple hours every day. I may not have 180 extensions, but I have speed, and strength, and grace that does not come naturally to 99% of the population (even though I still often feel like I'm less-than because I'm surrounded by flexible dancers).

All those years that you have dedicated to your craft -- your instrument, your poetry, your drawing -- are extraordinary. This past August I made a rough calculation of how many hours of my life I've spent dancing -- not rehearsals or performance, just class and my own practice. The number came to well over two thousand hours, and I know for a fact most artists practice much more than I did in my earlier years. To dedicate that much time to a craft is extraordinary. Nobody has that kind of patience or love for something so difficult and nuanced (especially if it doesn't earn you millions of dollars).

And all those hours have culminated to make you extraordinary. Because now this is such a part of you that you can simply sit down at a piano, like my farm-girl sister, and play something so clear and effortless that it takes our breath away. Now you can simply pick up a paintbrush and create a world with so much depth and detail we forget that it's not a real place. Now you can simply put on a pair of shoes with metal on them and make an engaging rhythm faster than your brain can think. Now you can shape words into a living, breathing sculpture of the effervescent nature of human experience, explaining and understanding at the same time.

You now have the power to do extraordinary things at will. Yes, there are always improvements to be made, yes, we must always practice, but remember that we are not the norm. We are, right now, this moment, already extraordinary.

Acting in Writing - The Difficulty of Being an Artist

I think one thing fiction writers sometimes underestimate is how much acting ability you need to write well. You need to be able to put yourself in the heads of your entire cast and write the scenes from their emotional/logical perspective in order to do a story justice. You need to BE the character, no less than an actor on a stage or in front of a camera needs to BE the character.

Today I wrote a scene for my novel that occurs a few days after an important character's death. I write this two days shy of the anniversary of my cousin's death, and even three years removed, I can still remember the weight and vastness of the shock and the grief in the days that followed. A person who has not gone through this cannot do justice to it in writing or acting, but I can come close because I've been there. In some ways I'm still there. I know this grief. And that background makes the stories I tell more believable.

In the art I take in, that's what I look for -- I look for the person who can describe/express what I'm experiencing even when I can't. The only way you get to the point where you can describe it with intimate accuracy is to go through it. This scares me -- how much experience (heartbreak) am I going to be entrusted with as I continue to develop and pursue this calling to be an artist?

This is what makes the arts so difficult -- you have to go through so much in order to do justice to what you're talking about. This is what separates the posers and the wannabes from the true artists. The posers are in it for the prestige, for the elitist rush of complaining no-one understands them, so they can feel more intellectual. But the ones who truly are artists know, as the great Terry Scott Taylor once said, 'There's not a holy man who doesn't know grief well / Or think the road to heaven doesn't pass through hell...' (Jesus Wept, 2013).

The Sovereignty of God

May I ask a question of the evangelical church of North America?

Why, when my cousin died, did you continually insist, 'Well, you know, God is sovereign. There must be a reason. Even if you can't see it, there must be a reason. Just trust Him'...

meanwhile...

...when I mention that, after YEARS of prayer and soul-searching, I suspect God might be calling me to be an artist, you counter with 'But there's no money in it! You'll die alone, impoverished, and probably mad. You have to pick a career that will pay. It's the wise thing to do. It's your God-given responsibility. You can't expect a free ride from anybody. You have to be smart'?

Look. If God is sovereign, God is sovereign. He is not sovereign only when it gets you out of a raw situation (i.e. comforting someone who's grieving). He does not lose His sovereignty when you want to dole out advice to some younger person with different talents than you. If God was sovereign when He decided to let my cousin die despite our prayers, He was also sovereign when He made me and planned out my life.

You, church, people of God, cannot flip-flop between whether or not God is sovereign. Can you help guide my path (as the Spirit of God leads)? Yes. Absolutely. I have no problem with that. (In fact, if the Spirit is leading, please do.) I do, however, have a problem with you cloaking your nasty opinion of my gifts in the phrase, 'well, God told me...' If God did not tell you that, very, very, VERY clearly, then you are taking the name of God in vain -- using Him as a vehicle for your own opinion, using His glorious name as a mere trump card.

And then you wonder why nobody thinks much of God... maybe if you had respected Him enough to attribute to Him the consistency of character that you insist He has, we'd have a more formidable picture of this great and glorious God.

Mental Health and the Performing Arts

It's difficult as a performing artist to know what to say. How much can I talk about this? I feel relatively little stigma from my general friends and acquaintances (although I think a lot of that is because at least a few of the people I hang out with struggle with similar things), but in the professional performing arts world, how much can be said? Any health struggle, mental or physical, can preclude you from getting roles -- getting work. No director wants to hire someone who may be unreliable -- even if it's something out of the actor's control, like their health. How do you reconcile 'the show must go on' with 'I have a chronic condition'? In the performing arts world, you are supposed to be able to do absolutely anything at absolutely any time. 'I'm tired/I'm not feeling well' is not a valid excuse -- ever. We've all heard stories of dancers who have performed on severe sprains or actors who have done shows hours after huge personal tragedies.

I get that -- I do. Our literal job as performers is to become someone else, to create another world. The audience comes so they can forget about their own problems, not be saddled with mine. So then how do you know when to just escape into your character or into your practice routine and how do you know when to say, 'I can't do this today or I will relapse'? Maybe this isn't as much of an issue for some as it is for me... for me, my life is literally staked on being able to do this performing arts thing. My counsellor and I were talking about this at my last appointment. He asked me, "Pretend for a moment that you decided to the do the easy thing and get a 9-to-5 job. What does it look like? What would happen?"

I said, "I have two reactions to that... On one hand, I can't even picture not being in the arts. It just sort of feels inevitable. It always has, for as long as I can remember. But on the other hand, if I had to live that life, to do the same thing over and over, meetings and phone calls and reports... I would actually kill myself. It would be SO boring and pointless." And I actually found myself tearing up as I spoke. I couldn't really picture myself living that life -- but for the fleeting seconds that I did grasp a vague image of it, my heart plunged into a despair that terrified me and I got the words out and banished the image before I could descend any further. It felt like I had been standing on the very edge of a black hole and tripped. I've attempted suicide twice in my life and I have still never felt anything as black and breathless as that vague fleeting image of myself not in the arts.

I've said things to that effect on this blog for years and years -- how I could never do a 9-to-5. But now it's really beginning to sink in that my life literally depends on whether or not I can stay in the performing arts. Because I know that if I can't, I will literally die. And that puts a lot of stress on me when I try to practice (never mind perform) because I feel this immense pressure to improve even more, to become the best the fastest, just so I don't fade out and become disposable -- so I don't get replaced by the next starlet who doesn't have depression (and also can do a developpé up to her ear and sing without sounding like a strangulation victim).

On one hand, you are asked to probe the depths of your pain and bare it on the stage, and on the other hand you are asked to shove it aside and pretend it doesn't exist. Is it any wonder so many artists break?

The Things You Told Me

6 July 2017, 10.00pm.

You told me to 'follow my heart/dreams.' So I became an artist.
And you told me I was stupid.

You told me to 'find a job.' So I went into construction.
Then you said that 'wasn't legitimate' because it's a family company.

You told me you would always be there for me if I ever needed to talk. So I emailed you.
And you never replied.

You told me you wanted to hear about how my life was going.
Then you told me I'm 'too negative.'

You told me people care about me.
Then you turned your back and walked away, leaving me to find these mythical people myself.

What the actual heck do you want from me?

A Day in the Life...

9.30am - Wake up.

10.15am - Meet with voice teacher about rep.

10.30am - Practice voice.

11am - Work.

2.30pm - Practice voice.

2.45pm - Check callback list.

2.46pm - Bitter disappointment.

3pm - Get hair done.

4.30pm - Do makeup.

5.30pm - Supper with dance friend.

6.20pm - Arrive at theatre.

8pm - Perform full show.

10.45pm - Return to house. Eat cereal.

12am - Start memorising new voice rep.


And I didn't even get dance practice or writing in today...

State Of My Choreography

The picture that inspired this post:

Full choreography sketch for a song, conceived/written in the time it took to listen to the song straight through once (three and a half minutes). This is a testament to how far I've come: less than a year ago the same amount of choreography would have taken me a full week.

Choreography, I've found, is part inspiration, but also part experience. The more experience you have, the quicker the inspiration comes (and really, this is applicable to a lot of the arts - I see this in my writing as well). You discover what you like and where you like it. You develop a sense of where things should sit in the piece. You get a feel for the art form and you start to be able to tell innately what does or doesn't work, even if you can't explain why. No amount of book-learning can do that for you. (It kills me to say this, because I love learning through reading.)

That's why if you want to be an artist, you have to be dedicated. You have to put in the years of work before you get good. You can find quotes from artists in any discipline to the effect that you have to write a hundred songs before you begin to learn how to write a song; you have to paint or draw a hundred pictures before you really begin to understand how to draw or paint; you have to put in ten thousand hours of work before you can say you have begun to master something. Choreography is no different. I've fully choreographed 78 songs (and probably started and not-yet-completed that many again, plus I have about a dozen that I'm actively working to finish) and I'm only just starting to feel like it's coming naturally. This has been fully five years since I finished choreographing my first piece, and I was choreographing snippets of things in my head long before I ever finished that one.

That said, I would be remiss if I didn't note that I was taking ten hours of dance per week last calendar year, that I was practicing tap every day except Sundays through this past summer and again since January, that I've been watching a TON of tap dance on YouTube in my spare time, that I have a subscription to Operation: Tap's online lessons and those have been invaluable in jump-starting my practice sessions, that my tap teacher at the college this year pushed me hard (because I asked her to), that I've been clapping rhythms to almost literally every song I've heard in the past six months, playing with different patterns. A lot of groundwork has been laid in my foundational tap dance technique over the past year and that has gone a LONG way in allowing my choreographic voice freedom of expression.

The next step is to figure out what exactly it is that I want to express.

Ramblings on Artists, Depth, and Loneliness

9 January 2017, 9.21pm.

I've been pondering (so what else is new?): I think I'm starting to get an idea of why so many artists commit suicide or get addicted to any number of things.

It's lonely. But not just in that there-are-no-people-around or I'm-always-on-tour-away-from-my-family way. It goes deeper than that. I'm noticing increasingly that people in general don't think deeply -- but I do, and that one difference puts a disconnect between us. I guess I always sort of knew that in the back of my mind... and the fact that since I was a child people have remarked on my (sometimes) acute observations and how 'smart' I am should have tipped me off. 'Smart,' I have learned, is code for 'thinks about deep things.' This, in turn, is code for 'she's weird -- don't hang around her.' Even as a kid I was lonely. I thought it was just because I lived out in the middle of nowhere.

I'm realising, though, that there's this deep-seated loneliness that almost defies explanation. I myself didn't even realise it was there until this school year, though I've certainly felt it all my life. It's this longing to connect, on a soul-to-soul level, to someone, anyone, who thinks about deep things too. Someone who understands why it's important to feel, why we need music and dance and paintings and beauty and stories, what it's like for your heart and soul to ache and not know why. Someone who can see -- at least sometimes -- through my eyes and understand the hollowness that never quite goes away, even when I'm happy and content. This is probably why I have such an obsession with Daniel Amos, David Meece, and Prodigal -- because they saw it too. They feel it too. There are at least three other figures who have ever existed who get it. They can take the words out of my mouth -- and sometimes that is solace enough.

If this is the mind of the typical artist -- if this depth and these feelings are what makes the artist an artist -- no wonder so many of them die young. No wonder so many are addicted to anything that numbs the mind, that turns off these feelings that sometimes seem to hold us hostage whose existence nobody is willing to acknowledge. And suicide -- well, that's the ultimate 'off' switch. But is it really better to live without feeling? It would be easier, yes... but is it really better? This is the question we face more often than we feel we are allowed to admit.

This whole thing is even trickier as an artist with depression. Where does one end and the other begin? What level of deep-seated melancholy is 'normal' and when should I start to get concerned? Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life always seeing the ends of things clearly enough that I can never truly enjoy the beginnings and the middles?

Things I Really Like About Being a Performing Artist

Note: this is, believe it or not, NOT a sarcastic post. This is a tribute to my reality; this life I love so much. I really do love these things.

- Doing makeup between scenes at rehearsal.

- Costume changes.

- Changing in random bathrooms (dancers know what I'm talking about).

- SO. MANY. GRANOLA BARS.

- Driving to practice/rehearsal/performances with one hand and eating Subway with the other.

- The smell of makeup and hairspray.

- Costume fittings.

- Photo shoots.

- Memorising lines.

- Dancing to other peoples' songs while waiting backstage.

- Lining up right before you walk out with the choir.

- Learning new blocking.

- Hearing the full orchestra for the first time.

- Water bottles.

- Trying to walk quietly in heels or tap shoes.

- The full-cast onstage warmup.

- The director's last words before showtime.

- Waiting in the wings.

- Helping others with choreography and costume changes.

- Monologues for auditions.

- That moment when your ballet/pointe shoes are finally warmed up and responsive to your feet (Canadians in winter... you know where I'm coming from).

- Wearing that one favourite zip-up sweater over your practice clothes and it totally clashes with your turn-of-the-century dress or your silver tutu but you don't care.

- The prop table. Holding my water bottle since 2008.

- Posting teaser photos from rehearsals on Instagram.

- All those circled notes and breath markings and arrows and underlined consonants in the sheet music.

- Legwarmers.

- That one last run-through of the section you always forget with one or two others in the wings right before your dance.

- Memorising the programme order before the show starts.

- Footlights. Actually, all of the lights. Especially how the lights cut through all the stage fog.

- Watching the set get bigger and more detailed with every rehearsal.

(More to be added as I think of them.)

Music Day - I Can See

I have been playing the crap out of this song lately. The other day I found out about the Steve Green cover of this song (which is fairly true to the original, and also it's apparently fairly well-known -- you know how sometimes the cover eclipses the original even if the original is better? This looks like one of those times), and I've been playing the original (which I already owned) ever since.

I really want to do a ballet solo to this. The orchestration is perfect for it. Now that I think about it, this song -- the album closer -- was really a departure from the album that preceded it. This was probably David Meece's most rocking album (which is still pretty mellow), and then at the very end comes this lovely quiet tender piano piece with a string orchestra and a very heartfelt (rather than energetic) vocal performance. David Meece is one of those performers who bleeds into his songs -- they're not just his way of making money (theoretically), these songs are a part of him. They come from his very soul and he means every word he sings. And it's not just the lyrics that are heartfelt -- the fact that he was practically born playing piano means he has that elusive ability to speak through the piano. The piano is an extension of his thoughts. This kind of intimacy with an instrument or tool only comes with long practice so it's quite rare (though less so among classical musicians, which David is), but it's so incredible to hear. There's a person at our church who plays cello and she's the same way -- she's so intimately acquainted with her instrument that the bow is an extension of her arm and she knows exactly how to make it say what she wants. (I hope to be able to dance like that one day -- that I will be able to know exactly how to shade what I do to speak without words. The sad thing is most dancers age out before they attain that level of thoroughness in their experience.) Photographers can do this too -- the camera is so much a part of them it's like the pen with which they write. They know the camera and the camera knows them. Taking a picture is a conversation between the photographer and her camera. But I digress...

This is a Don Francisco-style lyric (for his take on the same Biblical account, check out his song The Traveler/Joy), but David's voice is not quite as harsh as Don's and so blends better with the fragile flowing violins he chooses for his arrangement. I was first introduced to this song on vinyl (courtesy my dad), and that's a special treat. The warmer sound of vinyl adds just a little bit extra to the experience (although if your record has a lot of surface noise -- like ours does -- it's much harder to hear the actual song because the song is so quiet to begin with). If you get the chance to listen on vinyl, take it. But even listening in a digital format can be a moving experience.

Title: I Can See
Artist: David Meece
Album: 7
Year: 1985
Label: Myrrh Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

All at once he walked beside me
Like he'd been there all along
Not a stranger -- but a father
Who can sense when something's wrong...

Self-Perception and Faking It

Lately I've been thinking a lot about talents and skills and our perception of them. Obviously the way we see our own abilities differs from the way others see our ability. In the same way, the way other people see their own ability sometimes differs quite widely from the way we see their ability.

I really notice this when I'm at college. You all know that I have a very poor opinion of my own singing voice and am perpetually intimidated by everyone in the entire music department in that respect. Yes, I have seen improvement in my singing, but I feel I'm still so far behind. So often I see or hear the other music majors and I think 'wow, they're so great... I wonder what it must feel like to have all this come so easily.' I mean yes I know they practice but still... they see results from their practice. They know exactly what to fix and how to fix it. They know how to improve. I just sing it over and over until I'm tired and I've logged my time for the day. I'm just faking it and still terrified that one day they will all find out I'm faking it and don't have any actual talent.

Of course I've often considered that maybe they are just as insecure about themselves as I am about myself. But recently I wondered if they listen to me sing and think similar things to what I think when they sing. The thought seems kind of ludicrous -- who in the world would be jealous of anything I have? -- but maybe they think that exact same thing about themselves too.

It's so hard to know who to seek out and encourage. It's so hard to know who's unaware of their talent. Maybe the reason we performing artists go so under-encouraged is because we're so good that everyone assumes we're aware of it when really we think we're just frauds and are hoping no-one will find out and we're hoping for some kind of sign that we aren't frauds...

One one hand it can be helpful. This constant not-knowing if I even have any business being in this program drives me to practice like a madwoman -- sometimes at the expense of my schoolwork, health, and sanity. The sheer amount of practice means that I improve at a steady pace, even if I don't see it. Plus, there are still some people in the world who look for a hard worker rather than a good-looking babe with natural talent oozing out of her ears.

However, on the other hand, there is the very real potential that not-knowing will eat me alive. I fight this every day... waking up in the morning wondering if today is the day someone tells me the horrible truth -- that they can see right through me, that they know I'm faking it, that they're not going to humour me anymore, that I'm not welcome among the ranks of the actually talented any longer. I feel like a spy in enemy territory, constantly on edge, just waiting to get caught and executed.

This is part of why I find myself trying so hard to be bland and invisible -- if I'm invisible, no-one can see that I'm faking it, because no-one can see me. But the very nature of the career means you must be seen. It's your job to be seen and heard, very brightly and very loudly. How to reconcile that without feeling even more like a fake...?