Why I Make Art, Part II

Written 2 July 2021, 12.26am.

This past month, I took Andrew Nemr's online course, 'The Encounter,' and while some of it went over my head (as I suspected it might; this was a course marketed to professional dancers and I'm at best an intermediate-level tap dancer), the last two lessons opened up a window into my own soul that I never knew existed.

He talked about establishing trust with the audience -- how one must start with the common knowledge that the audience has (in terms of music, rhythm, body language... anything) and said that from here, you lead them across the bridge to the meaning that you want to convey. He went on to explain that you know you've succeeded if the comments you get afterwards are less along the lines of 'wow, I could never do that,' 'how many years have you been dancing?' 'I used to dance when I was younger,' and more along the lines of 'what were you thinking about while you were dancing that? it was so intense.' He gave several examples of the former and I related to every single one of them -- so intimately that I heard them in the voices of the people closest to me as he spoke them. Those are the exact phrases that annoy me so, so much and make me angry that they're clearly just trying to make conversation and weren't impressed at all with me or my work. They're just stock phrases, and if there is one thing on this planet that I hate (besides Hillsong music), it's stock sympathy/caring phrases. It would be almost better if they would just come out and say they hated my performance.

And in a flash, I understood what I had really been after.

It wasn't love -- as I thought it had been in Part I -- or at least not exclusively. It was understanding.

That's what I've been chasing after all these years. All I wanted was to be understood. Not just brushed aside or given a flippant 'yeah, I hear ya' -- understood.

That's what I've been missing this whole time.

That's why I always feel so unfulfilled whenever I leave the theatre after a show with the stock phrases of my friends and family ringing in my ears. This is why I've been suicidal for most of my life. This is why, when Brittney and my cousin died, I repeated the story and rehashed how I was feeling over and over and over, probably literally millions of times, like a stuck record, for YEARS until I was mentally abused into silence and a deeper self-hatred for 'not getting over it' immediately. This is why I wasted my entire life bending over backwards, allowing myself to be manipulated by directors and churches in hopes that if I could just be subservient enough then they would love me and I would finally have what I wanted... except I wouldn't have.

I had love, at least in an imperfect and patchy way. I look back on my life and I can see moments where my parents and maybe even a couple of friends really did care about me. But I cannot think of even one single moment where I felt understood. Not by my parents. Not by my friends. Not by my husband. Not. Anybody.

This would have been a crushing blow -- maybe nobody will ever understand me -- except that Nemr had already paved the way by saying that you start with the common knowledge that everybody has before you lead them across the bridge to what you actually want to say. It's the exact opposite of what I usually do -- I usually just jump right into the deep end because I honestly prefer other people to do that as well. I hate small talk and pre-amble (big words for somebody who's spent a full eleven years posting rambly drivel on this very blog). But Nemr not only showed me what was wrong, he gave me a solution to try. It may be very much against my entire personality, but clearly the personality I have wasn't working anyway. I can handle being something I'm not if it's only temporary. If I have to fake something for ten minutes onstage before becoming my true self in order to make people understand, that's something I'm willing to try. At least there's hope of being understood. That's something that I've never had before.

(TW: suicide.)

I always had this daydream that if I killed myself, those who truly loved me would sift through every one of my documents and papers -- a huge undertaking to say the least -- and finally, finally know and understand me and what I needed. That daydream has actually fueled some suicidal episodes -- being understood only after death was better than never being understood at all. Hastening my death would hasten understanding. I was literally willing to kill for it.

I kept saying I don't feel love; I must be broken because I literally can't feel it. Maybe that's at least partly true. Maybe it's not true at all. Maybe I just mistook love for understanding and it was almost a fatal misunderstanding. Maybe there is a way out and maybe I can learn it. I don't really know where to start, but at least there is an option.

Thank you, Andrew Nemr. Maybe this isn't what you intended for your course to do, but I'm glad this is what it did.

Sources: Nemr, Andrew. 'Lesson 16 - Communicating Meaning.' In The Encounter (online video course). 2021. https://andrewnemr.teachable.com/p/the-encounter

I Don't Understand

For years -- over a decade actually -- I've wanted to be a dancer.
That has been my main goal in life since I was five.
Then, of course, it was a childish dream completely founded in a princess fairy tale mindset. But I started taking ballet lessons at age six and by age seven I had considered the angles and the work involved more thoroughly and had come to the adult-like decision that yes, I was going to be a dancer. Yes, it would be hard work, and yes, it would be a long time before I could see it come to fruition. But there was no doubt in my mind.

I was going to be a dancer.

And I am still going to be a dancer.

My family, however, thinks otherwise.

You see, I made the mistake of starting to take pictures of things that I wanted to remember. So when I got old and grey I could show my grandkids the places and the people I'm telling them about. So whenever I get lonely and sad I just pull out the pictures and relive the good times.
Naturally, I wanted the pictures to be as clear and well-taken as possible, so I learnt a little about aperture and shutter speed and other tricks of the trade.
I've been taking dance for more than ten years now, but my family took this little bit of photography knowledge and blew it completely out of proportion.
So now I am going to be a professional photographer and I'm going to do studio portraits and I'm going to run my own business and I'm going to do twenty weddings a year and I'm going to win win win win WIN every photo contest they can get their hands on and I will become a household name and other photographers will simply beg to go on photo excursions with me, the great Canadian photographer.

It's like a nightmare.

We've been at a great deal of family/neighbourhood gatherings recently, and many people ask, 'so what are you up to?'
I say, "Dancing mostly -- taking ballet lessons and looking for a tap class somewhere (do you know how freaking hard those are to FIND?) and I'm working on a lot of choreography."
"Oh cool."
Then, just as they may be about to pursue that train of thought, my mother and/or grandmother comes in.
"Yeah, and she also REALLY likes TAKING PICTURES and she's thinking of starting a photography BUSINESS here in the next couple weeks and she's REALLY GOOD and lots of people COMPLIMENT her on her great pictures so she's REALLY SERIOUSLY thinking about DOING THAT." (Insert murderous glare at me here for 'forgetting' to mention this obviously vitally important matter.)
And then, because most people have some idea what goes into photography and haven't the faintest clue what's involved in dance, they naturally seize on the topic they feel a little more knowledgable about -- photography.
It has gotten to the point where my mouth tastes bitter when my relatives start talking about photography.
I don't want to be a photographer. Sure, I mentioned perhaps starting an online shop and selling a few prints to make some money until I could get the choreography/dance thing going, but that was only ever meant to happen 'on the side.' Photography is not my vocation, and it never has been. I may be good and I appreciate that they think so, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life clicking a stupid button.

And their I-know-what-goes-on-in-your-head-better-than-you-do attitude has completely ruined any joy I did get out of taking pictures, capturing memories. Aside from some Northern lights this past week, I haven't touched my camera in several months, because now I know that every single second they see a camera in my hand is only fuel for the fire -- their argument is, "Well, I never see you dancing, and you're always taking pictures, so I thought that's what you wanted to do."

Yeah, well, you try testing out the timing in that one part in Spirit Mover when you're in the middle of the mall. A camera takes up a space the size of your hand. A dance takes up two or three of those little shops, depending how big your movements are.
And these two are completely different things. Sure, they're art, but the fact is, with the camera, I'm only recording memories and things I find either beautiful or interesting. With dance, I want to express emotion and beauty and marry it to my love of music and the stage.

I don't understand how they can have misunderstood all this so badly. Ten years of dancing should not trump a couple of library books on photography. It just shouldn't.

The Great Misunderstanding

Why people think kids bring firearms to school...

Why kids really bring firearms to school...

To break into those stupid juice boxes.