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?

It's Over (Graduation)

It's over.

It's really over.

It hasn't sunk in yet. My five years in the music program is complete. I have no more requirements to meet. I never have to sing for a grade again -- that weight will take a long time to come off my shoulders because it's been there for so, so long. I'm not tethered to this town anymore if I don't want to be. (Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it/am not completely jaded -- it's just that if opportunity arises elsewhere I can take it without having to work around classes.) Even today I've had to tell myself multiple times that I don't have to worry about class on Monday. I have literally no responsibilities on Monday other than practice -- and even then, it can be self-directed. I'm no longer working for a grade.

I don't think my body realises yet the full implication of that.

The end has come at a good time. I'm tired, mentally, physically, emotionally. I feel like I'm in a fog. This past semester my health started to tank on a couple of different fronts. I have no doubt that if I had to continue school next semester, things would have gotten worse. I'm undergoing outpatient treatment for one issue and have medication for the other that seems to be working, plus of course counselling. I'm half-expecting to finally get some kind of a cold or something because I've been fighting to keep going through sheer force of will since the end of February and I have few delusions that I won't crash at some point. There was a point where I had rehearsal of some kind, somewhere, for I think sixteen straight days. I still don't know when I actually wrote my psychology paper.

There's still stress. I literally have no idea which province I will be in after my current show wraps in mid-June so I don't even know where to job-hunt. But right now I am just completely, entirely spent. Exhausted. I often wonder why and then I realise this is the first I've stopped since February.

How To Make Adrenaline Soup

Written 29 November 2016, 3.56pm.

Prepare three major papers. Simmer for three weeks.

Toss with two surprise (as in not-on-the-syllabus) presentations. Slowly pour in four all-nighters. Sprinkle in three cancelled classes.

Add snow (with all the childlike joy that comes with it). Reheat last Saturday's tuna casserole and add that as well.

Add a liberal shot of excitement for the Christmas musical.

Mix well and serve.

Why I Can't Get Any Homework Done

Written 21 October 2016.

Me, yesterday: "Tomorrow is pretty busy, but I'll try to get some work done in the afternoon between my dance classes."

Me, today:

10.15: *gets up*

10.20: *dresses/eats breakfast/does hair*

10.50: *goes to dance*

1.13: *goes to post office*

1.20: *makes lunch*

1.35: *eats lunch*

2.00: *practices voice*

3.00: *goes to music department office*

3.15: *heads back to flat*

3.18: *notices flat tire on van*

3.20: *calls dad* (*interrupts funeral*)

3.26: *calls tire shop*

3.27: *calls doctor's office about x-rays*

3.37: *meets tire shop people*

3.41: *calls x-ray place*

3.45: *homework*

4.02: *kills spider*

4.06: *walks two blocks to pick up van*

4.17: *drives back*

4.21: *writes blog post about not getting homework done*

4.35: *makes supper*

4.45: *eats supper*

5.36: *leaves for dance*

6.03: *goes to bank*

6.18: *arrives at dance school after having to cross Main Street, pull a U-turn, and come back because for some bizarre reason you're not allowed to turn left onto Main Street after leaving the bank even though you can turn left onto Main Street at literally every other intersection*

6.45: *pays outstanding dance fees*

7.00: *dance class*

10.20: *leaves dance school*

10.45: *brief detour at friend's bonfire*

11.13: *leaves bonfire*

11.32: *drops friend off at her house*

11.36: *returns to flat*

12.07: *emails mother*

12.36: *checks school email*

12.54: *publishes blog post*

The Law And Grace In Performing Art - Part I

I was six years old when I started dance classes. Legend has it that I begged my parents for classes for an entire year previous and they figured if I could spend a whole year talking about it, I must really want it. So they enrolled me in the only dance school they could find that didn't require them to work a bingo at any point.

I loved it. I spent five years there, and enjoyed every second of the first three. Even in the final two years I did enjoy it (or at least I thought I did), but by then my teacher's extremely negative attitude was starting to have an effect on me, even though I couldn't see it in myself. But my parents could, and they made the executive decision to pull me out (despite many tears and vehement protests on my part). It wasn't until years later that they began to hear about some of the cruel things that teacher did to us -- demanding perfection and knowledge without first showing us what we were expected to do, mocking students in front of the entire class if we did a technical thing wrong that we didn't even know about yet, straight up being mean or condescending, and she was the queen of favouritism to boot. For my entire final year in that school, she never once referred to me by name. She would have us do a centre exercise in two groups, and it would always be: "Ashley, Jessica, and Stephanie, Group One, the rest of you, Group Two." I was always 'the rest of you.' This same teacher also once told my parents straight up that I would fail the RAD exam. I passed that exam with my highest personal mark ever on an RAD exam -- and I've passed every RAD exam I've ever taken.

It was, in short, an extremely shame-based style of instruction. You were told only that you were doing it wrong, you weren't even told what you were doing wrong. You were expected to be perfect right off the bat and if you weren't, then you obviously weren't cut out to be a ballerina and you would spend the rest of your years at that school being ignored.

After that school, I took three years off. I wandered about aimlessly, looking for something else to do with my time. This was about the time that I began to really get into music (as a listener), but aside from that, nothing stuck. I took voice lessons, realised I was awful at singing, took some scrapbooking and paper art classes, realised I didn't have the patience for it, tried to develop friendships at our new church, realised that nobody there at the time gave a crap whether I was breathing or not. Finally I relinquished myself to the fact that I really just wanted to be dancing.

Although my mother was clearly taken aback by my revelation and I think was really hoping I would have left my childhood dream behind and joined the real world, she did seek out another dance school. This one was significantly farther away, but that didn't matter to me and so my parents decided they'd give it a try.

For the first four years or so, I said absolutely nothing in class and I expected nothing less than absolute perfection of myself. That was how I was trained at the first school -- shut up and do it perfectly. And I motivated myself with shame. My new teacher didn't provide any kind of mocking or sarcastic feedback, but by that time I was perfectly capable of providing it for myself... You're about a flexible as a two-by-four. You'll never do a grande battement like that and how do you expect to be any good if you can't be flexible? You can't even do a basic single pirouette and look at that -- all of the others can. They probably think you're stupid because you can't even land a single. You should have remembered that sequence. It's so easy. You didn't remember it because you're stupid. How can you call yourself a dancer? How stupid can you be to think that you can just come back to it? You're too old for this. You should be better than them and you're not. What's the point of even trying? You'll never be good enough. You're too stupid. You have no talent.

I think I started to open up a little when my new teacher commented off-hand that I was 'very musical.'

...Say what?

For the entire five years that I had been at that first school, my teacher had been saying things like, 'you're too fast,' 'you never listen to the music,' 'you have no rhythm,' 'you need to slow down.' I didn't know at the time exactly what she was getting at because she never explained it to me, but by the time my second teacher made that comment about me being musical, I knew that I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, 'musical.' I couldn't even read music. My sister could, but not me. I was too stupid.

It was slow going, and I wonder how much that second teacher knew about my first school -- if anything, since my parents didn't know a lot of it either -- and how much she might have despaired over the years that I would never stop berating myself. I wouldn't do it out loud, of course, because nobody needs to hear that, but I wouldn't be surprised if my self-hatred was plainly written on my face (and she is perceptive -- the other day she remarked (not asked, remarked) that I wasn't feeling well and it wasn't until she said that that I realised I was, in fact, feeling a bit out of it).

Anyway, even after that 'musical' comment, it wasn't an instant turnaround. In fact, I never really realised how patient she had been with me and how good it is to study under her until this past year, when I started thinking about what my life would have been like had I either stayed at that first school, or stayed away from dance entirely.

That second teacher, whether she knew it or not, had her work cut out for her when I walked in the studio door. And she spent upwards of the next five years patiently undoing the knot of self-loathing that I had been taught to weave and pull tight at that first school. She's never addressed it directly -- I don't even know how much if it she knows. But over years of gentle corrections -- not mocking lectures -- and the calm assurance that we'll 'get it yet, even if it isn't today' -- not 'that was horrendous. You're making me seasick. Do it again until it resembles something good' -- I began to actually enjoy myself again. I began to feel like I wasn't an embarrassment to dance and most of all I began to lose my crippling fear of being noticed by the teacher. In the first school, being noticed by the teacher, especially if you weren't one of her special favourites, was almost worse than being ignored -- it meant a long tirade mocking you for some minor thing that was merely an oversight and easily corrected (she literally went on a fifteen-minute tear one time because another girl had forgotten to straighten her knees. If she had simply said, "Make sure your knees are straight," that would have done the trick. But she made snide comments about it for fifteen minutes).

I probably don't have to tell you at this point that in five years at the second school, I made significantly more progress than I did in the same amount of time at the first school. My second teacher certainly didn't expect any less of us -- in fact, I had a hard time at first keeping up with the sheer amount of technique in her school because I wasn't used to it -- but we were allowed to make the occasional mistake. We were expected to improve, but not without the teacher demonstrating and explaining the correct way until we understood.

The difference was grace.

At the first school, we were expected to follow the letter of the law, instantly, without question, and without a single fault. At the second school, we were expected to adhere to the general 'laws' of ballet, but she understood that internalising the feel of it wasn't instant, and she gave us a(n) (often extremely lengthy) grace period within which to master it. And whenever she did correct our technique, it was gently, not with a harsh derisive smoker's laugh.

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.