My brain kicks into overdrive sometimes as I figure out what I need to do to be a "real" theatre artist. This week was one of those times. I mentally flip through ideas in my head like shuffling a desk of playing cards--all with the goal of feeling legitimate. Real. Worthy of saying that I do theatre.

Publish an article.
Get cast in a show.
Write a ten minute play.
Teach a workshop.

I got lost in this tornado of thoughts earlier this week as I desperately searched for an anchor, for something to hang onto, to feel valid, to feel like I wasn't a fraud, like I was exploring, creating, making. 

I was halfway towards planning a doctorate degree, a new play, and a short film I want to make when the wheels in my mind screeched to a halt. I could almost smell the burning rubber on the road.

I realized that in all this figuring and scheming, that I was turning my back on a simple truth: I am already doing theatre. I am teaching a course on documentary theatre this fall at a local university. I am seeing plays, reading plays. I am writing, even if in fits and starts. I learn lines. I take classes. I am doing it. I am loving it. What more is there to want or need? What does the life of someone I consider a "real" actor look like anyway? What are they doing if not learning lines, writing, teaching, experiencing their craft? What is so different between us at the core? 

Do I have other ideas I want to work on? Of course. Do I have plans to do some acting in the spring? Yes. But here I was, spinning my wheels thinking "I want o be doing theatre!" while at the same time not realizing an undeniable truth. I am doing theatre. Anyone else play this game with themselves?

Playwright Sarah Jones speaks so beautifully to this the myth of waiting to "make it" as a real artist in the theatre during a brief cameo in the wonderful film The Incredible Jessica James. 

Jessica, a playwright and teaching artist, approaches Jones at a playwriting retreat and asks her what it feels like to have won awards for playwrighting, what the experience of actually doing theatre is like. Jones responds in such an unexpected way.

"You're doing it. This is it. There's kind of, not more to it than that." 

No long dramatic speech. Just this simple truth. I can't stop thinking about it.

I do this with lots of things. I wish to eat healthier as I'm eating a huge salad for lunch. I wish to be better read as I carry my book on the subway. I even once said to a therapist, "I just really want to get better at working on different things in my life and habits that I have that I want to change." She smiled gently  and looking me right in the eye, said "That's what you're doing right now by being here. You're doing iy."

Why is it so scary to admit that we are doing what we want to do, in some form, regardless of how glamour-less it feels or how small our steps or progress might be. Is it because we are scared that this might be it? The extraordinary and the mundane shuffling along side by side? I am doing it. So are you.

My big fear has often been "What happens if I call myself an actor and someone asks me to prove it? Or tells me that I'm not?"

But more and more my fear has transformed into "You alone have the right to identify yourself as an actor and a write and no one can tell you otherwise. What if YOU are the person that is denying yourself of that joy?"

What if, as the quote above suggests, the line we draw between where we are and where someone who has "made it" is invisible? What if our lives are built of similar tasks, worries, doubts, and inspiration? What if?

I am.
You are.
We are.
I am doing it.
You are doing it.
We are doing it.

I have hope that in letting myself win this self-induced battle of if I'm actually "doing it", I might take all that energy I robbed myself of trying to fight who I am and put it to better use, exploring and creating and making and feeling and performing. Seems to make more sense, at least to me. How about you?

 I can't write a post about headshots without writing first about Anne Shirley, one of my childhood (and let's be honest, adulthood) heroines. In Anne of Green Gables, Anne (who has bright red hair and freckles) and Matthew are riding to Green Gables in the buggy on their way home from Bright River. Anne asks Matthew:

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”

When I first read the book, I instantly knew the answer that I felt I should choose: to be angelically good. I even knew that I would be wise to choose cleverness as my wished for gift. But I also knew in my heart which I would pick if I had the choice. No question.

I would pick divinely beautiful. 

My feelings about my appearance are like most people: I have a longstanding, complex history of mulling over what I look like. What I wish I could look like. Trying to find a middle path of making peace with me, as I am. As a kid, I was one of the only kids in my school with big curly hair and at that time, there weren't many characters in my favorite movies or t.v. shows that had curly hair. All the popular girls in my school had sleek, shiny, straight hair. I wanted that hair so badly. I saw how boys looked at these girls, with hair that shone in the sunshine on the playground, hair that they could run their fingers through. If I tried to do that with my curls, my fingers got stuck in a tangled mess.

I had experiences on both ends of the spectrum when it came to comments on my appearance: my wonderful mother always told me I was the most beautiful girl in school. When I would cry about my hair, she would tell me that the fact that my hair was curly and different from the other girls, was what made it beautiful and special. At the same time, I had boys in my class that would call me ugly to my face in front of kids on the bus or in the halls. It really messed with my head and my heart. I started straightening my hair. I didn't wear clothes that I felt were too colorful or bold. I didn't want to give people another reason to call me out. I told myself for a long time that since I wasn't pretty, I could focus on being other things: smart, funny, creative. I'm grateful now for feeling these things much of the time, and realize that had it not been for my insecurities about my appearance, I might not be have felt the need to develop these other parts of myself as a kid. If I had been born blindingly beautiful, I may have not felt the need to push myself in other ways, which would have surely led to another kind of insecurity and trouble.  I am not proud to say that I used to put that much stock in my own appearance, but it's true.  

So how did this younger me, who would do anything to blend into a crowd, end up as someone who stands onstage as her life's work? I sometimes wonder why I have such a desire to perform in front of audiences, where you are visible to anyone who wants to look. Why I want to be an actor, a profession that requires you to have headshot photos. Where every line and blemish is on display. I am getting a weird knot in my stomach just writing about it. How can I want all of these things and at the same time, feel so uncomfortable with a photograph of myself?

Back to headshots. 

If you've ever had any photo of yourself taken, whether by request or without your consent, you must know all the emotions that come along with seeing the image of your own self. Think actors are any different? I can assure you, we're not. At least I'm not. When it comes to my appearance, in many ways, I have the same insecurities deep down as I did when I was a little kid. 

After my new headshots this weekend, I'm having the oh-so-familiar dialogue in my head about how I think I look. 

I have new wrinkles. I look so old!
I wish my nose was smaller.
I wish my eyes were bigger.
I wish I had straight teeth.
Why can't my hair behave?
I didn't wear enough make-up.
I wore too much make-up.
I'm not pretty enough.
Does this mean as an actor I'm not enough?
Does this mean as a human, I'm not enough?

I write these out here not to evoke pity or sympathy or compliments, or even because I think these things most of the time. I don't. Most of the time I have a deep peace with how I look and recognize how long it took for me to get to a place of appreciation and acceptance. I am very grateful for this. 

No, I share these things to be honest and to let anyone reading this know that one of the threads that connects us as human beings to each other is the ability to be critical of ourselves and question whether or not we are enough. It's so hard and painful to make peace with the difference between how you want to look  and how you look. How much you want to know and what you know right now. This kind of comparison is natural, yes, and it has the ability to drive someone mad. 

I think the challenge I'm trying right now is to not deny the physical imperfections, the features I wish were a bit different, but to name those feelings and make room for them. I'm done with the idea of "letting go" and starting to see some progress with accepting and making room. I'm not there yet, but I'm taking a step in what I hope is a healthy direction. When we deny something, it doesn't really go away. Saying it aloud lets it out and allows us to walk through life with it instead of trying to fight it and shake it off the whole way. It's a new experiment for me. 

I do have new smile lines and some crazy curly white hair that is growing in. Why deny that? It'd be a lie to say I would keep these things if I had the choice; of course, if I could, I'd magically transform into a smoother, younger self while at the same time keeping all the wisdom and experience I've gained. Have my cake and eat it, too. Are you laughing yet? I am. How can such a thing be possible?

Ironically, when I see a photograph of an actress with lines and graying hair--Helen Mirren is my favorite example--I do see her wrinkles, the subtle and not so subtle ways her features have shifted over time, her graying hair. I also see a wealth of experience and a treasure trove of source material for the wonderful actress she is. I see beauty that can only be created by a life truly lived. Wrinkles are signs of an existence. Of experience. As an actor, your experiences fuel your work and help to make your performances rich. In this way, wrinkles represent creative wealth. If I want anything more than physical beauty these days, it's creative wealth. 

An actor's face tells stories. We use what we have to make people really feel something, something that transform someone's life in a way that they themselves don't even know yet. What could be a better use of your face than that?

Yes, I look a bit different than I did when I got my last set of headshots almost seven years ago. My face has told so many stories since then and experiences so many joys and heartaches and shifts. I want to be grateful for the physical evidence of these things. 

My face wears all the stories I've gotten to tell onstage.
It wears the birth of my nephew.
My wedding.
The death of my Grandma, three uncles, and my niece.
The founding of a theatre company.
Meeting my creative soulmates at Emerson College.
Moving to a big city and finding out I can do it.
Working my way through different health issues, both physical and mental. 

My actor's face wears all the stories I've ever told, both onstage and off and there is no denying that performing is something that makes me feel beautiful.  Which of these stories would I trade for a smoother complexion? Not a single one. These days, I still feel slightly awkward about the shape of my nose, but I have a deeper interest in asking myself why someone can't be both beautiful and imperfect. Why they can't be clever and good and funny and brilliant, all at the same time. I realize the truth in the old idea that it's what we are on the inside that makes us beautiful. It's the way that we make people feel that allows us to overcome the physical imperfections we see so sharply when we look in the mirror and arrive a place where we can transcend our physical forms and become truly radiant in a way that can never fade. 

In her book Radical Acceptance, the wise and wonderful Tara Brach writes "Nothing is wrong--whatever is happening is just "real life."  I think we can use this to gently remind ourselves that nothing is wrong with our nose, our face, our hair. It's all just the real you. 

It's here! Episode #4 of the Perpetual Visitor Podcast is now ready for you to listen to below.  One of these days I will figure out some more finesse with the way I have been recording and sharing these, but for now, it's still a bit scrappy, and I'm totally ok with that. Sometimes creativity calls!

Today I'm talking about engaging in creative conversation, with tips and tricks to help make space for the people in your life to share their news, both creative and personal, happy and painful. Have you ever shared good news with someone, only to have them reply with "That's nice!" and move on? Or send an emoji and change the subject? Ouch. Both feel pretty rough and all but shut the door on allowing you to share more about your experience. This has happened to me more than once recently. How about you?

Or, have you had a friend tell you that they started a new hobby, one you know nothing about? You want to express your excitement, but feel tongue tied and unsure of what to ask, so you just say "Great!" and bring up another topic. Has this happened to you? It's definitely happened to me.

The most generous gift we can give in conversation is the gift of genuine curiosity and support.  Share this episode with anyone that you think could stand to use a little brushing up on how to really support you as you start a new creative project or weather an artistic storm, and take the tips to heart yourself---part of why I made this episode is because I needed a reminder to look for ways that I can be a more engaged listener and champion to all those amazing people that I call my creative community. 

Lastly, here's the study I talk about at the end of the episode: Staying Engaged: Health Patterns of Older Americans Who Engage in the Arts  Older adults who both attended arts events and engaged in art making themselves experienced seven time higher ​cognitive function ing that adults who didn't go to arts events or make arts themselves.  Amazing.

Go make some art. Don't overthink it. As as my shirt says, "Stay curious, stay human." 

I've started putting an email vacation message up on weekends to set expectations for slower than usual responses, and to allow myself some time to kick back with some good old fashioned entertainment that doesn't always require me to use my phone, social media, or a computer.  I have been finding that reading new books, watching new movies, and just generally allowing myself to follow my curiosity (as opposed to my Facebook notifications) has allowed me to recharge on a deeper level and to engage my creative spark while doing so.

In the spirit of lower-tech (is there any such thing on a blog?), I've got analog with this Saturday's post. Here's my handwritten list of things I've been watching, listening to, reading, and oh yeah, eating. These things have been bright spots in a full and sometimes stressful week and have further proved to me that art can go a long way in helping me to keep calm and carry on. I hope you find something here that strikes you, too!