What it takes

Terrified . . . I don't know why really: this role is big, & I'm actually quite scared -- it's the biggest thing I've ever done, and I still haven't really done that much. I'm "slow" because I really don't know yet how to work/rehearse -- it's getting clearer, but still, I wish I had a lot more experience . . .

. . . and I want to be good. There's so much to put together. It's everything I want. It's too much. Do I really have it in me to do this? And what will I do . . . who am I? I feel vulnerable, scared, embarassed to feel this way . . . looking for a sign, something to point the way . . .

1999.

I was leaving it all behind, everything I knew, in that late midwest blazing summer . . . and the millennium rapidly approaching.

Before heading out east, I had seriously decided instead to go back to school, to get a BFA in theatre. Shortly after deciding this, I somehow learned that one of the acting MFA graduate students in the theatre department had gotten her BFA degree at a university I was considering, a school in Detroit: the undergraduate department there was surprisingly highly ranked, one of the older conservatory programs in the country, and it was close to home -- I could qualify for in-state tuition, so I e-mailed her to ask what her undergraduate experience had been and to get some general advice about how I might go about getting into this program.

She wrote me back, which was great.

It's interesting what crystallizes in memory -- I don't remember the specific answers to my questions, but I do clearly remember her telling me of her struggles and her triumphs while getting her BFA, and how & why she decided to pursue an MFA. While most of the details have faded in memory, the impression of a determined, passionate young woman remains. I don't know if she was ever scared, ever worried that something was too big for her, that maybe she couldn't handle it. Maybe she was; maybe she did -- and if this is true, then she did it all anyway, and she kept on doing it . . .

. . . for that brief moment in the summer of '99, my path crossed hers, and the impress she left with me, an example of what can be if one doesn't flinch, if one stays, no matter what, strong and determined.

A prayer: to calm and center me, to breathe in everything, to find my strength.