When I started studying theater, I was concerned about my lack of "emotion". There was some deep fear that there wasn't a deep enough well to cull from, that any attempt I made to "be emotional" wouldn't suffice, and the bucket would come back dry.
After a while, I learned that that wasn't the issue, exactly. I had a well of emotional reserve, just waiting for me. It was truthful, and real. But tapping into, like a bank, didn't work. Nor did the idea of leaving behind self to create a character, and utilizing that underground spring. No matter what I did, what technique I studied, I couldnt get away from myself.
Certainly, in many schools of acting, you are bringing self to fulfill a role. You live yourself, through the lens of a set of circumstances and specific context, and you create the appearance of character. I think, though, that my skills were never refined enough for that; I couldn't quite set aside my conscious mind, the thinking, judging, innovating creature that was constantly on the outside. Assessing. Critiqueing. Re-working. I never really lost myself in a role.
So. I am not an actor.
But as I brought myself to other types of performance, the effects were still powerful for me, and often palpable for the audience. A recognition of my power as a person onstage; the validity and interesting-ness of my Personhood led to new places in performance. And those places are where I reside now, muddling through...
And here, now, I stand, after this enormous schism in my life. A breaking with so much stability, and I am still on unsettled ground. A heart that is full of every emotion that I've ever felt about a place, a person, a life, and a brain that is working to keep it wrapped up. Not working, actually. Comfortably containing it, and at moments, allowing those great waters to swirl together, vortexing in the well, sometimes draining, sometimes breaching the brim and spilling into the world, and never quite able to sort them all out. Its strange to feel so full, calmly turbulent. I feel as though I'm made up of opposites, more clearly than ever, and that they'll never come disentangled again. I'm aware that this concept is the basis of many eastern religions; but I've never felt so sure of the messiness of it until now. Well, sure that it existed, but now certain that it is right, that it is maybe, even, good.
.. I'm in the new apartment.
Holy shit.
There's something really lovely about living with many other people. We have a big, beautiful (if ghetto-fabulous) apartment, full of lovely things. Particularly lovely KITCHEN things. An incredible CD collection between the 5 of us. Too many futons to count. A pool table. And the most wonderful thing aobut the whole situation is that I don't have to OWN all of these things. There's some joy in benefitting from a community's resources without having to bear the burden of them being all your own.
The move has made me think about things. We have a two floor apartment, with five people living in it. Between the five of us, we probably have less stuff than most families of four. Meaning, a family with only 2 viable consumers in it. So, its not surprising then, that there is a lack of adventure, spontanaeity, dare I say MOXY, in the life of many settled families. How does one cultivate that? Certainly, by necessity, upon the arrival of children in a family, certain risks are no longer calculated. One cannot pick up and leave at a moment's notice for an individual soul-search around the country in a dilapidated camper van. But I also feel like so many families find themselves strangulated by their perception of stability, risk-taking, and what that means in the light of their children. And I truly feel that somehow, that feeling of being roped into one's life, with no capacity for change, is directly proportional to the amount of one's stuff.
I remember buying a king-size mattress off of craigslist 2 years ago. Sleeping in it was like owning bed-acreage. I feel as though I should have been paying property taxes. So, that was nice. But owning it made my head immediately avoid the topic of moving. Getting it up the 2 flights of stairs to my first apartment was ridiculous; imagine getting it down. When we finally got rid of it, 8 months later, I could feel a palpable weight lift from my shoulders, knowing that I no longer owned such a commitment item. I felt already more mobile. More transferable.
Stuff weighing us down, quite literally, to where we are. Not just because we want it (though for some, that's the crux of the matter), but because it is ours. Because we have something of ourselves wrapped up in this stuff while we own it, and when we let it go, sell it, trash it, leave it behind, we get that part back. But the difficulty is in the letting go; until we do so, its so hard to imagine not having it. A fear of not regaining the part of ourselves we've wrapped up in that piece of furniture.
I know that as I settle down this year, I will acquire more things. And when I leave, I will get rid of old ones. But how my heart yearns for the days when I only carried a backpack, with all that I needed to live, carrying me across worlds, and I still had too many things, and I still wanted more and I still had room for all that I was collecting.