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MFA: THE PARENTING EDITION EPISODE 1 SHOW NOTES
Episode title: The Choice is Yours
Episode introduction: What’s your story? Like, what’s your deal? Ok, let me get more specific, why did you choose the life you are living right now? So, again, what’s your story? And more importantly, what’s the objective of your story? And finally, are you at peace with your life choice and if not, how can you find peace? An actor’s work starts with work on themselves and that’s where it’s most helpful to begin our journey as parents, with ourselves.
Choices:
A Short Story Before We Go:
The Raise a Glass Series:
Episode transcript: See full transcript below.
Acts of Kindness:
Sources that helped inspire this episode:
-------------------------------------------------
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Mom: Angelica, can you say hello?
Angelica: Hello! Hello?
Mom: How are you today?
Angelica: I doing well…how are you?
Mom: Well I’m doing well also. (she laughs)
Welcome to MFA: The Parenting Edition, I’m Taisha Cameron. These lessons from the theatre for raising ourselves and our kids came about when I realized my MFA in acting trained me for life as a mommy better than life as a full-time actor. Today’s episode is all about choices. We’ll explore some challenging questions, I’ll share some stories, and we’ll end our episode with the Raise a Glass Series. So, without further ado, this is MFA.
Quote: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Episode One – Choices
Question – what’s your story? Like, what’s your deal? Ok, let me get more specific, why did you choose the life you are living right now? So, again, what’s your story? And more importantly, what’s the objective of your story? And finally, are you at peace with your life choice and if not, how can you find peace? An actor’s work starts with work on themselves and that’s where it’s most helpful to begin our journey as parents, with ourselves.
I had an acting teacher in college tell us, “No parent looks at their child and says Dammit you’re gonna be an actor.” It’s true, that does not happen. No parent will choose a life for their child in which they are constantly rejected, unemployed, underpaid, should I go on? Choosing the life of an artist is a choice you make for an extremely personal reason. The same with being a parent. It is a choice. Now without getting into an entire philosophical, political, ethical or moral conversation on choice let’s just look at the relationship of being a parent.
Yes, it is a relationship you have with another human being. I know now a days we refer to it as parenting which makes it a job with tasks and goals, no vacations and shit pay (literal shit). I mean as a job it sucks; no one would apply. But as a relationship, being a parent, being a mother or a father to a child is one of the most nurturing and nourishing experiences we’ll have in this life. And like with all the relationships in our lives you can choose how to show up for the people you care about. You can show up with your whole self and be fully engaged, present, respectful or you can neglect, abandon and abuse those you love causing permanent or severe damage to that relationship. Those actions are choices.
Why I became an actor?
Once upon a time when I was a toddler I told my mother I wanted to be in the TV. Childhood memories can be beautiful, inspiring and can make a profound impact on who we grow up to be. I have no recollection of this grand proclamation. I do remember watching Grover sing with Crystal Gayle on Sesame Street – which is a fact checkable fallacy, because the internet just told me she sang with Big Bird. I’ve carried the wrong memory with me for decades. Memory…how I want you to help me tell the story of my life but you’re fickle as shit. But that’s okay. Look, hey, Grover’s my favorite, he’s The Man. Anyway, where was I? Sesame Street. So, I knew I wanted two things: to grow my hair as long as Crystal Gayle’s and to be where they were, doing what they were doing. They were making me smile, they were making me happy, they were making me feel joy.
The next moment that stands out in my beloved memory was my first Broadway experience, seeing Cats on a school trip when I was 11 years old. The Winter Garden Theatre, orchestra seats, house right, 7 rows from the stage. We’re surrounded. Down the aisles, on the stage, out of side doors – I think they’re gonna come out from under our seats next. Cats are everywhere! And then I see her. A grayish black bodysuit that might as well have been body paint, a Siamese cat, a chorus dancer, slinks her way across the stage with choreographed precision but I don’t see dance steps. I don’t see much of anything except her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And I knew the boys sitting in the row in front of me couldn’t either. She commanded attention. How did she do that, I wondered. How did she pull some inception shit on my mind to be the only thing I remember from that performance to this day? How do you get a whole room to watch you? How do you get the boys to see you? How can you be so comfortable in your own skin, in a cat’s skin, to allow yourself to be seen? As a naturally shy person attention, or being seen, was something I wanted but I was usually too scared to jump out of my skin and claim.
Let’s jump back to the 80’s for a minute, remember the tv show Family Ties? This show was a family sitcom starring the very talented Meredith Baxter, Michael J Fox and Justine Bateman. So, I don’t remember this particular storyline (shocker shocker with my vault of unreliable memories) but I remember the feeling when I became so embarrassed for Alex P. Keaton I wanted to hide. He had done God knows what and now had to face the consequences, he was caught, fess up or lie, explain yourself, and my 8-year-old body took off. I literally could not watch him face his fate. I grabbed my face, got up from the couch, and speed walked out of the living room muttering under my breath ‘oh my god oh my god oh my god.’ From the safety of the dining room I poked my head around the frame to spy on the fallout. Was it shame I felt for him? The uh-oh of being caught in a lie? Was I overreacting? Was everyone else in the room underreacting? I don’t remember who else was in the room with me but I was the only one who took off with their hands literally covering their face. What could’ve been so bad I ran with embarrassment for him? Sometimes I watch my daughter have these huge emotional reactions to something she’s watching and it reminds me of this moment in my childhood. I fled from those big feelings and I see her wanting to do the same. What I’ve noticed is, I find myself talking to her to stay with them. I don’t know if that’s a cruel thing to do to a two year old but I want her to accept the gooey uncomfortable feelings that come up and not to shut them out. To develop empathy, to take on the feelings of others as if they were your own.
So, creating joy, being seen, and experiencing emotions fully without fear were my personal reasons for wanting to be an actor. I don’t know if I verbalized those specific reasons in my grad school application…but I still got in so that’s fine; at that point I just wanted to study the craft and become a well-trained and respected artist.
Angelica Interludes
Angelica: My answer is to go outside mom.
Mom: Come here.
Angelica: My answer is to go outside OR brush my teeth, I KNOW, go outside!
Mom: But those are not the choices I’m giving you. Your choices right now are, to brush your teeth first or sweep under the table first.
Angelica: Sweep under the table.
Mom: You wanna sweep under the table first?
Angelica: Yes.
Mom: Ok, that means we brush our teeth after we finish sweeping.
Angelica: Mmhmm. I can get my broom.
Mom: You can get your broom?
Angelica: Yes.
Mom: Okay. Let’s go get your broom.
Angelica: I’ll be right back. Bye.
Why I became a parent?
As a child I always knew I wanted to be a mom.
College is when I began my ‘I fucking hate the world and I wish everyone would just hurry up and die’ phase, you know angry early twenties. This is the time in my life when I started feeling like There’s No Way in Hell I will Ever Get Married or Have Kids. I thought people who wanted kids were morons or were only having them to live vicariously through their children or fell into the trap of thinking it’s a step they have to or are expected to take in life and a lot of other nonsense. I also felt that most parents had no idea what they were doing and were just screwing up another generation to which I felt, ‘yeah, not it.’
So, somewhere in my mid-20’s I started coming around again to the truth of my heart that I did indeed want to be a mother. I remember feeling like, I wasn’t going to rush getting married but I knew if having the career of my dreams meant I couldn’t have the family of my dreams I’d take my career differently – which has been my reality.
Eventually, I met a man, fell in love, and desperately wanted to be a mommy. And like so many of the perceptions I had about other people’s choices to have kids, I had them all. I wanted someone who would give me unconditional love. I wanted someone I could take care of. I wanted to do the next step in our relationship. I wanted to have a little mini version of me and my husband running around. I wanted to raise a child to be a better version of myself. To learn the lessons I didn’t, to reflect to the world what a good person and mother I was through her behavior and knowledge and intellect. I wanted her to be a glowing representation of all the things I was not, the things I was, and that I could create her to be. All of those thoughts had to do with me and what I wanted and what I needed to feel in order to consider myself a good mother.
There was also a quiet voice doing their own silent prayer in my heart that sounded a little like this,
“Dear God, I know you have many souls that need nurturing that are either already born or not born yet but I’d love the experience of caring for one or more if you see fit. I want to be a mom and help one of them on their journey. Amen”
This voice is my truth of motherhood.
All of the decisions I’ve made in my life have brought me to this moment right here. Yes, to this moment that I stand here in my closet talking into a microphone about what I have learned from my choices thus far. How I can evolve to become a better parent, wife, friend, artist, storyteller, human being – is where I want to place my life energy and I’m hoping that if you’re listening to this right now the same is true for you.
Every character in a story has an objective, something they are working to achieve, and an obstacle to that objective which can be internal or external, a lot of times both. In the story of our lives we are the leading role and everyone we engage with is our scene partner. My daughter is my scene partner. We are in this story together. I cannot control my scene partners decisions but rather I must respond to them in a way that works towards the over arcing objective of our story. So, if my mommy objective is to raise an emotionally stable, resilient, empathetic human being who will make a positive contribution to the world, I need to show her how to be that in the way I treat her and respond to what she chooses in life. That honors my truth of motherhood.
So, I’ll ask you lovelies again,
Why did you choose to become a parent?
Why did you choose to become an actor? Or whichever career you chose?
Why did you choose the life that you’re living right now?
Oh, these are not rhetorical questions, I mean I can’t actually hold you accountable for answering them right now, but I feel these are the types of questions we have to be honest about answering for ourselves in order to move forward in life with clarity, respect, humility and laughter. We cannot take ourselves too seriously, it’s only life. I don’t know who said that originally but as someone who has taken themselves way too seriously throughout their life it’s a goal I am working towards. I’m just gonna Elsa my life and “Let It Go, Let it GO,”…lemme stop.
A Short Story Before We Go
“For the love of God, let me sleep!” You’re so sick of saying this. Trying to replace the broken record that woke you from rest and keeps you from returning is futile. Your pillow no longer supports you, the mattress is leaking air – how many days have you slept here already? Christmas was two nights ago so you’ll be here until…2008. Fuck. But you can’t think about that now. You can’t think about anything except the incessant phrase bellowing through your head. The air mattress keeps making these flatulating sounds every time you move. The mattress, the hums and creaks of an old house – why are you the only person hearing this right now?! Your mind. Your mind is fixated on one quest. It’s calling you to action, to answer the call you put out to the Universe months ago to which you have done nothing. It’s the reminder of life pulsing through you, a reminder to breathe and choose life before it’s over. Your mind starts to surrender, not the body, the body still craves rest. But your mind strengthens the chatter.
“You need change. You’re still living at home. Look at you, you’re sleeping on the floor of your old bedroom. What are you doing with your life? Shut up, stop it! You’ve been looking for a way out and this is it. Plus, you’ve been feeling all that ooey icky post break up blues bullshit. And honestly, your friends are all his friends so you can’t really hang out with them anymore. Ohmigod I just wanna go to sleep, Stop! You can finally get the training you need…to make you legit. I mean your card says your legit but are you really? Come on. Didn’t being on the road teach you anything? You’re ready for the next adventure. FINE! I’LL DO IT!”
You grab your phone, 4:32am. The mattress squawks as you roll off to gather your belongings: slippers, sweatshirt, glasses, laptop. You cross the long dark hallway, descend the creaky staircase, flip the light to the kitchen and settle yourself at the table. You open your laptop and know there is only one place you are going so make your choices from there. You click the icon for Internet Explorer and type - graduate acting programs nyc
Thirteen years ago I made a decision in the middle of the night that has directed my life to this moment right now. I’m forever grateful I chose to answer that call.
The Raise a Glass Series
The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
“The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.”
The world is wide enough for all of us. I know we live in a time where there's so much political divisiveness and social injustice and there's a pandemic going on but all of this is not new to humanity. It's new to us because we haven't experienced it before, I mean unless you believe in past lives and then we just have forgotten that experience. But there truly is space for us all. We have to remember at the end of the day we're all the same at our core. We're all human, if you cut us we bleed, if you hurt us we cry, we feel…all the feelings, we all want what's best for our families, we all want to feel loved, we all want to feel validated, respected, appreciated. I think about the reasons I laid out earlier why I chose to go into acting and those are the things worth living for: joy, being seen and valued for who you are, appreciated and respected, and feeling for yourself feeling for others, feeling connected to others. We can choose to create a world of inclusion, acceptance, diversity, and peace. It requires more than a hashtag from us though. It requires the challenging of our entire way of looking at the world. It requires our energy, time and patience – we need to put in the work. As we evolve our ways of thinking we become better guides for our children on how to be more respectful, empathetic human being.
Let’s raise a glass to choosing a world that’s wide enough for all.
That’s all for today guys and dolls. Thank you so much for joining me on this first episode. It has been very exciting to create this podcast and now to share it with you. I look forward to how this process evolves and I thank you again for taking a leap of faith with me today.
Next week we’ll look at script analysis and learning to see who we truly are.
If you enjoyed this episode and want to show your support please spread a beautiful act of kindness by rating it if your listening on Apple podcasts and telling at least one person about the show and that they can find it wherever they listen to their podcasts.
Thanks again and I’ll see you on the other side
Mom: Angelica, can you say good-bye?
Angelica: Good-bye, good-bye.
Mom: Thank you.
Angelica: Thank you.
Episode title: The Choice is Yours
Episode introduction: What’s your story? Like, what’s your deal? Ok, let me get more specific, why did you choose the life you are living right now? So, again, what’s your story? And more importantly, what’s the objective of your story? And finally, are you at peace with your life choice and if not, how can you find peace? An actor’s work starts with work on themselves and that’s where it’s most helpful to begin our journey as parents, with ourselves.
Choices:
- Why I Became an Actor
- Angelica Interlude
- Why I Became a Parent
- Character Objectives/Parenting Objectives
- My daughter’s my scene partner
- Why did you choose the life you’re living right now?
A Short Story Before We Go:
- Applying to graduate school
The Raise a Glass Series:
- The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
- Today’s lyrics – “The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me” ~ Aaron Burr
- A place to start if you know nothing about this show:
Episode transcript: See full transcript below.
Acts of Kindness:
- Rate the podcast, if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts
- Tell one person you know you enjoyed this podcast and they should check it out
Sources that helped inspire this episode:
- Unruffled – podcast by Janet Lansbury; this particular episode led me to the book below but since my sister introduced me to it I listen to this pretty regularly and have been inspired to be more mindful with my level of respect for myself and my daughter and one of the episodes was the igniting flame to create this podcast, I know I will have a formal thank you for Ms. Lansbury in a future episode
- The Gardener and The Carpenter by Alison Gopnick for her study of being a parent vs parenting (in full disclosure I’m still reading it so my reference of it is primarily from the first 1/3 and please don’t spoil the ending, haha)
- Other fun links below in full transcript
-------------------------------------------------
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Mom: Angelica, can you say hello?
Angelica: Hello! Hello?
Mom: How are you today?
Angelica: I doing well…how are you?
Mom: Well I’m doing well also. (she laughs)
Welcome to MFA: The Parenting Edition, I’m Taisha Cameron. These lessons from the theatre for raising ourselves and our kids came about when I realized my MFA in acting trained me for life as a mommy better than life as a full-time actor. Today’s episode is all about choices. We’ll explore some challenging questions, I’ll share some stories, and we’ll end our episode with the Raise a Glass Series. So, without further ado, this is MFA.
Quote: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Episode One – Choices
Question – what’s your story? Like, what’s your deal? Ok, let me get more specific, why did you choose the life you are living right now? So, again, what’s your story? And more importantly, what’s the objective of your story? And finally, are you at peace with your life choice and if not, how can you find peace? An actor’s work starts with work on themselves and that’s where it’s most helpful to begin our journey as parents, with ourselves.
I had an acting teacher in college tell us, “No parent looks at their child and says Dammit you’re gonna be an actor.” It’s true, that does not happen. No parent will choose a life for their child in which they are constantly rejected, unemployed, underpaid, should I go on? Choosing the life of an artist is a choice you make for an extremely personal reason. The same with being a parent. It is a choice. Now without getting into an entire philosophical, political, ethical or moral conversation on choice let’s just look at the relationship of being a parent.
Yes, it is a relationship you have with another human being. I know now a days we refer to it as parenting which makes it a job with tasks and goals, no vacations and shit pay (literal shit). I mean as a job it sucks; no one would apply. But as a relationship, being a parent, being a mother or a father to a child is one of the most nurturing and nourishing experiences we’ll have in this life. And like with all the relationships in our lives you can choose how to show up for the people you care about. You can show up with your whole self and be fully engaged, present, respectful or you can neglect, abandon and abuse those you love causing permanent or severe damage to that relationship. Those actions are choices.
Why I became an actor?
Once upon a time when I was a toddler I told my mother I wanted to be in the TV. Childhood memories can be beautiful, inspiring and can make a profound impact on who we grow up to be. I have no recollection of this grand proclamation. I do remember watching Grover sing with Crystal Gayle on Sesame Street – which is a fact checkable fallacy, because the internet just told me she sang with Big Bird. I’ve carried the wrong memory with me for decades. Memory…how I want you to help me tell the story of my life but you’re fickle as shit. But that’s okay. Look, hey, Grover’s my favorite, he’s The Man. Anyway, where was I? Sesame Street. So, I knew I wanted two things: to grow my hair as long as Crystal Gayle’s and to be where they were, doing what they were doing. They were making me smile, they were making me happy, they were making me feel joy.
The next moment that stands out in my beloved memory was my first Broadway experience, seeing Cats on a school trip when I was 11 years old. The Winter Garden Theatre, orchestra seats, house right, 7 rows from the stage. We’re surrounded. Down the aisles, on the stage, out of side doors – I think they’re gonna come out from under our seats next. Cats are everywhere! And then I see her. A grayish black bodysuit that might as well have been body paint, a Siamese cat, a chorus dancer, slinks her way across the stage with choreographed precision but I don’t see dance steps. I don’t see much of anything except her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And I knew the boys sitting in the row in front of me couldn’t either. She commanded attention. How did she do that, I wondered. How did she pull some inception shit on my mind to be the only thing I remember from that performance to this day? How do you get a whole room to watch you? How do you get the boys to see you? How can you be so comfortable in your own skin, in a cat’s skin, to allow yourself to be seen? As a naturally shy person attention, or being seen, was something I wanted but I was usually too scared to jump out of my skin and claim.
Let’s jump back to the 80’s for a minute, remember the tv show Family Ties? This show was a family sitcom starring the very talented Meredith Baxter, Michael J Fox and Justine Bateman. So, I don’t remember this particular storyline (shocker shocker with my vault of unreliable memories) but I remember the feeling when I became so embarrassed for Alex P. Keaton I wanted to hide. He had done God knows what and now had to face the consequences, he was caught, fess up or lie, explain yourself, and my 8-year-old body took off. I literally could not watch him face his fate. I grabbed my face, got up from the couch, and speed walked out of the living room muttering under my breath ‘oh my god oh my god oh my god.’ From the safety of the dining room I poked my head around the frame to spy on the fallout. Was it shame I felt for him? The uh-oh of being caught in a lie? Was I overreacting? Was everyone else in the room underreacting? I don’t remember who else was in the room with me but I was the only one who took off with their hands literally covering their face. What could’ve been so bad I ran with embarrassment for him? Sometimes I watch my daughter have these huge emotional reactions to something she’s watching and it reminds me of this moment in my childhood. I fled from those big feelings and I see her wanting to do the same. What I’ve noticed is, I find myself talking to her to stay with them. I don’t know if that’s a cruel thing to do to a two year old but I want her to accept the gooey uncomfortable feelings that come up and not to shut them out. To develop empathy, to take on the feelings of others as if they were your own.
So, creating joy, being seen, and experiencing emotions fully without fear were my personal reasons for wanting to be an actor. I don’t know if I verbalized those specific reasons in my grad school application…but I still got in so that’s fine; at that point I just wanted to study the craft and become a well-trained and respected artist.
Angelica Interludes
Angelica: My answer is to go outside mom.
Mom: Come here.
Angelica: My answer is to go outside OR brush my teeth, I KNOW, go outside!
Mom: But those are not the choices I’m giving you. Your choices right now are, to brush your teeth first or sweep under the table first.
Angelica: Sweep under the table.
Mom: You wanna sweep under the table first?
Angelica: Yes.
Mom: Ok, that means we brush our teeth after we finish sweeping.
Angelica: Mmhmm. I can get my broom.
Mom: You can get your broom?
Angelica: Yes.
Mom: Okay. Let’s go get your broom.
Angelica: I’ll be right back. Bye.
Why I became a parent?
As a child I always knew I wanted to be a mom.
College is when I began my ‘I fucking hate the world and I wish everyone would just hurry up and die’ phase, you know angry early twenties. This is the time in my life when I started feeling like There’s No Way in Hell I will Ever Get Married or Have Kids. I thought people who wanted kids were morons or were only having them to live vicariously through their children or fell into the trap of thinking it’s a step they have to or are expected to take in life and a lot of other nonsense. I also felt that most parents had no idea what they were doing and were just screwing up another generation to which I felt, ‘yeah, not it.’
So, somewhere in my mid-20’s I started coming around again to the truth of my heart that I did indeed want to be a mother. I remember feeling like, I wasn’t going to rush getting married but I knew if having the career of my dreams meant I couldn’t have the family of my dreams I’d take my career differently – which has been my reality.
Eventually, I met a man, fell in love, and desperately wanted to be a mommy. And like so many of the perceptions I had about other people’s choices to have kids, I had them all. I wanted someone who would give me unconditional love. I wanted someone I could take care of. I wanted to do the next step in our relationship. I wanted to have a little mini version of me and my husband running around. I wanted to raise a child to be a better version of myself. To learn the lessons I didn’t, to reflect to the world what a good person and mother I was through her behavior and knowledge and intellect. I wanted her to be a glowing representation of all the things I was not, the things I was, and that I could create her to be. All of those thoughts had to do with me and what I wanted and what I needed to feel in order to consider myself a good mother.
There was also a quiet voice doing their own silent prayer in my heart that sounded a little like this,
“Dear God, I know you have many souls that need nurturing that are either already born or not born yet but I’d love the experience of caring for one or more if you see fit. I want to be a mom and help one of them on their journey. Amen”
This voice is my truth of motherhood.
All of the decisions I’ve made in my life have brought me to this moment right here. Yes, to this moment that I stand here in my closet talking into a microphone about what I have learned from my choices thus far. How I can evolve to become a better parent, wife, friend, artist, storyteller, human being – is where I want to place my life energy and I’m hoping that if you’re listening to this right now the same is true for you.
Every character in a story has an objective, something they are working to achieve, and an obstacle to that objective which can be internal or external, a lot of times both. In the story of our lives we are the leading role and everyone we engage with is our scene partner. My daughter is my scene partner. We are in this story together. I cannot control my scene partners decisions but rather I must respond to them in a way that works towards the over arcing objective of our story. So, if my mommy objective is to raise an emotionally stable, resilient, empathetic human being who will make a positive contribution to the world, I need to show her how to be that in the way I treat her and respond to what she chooses in life. That honors my truth of motherhood.
So, I’ll ask you lovelies again,
Why did you choose to become a parent?
Why did you choose to become an actor? Or whichever career you chose?
Why did you choose the life that you’re living right now?
Oh, these are not rhetorical questions, I mean I can’t actually hold you accountable for answering them right now, but I feel these are the types of questions we have to be honest about answering for ourselves in order to move forward in life with clarity, respect, humility and laughter. We cannot take ourselves too seriously, it’s only life. I don’t know who said that originally but as someone who has taken themselves way too seriously throughout their life it’s a goal I am working towards. I’m just gonna Elsa my life and “Let It Go, Let it GO,”…lemme stop.
A Short Story Before We Go
“For the love of God, let me sleep!” You’re so sick of saying this. Trying to replace the broken record that woke you from rest and keeps you from returning is futile. Your pillow no longer supports you, the mattress is leaking air – how many days have you slept here already? Christmas was two nights ago so you’ll be here until…2008. Fuck. But you can’t think about that now. You can’t think about anything except the incessant phrase bellowing through your head. The air mattress keeps making these flatulating sounds every time you move. The mattress, the hums and creaks of an old house – why are you the only person hearing this right now?! Your mind. Your mind is fixated on one quest. It’s calling you to action, to answer the call you put out to the Universe months ago to which you have done nothing. It’s the reminder of life pulsing through you, a reminder to breathe and choose life before it’s over. Your mind starts to surrender, not the body, the body still craves rest. But your mind strengthens the chatter.
“You need change. You’re still living at home. Look at you, you’re sleeping on the floor of your old bedroom. What are you doing with your life? Shut up, stop it! You’ve been looking for a way out and this is it. Plus, you’ve been feeling all that ooey icky post break up blues bullshit. And honestly, your friends are all his friends so you can’t really hang out with them anymore. Ohmigod I just wanna go to sleep, Stop! You can finally get the training you need…to make you legit. I mean your card says your legit but are you really? Come on. Didn’t being on the road teach you anything? You’re ready for the next adventure. FINE! I’LL DO IT!”
You grab your phone, 4:32am. The mattress squawks as you roll off to gather your belongings: slippers, sweatshirt, glasses, laptop. You cross the long dark hallway, descend the creaky staircase, flip the light to the kitchen and settle yourself at the table. You open your laptop and know there is only one place you are going so make your choices from there. You click the icon for Internet Explorer and type - graduate acting programs nyc
Thirteen years ago I made a decision in the middle of the night that has directed my life to this moment right now. I’m forever grateful I chose to answer that call.
The Raise a Glass Series
The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
“The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.”
The world is wide enough for all of us. I know we live in a time where there's so much political divisiveness and social injustice and there's a pandemic going on but all of this is not new to humanity. It's new to us because we haven't experienced it before, I mean unless you believe in past lives and then we just have forgotten that experience. But there truly is space for us all. We have to remember at the end of the day we're all the same at our core. We're all human, if you cut us we bleed, if you hurt us we cry, we feel…all the feelings, we all want what's best for our families, we all want to feel loved, we all want to feel validated, respected, appreciated. I think about the reasons I laid out earlier why I chose to go into acting and those are the things worth living for: joy, being seen and valued for who you are, appreciated and respected, and feeling for yourself feeling for others, feeling connected to others. We can choose to create a world of inclusion, acceptance, diversity, and peace. It requires more than a hashtag from us though. It requires the challenging of our entire way of looking at the world. It requires our energy, time and patience – we need to put in the work. As we evolve our ways of thinking we become better guides for our children on how to be more respectful, empathetic human being.
Let’s raise a glass to choosing a world that’s wide enough for all.
That’s all for today guys and dolls. Thank you so much for joining me on this first episode. It has been very exciting to create this podcast and now to share it with you. I look forward to how this process evolves and I thank you again for taking a leap of faith with me today.
Next week we’ll look at script analysis and learning to see who we truly are.
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Thanks again and I’ll see you on the other side
Mom: Angelica, can you say good-bye?
Angelica: Good-bye, good-bye.
Mom: Thank you.
Angelica: Thank you.