Well I have been tossing and turning in my bed for about an hour and a half, now.... but I think its a good thing. I actually have a slightly stronger perception of where my life is going right now... and I think I have the perfect prayer to thank for it.
I was laying in bed and I remembered to pray the prayer. I got it wrong the first time, saying Lord, Engineer my circumstances according to your will. After a few minutes of laying in the dark, I realized this, and prayed it again, Engineer my circumstances, Lord, according to your will. But for some reason, I have a feeling that I am supposed to be moving on with my life... it's burning brilliantly within me, though I have no idea of what or how to move on, and what's more is that I have an immense fear that somewhere along the way I made some wrong turns and it will take a large amound of backtracking to get where I'm supposed to be. So I prayed the prayer one more time... Engineer my circumstances, Lord, according to your will, but please - do it quickly.
I lay there in bed for the longest time thinking and really just trying to get to sleep. But something was keeping me awake. I hadn't finished for the day... and then I started remembering things..... the few times in my life that I have been genuinely happy or truly felt exalted. I remembered back to my early adolescence when I participated in the afterschool drama club at the private academy I went to. Telling stories with puppets, using strange props and devices.... I remembered some few times I had played "Wizards and warriors" with my younger brother in the back yard, and even to the few fun moments when I had ruled one half of a playground with an army of younger children ready to do my bidding. Of course, I was always the wizard... the wise one who remained in the turret, who knew the secret paths of the forest, who could appear and disappear at a moment's notice... I'm not sure why those moments stuck with me, but they struck me full blast tonight as I remembered them..... then I recalled the few years of my childhood when I was into magic tricks, the illusion and the reality in conflict with one another was fascinating to me... And when I could perform a trick and felt a little bit of awe from my familial audience, you probably would not have seen a larger grin on a teenager's face.
And then I recalled my years in Middle School.... not in classes, so much.... as on stage. Every day was a new adventure into the psyche and emotional experience of humanity. Who or what would I be in the next performance? An animal? A woman? A wall? What strange and miraculous emotion would I be able to dredge up from I know not where? Anger? Hatred? An insane and jealous fear? The end of my 9th grade education, we put on a play known as "Hello, Shakespeare" in which I played several parts.... It was a fascinating and thrilling experience... after which I quickly obtained the nickname "Shakespeare". For a year afterwards, I really felt like I had direction in my life. I received numerous congratulations on my performances, my ability to project (which strangely enough I had difficulty with at first), and in later years my musical talent, though I know not where that idea originated. I still think my singing is rustic at best and I still lack the ability to read staff on cue. (But give me a piano and I can pluck it out... lol).
Unfortunately, it was shortly after these performances that I was forced to move with my family when my father lost his job, and I was thrust (once again) into a strange environment. One far less friendly than my previous encounter. I was, regrettably, or perhaps not so, different from just about anyone here. So I was forced to create a dramatis personae, although perhaps on hindsight that was not the right thing to do, in order to be accepted and fit in. The Junior and Senior years in high school can be hell, particularly if you don't fit in with any of the pre-existing niches.... I didn't know anyone, and the educational system was different enough from my old one to throw me into some confusion about what the hell was going on. But I soon joined Latin Club and the National Honor Society, though I think I can remember pining after the stage once again. My literature courses were taught by football coaches, for the most part.... and I am sorry to say that the football coaches are not very good at teaching literature, history, or social sciences (even if some of them were good looking). My Senior year in high school I did what I could, but pressures from home were bad enough. My father insisted that I take Calculus before I got into college. So by necessity I had to take trigonometry, analytical geometry, and calculus. Courses that weren't required for me to graduate, but which my father required of me. Needless to say, I had no time in those two years to pursue acting or performance from an educational standpoint, and no opportunities at all to pursue it from an extracurricular standpoint. At the time I do not remember it being a terrible experience, but now that I can look back at that experience from 10 years down the road from it, I can remember it as hellish experience. Latin, of course, saved me a little bit. Oratory and Poetry brought back some of that thrill that I missed so much, but perhaps not enough of it. I sometimes broke out into song for no apparent reason (and still do in the privacy of my own home)... which prompted several people to ask me if I sang in church. I'm still not certain what they were referring to, but I learned to quiet it down, unless I'm outside or driving somewhere or something.... Okay that's weird I know, but still I think its important. In Latin Club I translated six books of the Aeneid, and found myself fascinated by the rhythm of the work. It was something made to be read out loud, and it was beautiful. "Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris..." I wrote a play about Orpheus and Eurydice which won the entire school Latin Competition team third place at the state competition and a paid trip to Nationals, where I earned second place in oratory, fifth in poetry, and a few other awards that I forget right now... but I can still recall some exciting moments from that trip to Nationals where I was at the peak of my experience in the thrill of a performance in a play, skit, or scene that seemed memorable and important. Of course, I couldn't keep from remembering the few performances in my Senior year I was able to make... from the readings of Hamlet and Twelfth Night, and of course The Crucible in my Junior Year. My God, now that I think of it, I'm remembering going to the Library and reading just about every play I could get my hands on. I lived performances through secondhand experience if I couldn't perform it myself.
I wonder now, what I feared that prevented me from going after what I really wanted all those years ago.... the fear of non-acceptance? The tragedy of refusal and denial. In the few years after my graduation from high school, I continued to live performance secondhand... I went with my family to see the musical about the Riverboat Theatre whose title I can't remember right now. I relished the comical live performance of "Tuna, Texas", and my ears perked up whenever the radio mentioned a performance of play, musical, or opera. But academically, it seemed like I had another life to live. I pursued a different approach, I learned to write. No, not the long, brambling thing that you see here.... Papers that discussed nearly every aspect of humanity I could get my hands on... cultural differences, antidisestablishmentarianism, violence as a form of social repression, the frenzy of media, the lack of resources or knowledge in the public education system, the mythic connection between landscape and society, religious identity and the conception of self, ritual drug use in nonstandard forms.... but as much as I enjoyed exploring these ideas, researching them, and representing them on paper.... I think I now realize what I was actually doing. Most people that I shared my papers with found it very strange that I write almost exactly as I speak. Apparently, its supposed to be different. Oops.
But now that I can look back at my papers with that knowledge in hand... what was I doing? Performing on paper. Everything I wrote was for the entertainment, education, and enjoyment of the target audience. In fact, my favorite questions about my papers to my professors were not "Was that accurate?" but "Did you enjoy it?" That is incredibly bizarre...... but if you consider that I was performing on paper, writing my own script as I went along, letting it flow and bounce with irony and little surprises in every corner, but nothing dangerous.... I had never thought that that was what I was doing, until just right now... or a few moments ago, or whatever. I also enjoyed the few presentations I made that I was really prepared for. It sucks not being prepared for it, but if you know what you are going to say it can be a dream. Once again, performance......
In college I almost tried out for a part in a play, but I think something in my subconscious wanted to prevent me from doing it... I got sick the day I was supposed to audition.
Let us zoom to the present, I mentioned recipes, jewelry and clothing designs, fragrance, and musical creations. Not to mention writing of fiction and poetry. I write fiction to be read or mentally performed. I write poetry to be spoken. That is really the best way to enjoy the rhythm and linguistic sounds of different words in the poems I write. I create recipes to be tasted. I create jewelry and clothing designs to be seen and worn. I create fragrances to be smelled, and musical creations to be heard. Everything that I feel even a slight drawing to do is somehow tied up in an aesthetic experience... one which I want to direct and control to illicit response, for this is what art is... something that illicits a response.
Now that I am seeing this way... now that I am remembering the thrill of the stage, and wonder what the hell I've done to myself the past ten years of my life, I am really afraid... I don't know how to get back into that experience, don't know if I even have the skills to do so... just a great desire. And I don't know if anyone will want me once I get there, or if I will be able to make one damn bit of difference in those experiences. So I'm stuck... or so it seems. I will continue to pray the perfect prayer... but I think I might need others to pray for me too.