Vanity and I

Ours is a love story, like so many before it, rooted in an external search for acceptance, completion, and happiness. Abusive at times, melodramatic at others, and full of resentment and bitterness, Vanity and I have had a turbulent relationship.

At 16.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I was always manicured, pedicured, waxed, exfoliated, cleansed, starved, tucked, lifted, firmed, smoothed, and glossed. My hair was always long, my clothes were always form-fitting and feminine, and my perfume was whatever the magazine told me was a man's favorite scent on a woman. If my hands were dry or my lips chapped, I'd be embarrassed, and I'd never dare take my shoes off if I was overdue for a pedicure.

Vanity was with me every single day. And for as long as there was enough money, there were solutions to everything. Needles could smooth out stretchmarks, electric shocks could stop hair from growing where it shouldn't, surgeries could lift, tuck, and sew in anything that wasn't in place. Pills could make me stop eating. She had an answer for everything.

I did not think she would ever leave me, and I certainly did not think I would ever leave her. 

When a teacher quite forcefully told me that if I wanted to be an actor I had to get messy, dirty, ugly, and, above all, let go of my vanity and ego, I was baffled. Like a slave born into a life of unquestionable servitude, blind to the absurdity of her circumstances, I was suddenly made aware of my binding chains.

At 22.

I cut off my hair. I stopped getting my nails done. I bought a dozen yoga pants. I set my make up, stomach-gripping jeans, and heels to the back of my closet. And I started eating french fries.

In order to set myself truly free, I had to let go of Vanity completely. I had to break up with her, and I was very, very angry. I was ready to break mirrors and burn bras, such was the depth of my pain. You trapped me, chained me, butchered me, controlled me, and erased me. I want nothing to do with you, ever again.

She complied. She left me alone. And I was so happy to find the freedom within stretchy pants, flats, messy short hair, and unpainted uneven nails, that I did not miss her at all. It was a blissful time, and I did grow tremendously as an actor. Vanity murders creativity. For the next couple of years, I was unstoppable.

But I was not done growing. We never are. 

It was a group of actor friends that next freed me when they proposed, gently, that I indulge in my vanity, flaunt my femininity and sexiness, and invite a little ego back. Again, I felt a light turn on in a dark room within me. In my complete negation of Vanity, I did not realize she was still controlling me. I feared her so fiercely, I never considered that we could have a healthy, balanced relationship.

As I had done years earlier when I dispelled Vanity completely, I was ready to take on the challenge of welcoming her back for the sake of my growth as an actor. 

I have been taking slow, cautious steps every day towards discovering what feels good to me, what I like indulging in, and what daily doses of Vanity I can take. I felt my hair touch my shoulder the other day and was surprised by how much I liked the feeling of it. I dug up my eyeliner from its grave and played with different ways to bring attention to my eyes. I looked at each part of my body and asked myself, How do I celebrate this body part's beauty? 

It is no coincidence that The Body Stories emerged at the same time. I am telling stories that I hope inspire others to find a peaceful relationship with their bodies. It was time I worked on mine. 

I know Vanity is not a real person who forced me to do things I didn't want to. I know that when I talk of Vanity I am talking about a relationship I had with myself in pursuit of an ideal. But sometimes it's too hard to look at myself, to touch the parts of my body I have butchered, and not want to blame it on an external source.

Here we are, Vanity and I, with our loaded past, working on our relationship. And it does take work. I'd be lying if I said she were no longer a threat, and that our relationship is always healthy and balanced. I am still mostly afraid of her. When I spend 45 minutes on my hair, I have to make sure, every other minute, that I am doing this because I want to. And, when I wear yoga pants for five days in a row, I have to check that I am not avoiding her. But, step by step, we are figuring each other out, and I am a little bit closer to true freedom.

At 26.

The Body Stories: Trailer and Website!

I am so excited to share this! It is my heart's work, my baby, my medicine, and my gift to humanity.

My project, created from scratch alongside Jeanne Joe Perrone, with Victoria Bennet, Melinda Graham, and Breanna Noel, has a beautiful trailer and website now!

Watch, learn, share, like, comment, and be inspired!

website: http://thebodystories.weebly.com

trailer: 

Thank you to Yvonne Yu, our videographer, and John Wyffles, our designer.

Thank you to all who have supported us! Come on out on January 22nd to see our first rendition of The Body Stories!

The Body Stories

Alongside Jeanne Joe Perrone, a fellow Actors Studio Drama School MFA graduate and boundlessly inventive artist, I have created my upcoming theater production, The Body Stories. A year in the making, and a lifetime in my heart, we are now producing this physical theater meets live art show that lets our bodies tell their stories. After all, we believe our bodies know more than we do. We are scheduled to perform on January 22nd, 2012, in Manhattan, and we are thrilled to share this rendition of our work with you! 

I struggled from an early age with body image issues. As a teenager in Brazil, the pressure from the media, the society I lived in, and the people around me skewed my perception of myself, to the point where I had three plastic surgeries by the age of 15, battled eating disorders, and underwent countless dangerous, expensive, and painful procedures in order to attain what I perceived as real beauty. Having survived my turbulent adolescent angst and violent insecurities, I arrived at adulthood with a new task: understanding my past and finding compassion for how I treated myself over those years. The arduous road ended at the expected destination: self-love and self-acceptance.

That I lived to tell this story is not something I take for granted. I know that body image issues are present in the lives of most teenagers and adults, especially women, and I feel in my heart that I have a responsibility to tell my story. I have found an artistic expression to my innermost scars with The Body Stories, and it is the most important piece of theater I have worked on to date. It is a message I am carrying because I have to; this story lives inside me, and it always will.

Jeanne Joe and I are driven by our love of theater and our need to tell these stories; that is our compensation. But, as you surely know, our production cannot go up on love alone. We are committed to creating this show with the lowest possible budget, with a goal of raising $1500 by November 1st, 2011. We are now requesting the contribution of our friends and families in making this project possible. Donations start at $10, and every penny helps us!

Your contribution is the lifeline of this production, and we are grateful for all donations of any monetary amount. Please visit our indigogo fundraiser website to make a donation and learn more about The Body Stories.

http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Body-Stories


Our gratitude for any and all donations is infinite. We cannot do what we do without your generous support. Please share our fundraiser campaign on your social media sites and help us promote this project.

To learn more about The Body Stories and find out ways to be involved, please feel free to contact us. If your body, too, has a story to tell, do not hesitate in reaching out to us. We are here to serve the material that already lives within us, and there are no limits to how much this project can grow.

The Artist's Way

Child Artist- image from here

I am working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, a workbook for recovering and discovering our Artistic Self. It's a 12-week do-it-yourself program, with daily and weekly tasks. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It's the second time I am working through it.

I was given a used copy of it by a friend a couple of years ago, and it sat on my shelf for two years, untouched. Then, in May of 2010, I found myself deeply sad and stuck. I had spent my first year out of school auditioning and getting rejected, and I had gone through two major heartbreaks in the span of just a few months. I was lonely, uninspired, and in a lot of pain. Then someone sent me an article written by Jenna Fisher, where she talked about going through these periods throughout her career as well, and mentioned how helpful The Artist's Way had been. I picked up my copy, dusted it off, and started reading it. I committed to it because I didn't know what else to do; I needed to shift something within.

Early in the book, Cameron explains that when we are in pain, we are present. The future becomes too challenging to imagine and the past is too painful to remember, so we focus on the present. And that is when we notice the details of life, which is a propeller for creativity. I found that to be true. I was diligent about doing the exercises, and it didn't take long for things to start shifting. Before I knew it, I had created my own show, Leading Ladies, and I had four other plays lined up to perform in. And I fell in love.

The Ladies of Leading Ladies

Things got better quickly, projects were coming my way, and I was happy. I was glowing, in fact, and many people noticed it. So I made the mistake that many people in recovery make: by week 8, I abandoned The Artist's Way. I thought I didn't need it anymore. I was healed. I knew how to nurture my artist and the universe was responding; why spend 30 minutes of my morning writing morning pages, why take an hour out of my week to go on an artist date, why spend 45 minutes on a task, why repeat affirmations to myself? I thought my time would be better spent living, loving, and creating.

I can see now that what happened after that was no coincidence. Slowly, things fell apart. Auditions led to nothing but rejections. I got a job I didn't enjoy. I met people who sucked my creative energy out of me, and I didn't know how to protect myself. I turned into a version of myself I can't stand; bitter, angry, self-loathing, and victimized. My relationship, too, went down a destructive path and I didn't know how to save it. I saw myself losing everything, and I felt powerless.

I have been crying for just about 6 months now, and I haven't acted in a play in 9 months. It was time for a shift. Two weeks ago, as I was organizing one of my closets, I came across my copy of The Artist's Way. I felt such a huge relief in holding it in my hands that I burst into tears. I knew I needed to attend to my artist. I needed to do the work again.

It's only the second week, and already things have changed. Projects have come my way, I have felt my creative juices flowing, and I can feel a huge space opening in my heart again. This time, I hope I'll know better than to abandon the process, and I won't take my progress for granted. It's actually quite simple: Do the work. Results will follow.

I highly recommend this workbook, even if you don't think of yourself as an artist. We are all creative beings, and we all need to attend to that part of ourselves. Creativity, like a muscle, needs to be nourished and given the opportunity to practice and build upon itself. As a teacher of mine in grad school used to say, energy flows where attention goes.

And... I don't know if other people can see it yet, but I looked in the mirror today, and guess what?

I'm glowing.

I think this is a good example of what I look like when I glow. photo by Shirin Tinati.

...On Directing WEIGHT

The day of a show usually goes like this:

Wake up, the first few seconds are normal, and then there is a sudden, sharp realization: I am performing tonight!

Excitement is followed by extreme panic. 

For the next two minutes I wonder if it's too late to leave the country.

It is.

And then I remember: I love doing this. No, love doesn't cover it. I am obsessed with it. If someone said: Here's a theatre, but you can't leave it for the rest of your life, you have to be here every day, and for many days in a row you might not see the light of day, but you will create theatre with integrity, love, and purpose; I would say, Lock me up. Tie me down. There is nothing else I'd rather do with my life. 

I have been doing this since I was four years old; performing, creating shows, making other people do what I want, making other people watch what I've created, and seeking, always seeking, an opportunity to bring a character to life. I am not a story-teller, I am a story-liver (as in, life liver, not body organ liver). Even when I tell my cousin's daughters a story, I do it as if I were acting out a play, taking on the character's voices and acting out all the actions. I usually end up a sweaty mess and, if the intention was ever to put the child to sleep, I fail at it miserably. They are as wound up as ever by the time I am done, because I am most alive when I am acting, and life is contagious. They love it. They need it. We all do. We all need stories to be lived in front of us; we ache for that exposure of the human heart.

Tonight the play I directed opens. How is directing different than performing? Multiply the above experiences by a thousand. And then put on the pressure to be the one who is calm, in control, patient, and knowledgeable.

WEIGHT was written by my soul sister, Kerri Campbell Evans. She showed it to me one day, and I had a vision. We looked at each other, and it was done: I'd be directing WEIGHT.

I have directed things here and there since I was a child; it's easy for me because, as my brother and cousins can attest, I like telling people what to do. But I have hesitated to call myself a director. I am so madly in love with being on stage, with communicating a character's soul to a live audience, that I often wonder if directing can be as fulfilling.

What I've learned is that it's fulfilling in an entirely different way. This play was important to me; I fell in love with the characters and felt a need to tell their stories. I saw my role: I would be the one creating the environment for my actors to bring their characters to life. I would give them what they needed, whether they knew that they needed it or not, in order to rise to their character's worlds.

In this life of odd day jobs here and there, I discovered two jobs outside of the theatrical business that I was suited for: teaching and tour guiding. So it made sense that I would fit right into my director's chair. I see the potential in people and then I make it my mission to guide them towards it. Because I know first-hand what that "a-ha!" moment feels like for an actor- the moment when the character clicks, when you understand something that could only be understood by living through it, when you feel with absolute certainty that there is a force much higher than yourself that takes you to this place of raw truth- because I know that this is what we live for, I have found it incredibly fulfilling to be part of the process that takes them there.

I am a mother tonight, watching my baby take its first step, speak its first word, and look out into the world for the first time, knowing that it is theirs.

I am so proud of my girls, and I am so excited to see our play, which we rehearsed in living rooms and pieced together bit by bit over the course of four months, being given to others tonight. That is the final step- giving the creation over. No matter how many times I do this, I will always feel the butterflies in my stomach. Like the early stages of falling in love, I cannot help but let excitement clash with nervousness, and hope that my heart's desire to love will be met with another open, willing heart.

Send your positive energy to our beautiful play and, if you're around, come support our magical journey.


WEIGHT opens tonight at the Strawberry One-Act Festival.
Hudson Guild Theater
441 W. 26th St. (btw 9th and 10th aves)
7:00pm

Guest Post: Gunshy

Today's guest post is written by Jeanne Joe, author of the blog Gypsy Joe, an amazing woman I've known and watched grow since grad school. She's a beautiful artist, a really talented actor, and a creative person in all areas of life, as you will see in her writing. With Jeanne Joe, you're in for a ride, and you will enjoy it. 

Gunshy

When reigning Artistic Director David Greenham invited me to spend my summer with Maine's Shakespeare Theater, I wasn't sure who was wooing who.  Clearly I was enamored immediately with the theater and desperate to be likable enough to warrant an invitation to join the company.  When I received an email for a phone interview my heart went pitterpat and I said okay, Joe, this is game time.  Put on the charm for this one.  Get a job out.  You can do it.

On the phone, I was so stinking charming I believe I even chatted with Dave (who is himself charming and hilarious, with bone-dry sarcasm and a lifetime of theater experience to pepper his conversation) about house additions and contracting companies - which I know next to nothing about.  And then he offered me a job, and our roles seemed to reverse.  He said humbly, courtingly, "Are you SURE you want to step out of your life for 10 weeks and come to Maine?"  I remember how smiley my voice was.  It drew my roommate out of the kitchen to make sure I was alright (normally my voice is not exactly smiley).  "David," I said, "I would love to step out of my life for 10 weeks."

Calamity isn't gunshy

It's one thing to talk big.  I can talk big about a lot of things.  I can talk big about dropping everything for 10 weeks and build myself up to be some kind of gun-slinging desperado.  I can talk big about being a gypsy, eating three plates of pasta in one sitting, heartbreaking, moving on, adulthood, professionalism, double entendres, flirting; but when the rubber meets the road I find myself shrinking a little from my bold words, worried by ghostly memories and flashbacks.  Last time I took a risk it didn't end so well...I know where this is going....I was kidding...no you're right I wasn't kidding..were you kidding?...damn.  Yup, this is happening.

Gunshy.  Listen to this song and you'll know what I mean:

I've stepped out of my life for 10 weeks and into...still my life.  As my father likes to say, "You always take yourself with you."  Usually I'm pretty good with the confidence and risk taking, but sometimes I feel less like a sexy beast and more like a hot mess.  Leaps of faith can be hard to make and wisdom is hard to come by.

How do you know what - and who - to let in?  As artists I know there's an eagerness to be open, to live dangerously and fully and impulsively and I am ALL ABOUT THAT - for about 3 weeks.  Then I start feeling feelings and I'm afraid to pull the trigger.  How does one do all that, and still have a home inside oneself to rest in - a home that goes with you wherever you lay your head?

say yes?

I remember in my second year of graduate school I had the "Say Yes to Everything and Everyone" phase, where I let so many people and things into my heart I could no longer hear my own voice in my head.  After about 6 months I was dizzy and heartsick, but not very sorry.  It took me about a year to be sorry.  Now, sometimes I miss the extreme peak experiences I had back then.  Life out of grad school is a little more about surviving, which sometimes isn't as fun...but I'm a little hesitant to toss myself to the winds.  There's an element of maturity that wants to control and monitor a person, a performance, a self.  My pendulum doesn't seem to know how to fall to center: I'm always a freakish uber-marionette or a wanton will o' the wisp.  Was my mother right?  Are all things really moderation?

Honestly, I kind of hope not.  Ultimately, what have I got to lose by taking a chance?  It's just one small human heart.  As Beatrice says in Much Ado About Nothing, "Poor fool (heart), it keeps to the windy side of care."

with the skeletons

Every day is starting again.  Some days that's exciting to me - when I know my lines, when I know how I feel, when I know what I want to do - or when I don't know what I want to do and can't wait to figure it out as I go.  Sometimes the idea of starting again makes me not want to wake up, preferring my dream people and dream lives.  Sometimes when I hear a foreign voice say, "Let me in," I am running to the door or the window or the skylight and throwing back the shutters, shivering in sun, damning the torpedoes and racing full speed ahead.  Other times when that voice comes along suddenly I'm hiding in the closet with the skeletons, afraid to meet those green eyes or blue eyes or brown eyes or whatever color pleases God eyes.  Afraid to be unprofessional.  Afraid to be professional.

it's just one small human heart

Gunshy. 

What if...what if this time...

Today, I'm a bit embarrassed to report, I'm hiding in the closet.  You can come in too though.  We can share my flashlight and listen to this beautiful song again and work up the nerve to open the door.

Loneliness, Pain, and Art

I'm lonely. I have friends, I have a wonderful family, I have a therapist, and I have many, many people I can talk to. I have loved deeply, I have been loved, and I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will love again. I even have guys who are interested in me now. I'm not poor, I'm not hungry, I'm educated, I live in New York City, I have a passion, I'm not fat, I'm not ugly, and I have faith in a higher being. I'm grateful for many things, I'm blessed in many ways, I'm able to grow and learn most of the time. But I'm lonely. I'm lonely in a way that phone calls from dear ones doesn't fix, that sex and the city marathons don't mask, that yoga can't transform, that ice-cream doesn't make better.

I smile easily, I laugh easily, I'm social, and I attract people. But, deep down, at my core, I am lonely. When all the lights are out and silence settles, I am with myself, and I feel hollow. It's funny how such emptiness can feel so oppressively heavy. It's like a vast space in my chest that causes a feeling of claustrophobia and weighs me down. It grows inside me, pushing at my edges, but it feels like a big void.

This feeling is not caused, though it may be magnified, by certain circumstances. I've always known it. I was aware of it even as a child; what was labeled shyness, I believe, was actually a feeling of deep disconnect. As I became a teenager, the feeling deepened, and I constantly felt misunderstood, but it was seen as normal adolescent angst. It's never been anything that demanded serious attention, for I have always been perfectly functional, and I am happy. But happy, functioning people can also be lonely.

There's nothing to do about it, but I have learned I can do something with it. I can create my art. Because all human beings know loneliness, all characters know loneliness, and so that is my starting point in creating- either in acting, writing, or directing- characters that people can relate to. Investigating lonely behavior, therefore, makes me an active part of it and less a victim to it. Let it move, let it shift, let it birth art. Often, this provides me with great relief, as well as a sense of purpose.

Perhaps it is because of this that I sometimes say my life started when I was 10 years old. I was in the fifth grade, I was considered a shy child- practically invisible, actually- and we were given an assignment to impersonate a historical figure. I was given Nathanial Greene. Some other kids thought he was boring, but I figured him out really fast. He was a revolutionary war general, he was watching people die every day, his men were depending on his leadership with their lives and their hope, and so he was probably very lonely. From those conclusions, I created my Nathanial, and I stepped in front of the class and let him live through me. I shouted at my men, I lead an imaginary field of soldiers into battle, and I told the story of my life. My classmates and my teacher were stunned into silence; they did not recognize me. The shy girl who barely spoke had come to life, had stepped in front of other people- arguably one of the scariest things to do in the world- and had become, without an ounce of nervousness or hesitation, Nathanial Greene. No one was as surprised as I was. I got a standing ovation, was asked to do it again and again, and went home that day with a laser-sharp certainty that has not left me since: I was going to be an actress.

I understand the feelings I had then better now: I couldn't express my loneliness- it's too difficult to really convey our own loneliness- but I could do it behind the mask of that character. I could do it on stage, where people are willing to suspend their disbelief. I could tell the stories of the people who could not, or would not, tell it themselves and, in doing so, I would be telling my story too. My pain would not remain clogged inside me, it had found a way to move and- perhaps this is the greatest gift a human being can be given- it was a way for me to give something to others.

Characters need our pain in order to live, they need our loneliness, they need our dreams. Without it, they're just words on a page. And every time a character is brought to life with truth and honesty, there is a chance someone in the audience is given some relief. In this way, the cycle is beautiful. My loneliness is the gift I give my characters as well as the audience, and in providing me with an outlet for it, it is the gift they give me in return. They give me peace.

Adulthood's Ugly Face

One day I woke up and watched myself shower, put on responsible-looking clothes, paint my face into a grown-up woman's complexion, drink my coffee, eat my poached egg on toast, pack my laptop into my bag, head off to work, sit in front of a computer all day, do tasks that neither interest nor fulfill me, watch the clock, wait for the day to end, come home too tired to socialize or blog or work out or return calls or respond to emails, eat something, and finally go back to sleep which was only comforting because it was not like the day it followed. And so I realized that I had finally met someone I'd observed from afar all my life, someone many people around me had known for a long time. That someone was called Adulthood.

Adulthood has taken over me for the past month or so, and I have slowly been introduced to responsibility, compromise, and a desire for independence. Perhaps for most people all this seems normal, or like "it's about time"- I'm 25 after all, but for me it has been completely jarring and, in many ways, really difficult and sad.

I've always had one goal. I've always known who I was. I've always made every decision based on how it would best serve the one thing I knew I was meant to do. For as long as I can remember, I have only ever lived to be an actress. Since my parents always had enough money and since I wasn't raised in a culture that encouraged financial independence at age 18, I figured I wouldn't ever have to compromise what I wanted to do, what I was meant to do, for the sake of a paycheck or stability. But I also thought I'd have it figured out by the time I was 25. That I'd have a path drawn out, that I'd be closer to success and recognition, that I'd be able to make a living with acting, or that I'd be able to make a living somehow and still act.

As it turns out, I'm 25 and I have a master's degree in what I love doing but I don't know how to do it for a living. I'm tired of being dependent, and the acting industry has completely burnt me out. Auditions make me feel like a puppet, rejections make me feel unworthy, and playing roles that don't mean anything to me leave me unfulfilled and wanting more. So I sought a more regular lifestyle, found it, and have slowly gravitated towards letting it take over my life. The less I think about acting and how little of it I'm doing, the less it can hurt me. And if I'm the one who shuts down my dream, then at least no one else can crush it.

But the result is that my heart is breaking every day, as though I'd just buried my Self and am in mourning. Going through the motions of adulthood exhaust me, pretending I can do it permanently nearly kills me. Not to mention how mad Little Larissa is at me. My 7-year-old self is scolding me, shaking her finger at me, "You can't just give up! How can you give up?? These are our dreams! We've wished them into fountains all our lives!" And I don't really know what to tell her. It's just time, I want to say, I have to do something else now, for a while, I have to figure out my life, I have to be responsible. But she wouldn't understand it. I hardly understand it myself.

Who I am is an actress, I know that like I know my name. But how long can a dream be sustained for when it exists only as something we wish upon a star? At some point it has to either materialize or be discarded, it seems. And I've been lost. I've been terrified of going through another year of the same bullshit auditions for unpaid projects that aren't even that good. I'm tired and I'm not happy. The idea of giving up on acting brings me even further down, but I can't keep doing it and not making a living either.

So here I am, staring at Adulthood but still clinging on to my dreams and idealizations of life, not quite ready to let go yet. Getting scolded by my inner child, but looking at my life as it is and knowing that something has to change.

I'm looking for signs, I'm waiting for clarity, I'm hoping for solutions.

I'm staring at myself and, for the first time in my whole life, I'm wondering who I am.

Sense Memory

Sense Memory is the use of the senses to re-create people, places, smells, tastes, songs, physical conditions, etc., in order to get in touch with a character's reality. For example, if what my character needs in a scene/play is to be loved by the other character, but on that day I am not naturally in touch with that need, I might sensorially create a person from my life that evokes in me the need to be loved. I would then go on stage with that need awakened in me, and hopefully the scene would work- meaning, it would be real. By these standards, a scene works and is real when the need in the actor is as real as the need in the character. It is one of the main tools of Method Acting, used for decades upon decades in the training of actors. The reason this works is because the brain can not differentiate between the experience and the memory of the experience. I studied at The Actors Studio, where Method Acting got its name, so even if I don't always use it, the technique lives in my body. If your heart is open, it only takes about three seconds for a memory to burst out and take over your whole being. Here are some memorable experiences in my life that I often re-create with the use of sense memory, or that have been enhanced because of my training in sense memory.

Smell:

I walk past a store that is being thoroughly cleaned, and there is a strong smell of chlorine. Immediately, I am transported back to my eleven years as a swimmer. The specificity is such that I can feel my wet bathing suit on my body and the blue slippery tiles beneath my feet. The smell of chlorine in my hair during those years was practically permanent, and my skin was always really dry. Competing was always agonizing for me. I only won a gold medal once. And the day I did, I remember feeling outside my body, like someone else was moving through me, because I couldn't possibly have been going so fast. I breathed only once, and when I got out of the pool I was shaking. I heard my name in the loudspeaker, "Larissa Dzegar- Gold Medal!" and I heard my whole family scream from the bleachers. They put me on those steps- it was the first time I ever stood on the tallest step in the middle, and I had to bend down so they could put the medal around my neck. When they were done recognizing us, I got off the step, knelt by the pool, dipped my medal in the water, and kissed the floor, inhaling a big strong whiff of chlorine and whispering, "Whoever you are, God, I know you exist."

Sight:

I'm walking around and someone walks past me who looks just like Him. The one who took my heart before I knew how to protect it. The one I don't think about anymore and don't look up on facebook for fear of his status saying, "Married". The one who taught me about love and then taught me even more about heartbreak. The one by which all others are compared. Him. I do a double-take, realize it's not him, but I am paralyzed on the sidewalk with grumpy new yorkers telling me to "move out of the fucking way", and all I can hear are my thoughts- the ones I didn't think I'd have anymore- Where did you go, my darling boy? Where did life take you? Where did that time of innocence and sweet love go? Do those teenagers kissing under the stars still exist in us? Did your heart grow colder, like mine, or are you still the boy who told me he was falling in love with me every day? How many other women have you loved? Am I, too, the one by which all others are compared? Does my memory creep up on you too, and take you back to a time when all we knew was the purity of our young love? When we thought we could be together forever? Does your heart still break a little, like mine, when the memory of me creeps up on you? Does that boy still belong to me, like he told me he would, no matter where life took us?

Eventually, the thoughts stop, I do move, and somehow my body just knows to walk to the ATM and get money because I'm going to need two things immediately: something fattening, and something overpriced.

Sound:

It's someone's birthday and I'm at a dance party. It's hot and sweaty and fun. And then someone decides it'll be funny to put on really cheesy 90's music. Lo and behold, "Everybody" by The Backstreet Boys goes on. Flashback to 7th grade. My friend Duna calls me one night and says, "Hey, I'm doing a dance for the Talent Show with Manu and Steph and Tiff. Wanna join us?" I say yes. I don't really know Manu or Tiff that well, and I'm not even that close to Duna, but I love the spotlight, and being in a talent show is exactly the kind of thing I am known to sign up for. Plus, I don't have that many friends. This could be good for my social life. We rehearse over a hundred hours. We buy matching outfits. We diet. We want to be hot for the show. We contemplate being bulimic for a while. We discard that idea. The day of the show comes. We are nervous as hell. This could be awesome, or it could be the end of our social lives. We go up with our kick-ass dance for "Everybody", and it's the most fun I've ever had in my life. Not only does the audience love us (and hey- a middle school audience is not easy to win over) but the five of us become best friends, referring to ourselves as the "BSG's" and creating a bond that helps all of us survive those brutal years of adolescence.

Taste:

It's my first semester in college and I am not so happy. Sometimes, I'm downright depressed. I'm 18 and an ocean away from my home. It's cold. I have to write papers on things I don't really understand. I am struggling to get cast in plays. I do not have a boyfriend and there are hardly any boys at Sarah Lawrence. The only boy I kind of liked is now dating my suite-mate, who is blonde and really skinny, which just makes me feel like shit. I smoke pot occasionally and it just makes things worse. I keep a bottle of tequila next to my bed. Things are just. not. good. But I have a friend. A dear, sweet, lovely friend. Maria. And she notices that something is not well with me. And one day (actually, she does it many times, but I remember the first time especially), she brings me chocolate milk. It's my favorite thing in the world. And when someone brings it to me, I am reminded of my mother, picking my brother and I up from school, bringing us a snack of chocolate milk and "bisnaguinhas". I feel loved and cared for. I feel less alone. The taste is so comforting, I drink the whole thing in one gulp. I hug my Maria. She becomes my friend for life, and the taste of chocolate milk makes itself my go-to comfort beverage forever.

Touch:

My paternal Grandmother, also called Maria, or Baba to me, died when I was 7. She was my idol and the most beautiful woman in the world. She let me put make-up on her and would always tell me I made her look more beautiful, even when I had just put lipstick on her eyebrows. She called me "Larinshka". I am named Larissa, in fact, because that was supposed to be her name, but her mother had such a difficult birth that she prayed to the virgin Mary for her child to be okay- and when my grandmother came out okay, she was named Maria in a gesture of gratitude. I loved her so dearly, and was always so sad that I got to spend such little time with her. When I graduate from college, my aunt flies in from L.A. and celebrates the occasion with me. She gives me a box. I open it carefully- it looks precious- and in it is one of Baba's most beautiful rings, containing her birth stone. I put it on my ring finger. It fits perfectly. I stare at my hand. It looks just like her hand. Long bony fingers, big fingernails, small wrists. The hand that held my own little one so many times to cross the street and go buy popsicles without my mother knowing. She is still with me, and I can feel her touch every time I wear the ring.

Auditioning: The Other Side

I am producing a play right now, and got to experience auditions from the other side of the table.

Golly Moses.

It was quite different, to say the least, and I learned so much about auditioning, starting from the very moment one submits their headshot/resume, that I felt I had to write about it here, for the sake of other actors who may benefit from my brief experience.

First of all, I was really excited about holding my own auditions. It was my chance to create an experience that was humane and beneficial for the actresses and made them feel valued for their time, talent, and work. The ways to do that, I felt, were to:

a) send them the material they would be auditioning for in advance, giving them a chance to prepare it, and not make them do monologues or read something without knowing its context.

b) have a nice monitor that greets each actress and offers them a bottle of water.

c) stand up and shake their hands when they come into the audition room.

d) have the sides on colorful paper, and the audition form on nice cover paper, so that everyone sees that effort was put into this audition, and that it's a fun environment.

e) be present with each actress as she is auditioning, making eye contact and listening, rather than reading their resume's while they're performing or looking away if they look at me.

I think we succeeded in making the auditions a respectful and valuable experience for everyone, but I have to say our efforts were not always met with the same respect and value. Here are some things I learned about auditioning:

1. When submitting, always write a personal cover letter. Just like we, actors, don't like feeling like a picture in a pile, casting directors don't like feeling like an address in a mass email.

2. If you're a white girl in your 20's, you can count on competing with at least 100 other girls who look just like you. Your headshot better be amazing, your credits have to be awesome, and your cover letter has to be unique.

3. If you've been personally invited to audition, the very least you can do is reply!

4. Never be late. Seems like a given, but even late by just one minute can determine whether you'll get cast.

5. Never cancel an audition. You just wasted everyone's time, and someone else's opportunity to audition. If you're not 100% sure you can make the audition and be part of a show, don't even submit. It's just disrespectful.

6. If you're given sides ahead of time, you should be prepared. I understand now what is meant when they say "Make strong choices." It means know where you're coming from and what you want and who every person you refer to is. Basic acting stuff, actually, but about half the actors don't do it. The ones who get cast are the ones who prepare for an audition as though it were a performance- not that they have to be memorized, but they know what they're showing.

7. If you don't know what a word is, look it up before the audition.

8. If there are other noises or distractions in the space, acknowledge them, don't get distracted or ignore them.

9. Take your time. Don't abruptly start, take a breath.

10. Ask if you can look at someone if that's what you want to do.

11. It's totally okay to ask questions or to say you're not comfortable doing something.

12. Use the space if you want to.

13. For all the time I spend thinking about what to wear to an audition, it really doesn't matter. The only things that matter are if you're dressed up like a prostitute when you're auditioning for a biblical character, or if you're wearing something tight around your neck.

14. Be excited to be auditioning, or don't audition at all.

15. Say thank you before leaving the room, it just shows that you're a nice person. And believe it or not, there aren't that many nice people out there!

So those are my two cents on auditioning, for what it's worth- which for me, was worth a lot. =)

A Difficult Year

There should be a hand-book, complete with how-to dvd's and survival techniques, for a creative artist's first year out of school. There should also be support groups, massage therapists, and retreats, all free and unlimited, available throughout that first year.

Here is my story of my first year out of school, I share it in hopes that it may help others, and attract positive changes for me as well.

I'd been in school since the age of two, never taking a single year off, going straight from high-school to college, then from college to grad school. The idea was that I'd have acquired a Master's Degree by the age of 24 so that I could go off and be a movie-star and best-selling author by, say, age 29.

And so, a year ago, there I was, 23 years old, holding my M.F.A., excited as hell about the life that lay ahead of me. I was trained to the core and ready to go out and work. I could finally audition for everything, without worrying about it conflicting with my school schedule. I could be in plays and start working my way into the world of television and film. I could write. I could read books that were not school-related. I could spend two months in Italy if I wanted to. I could maybe get a touring show and travel around the United States doing theatre. I could do anything! The world was full of possibilities, and I was young enough and educated enough to take advantage of all of them.

I thought my first year out of school would be really empowering, glamorous, and freeing.

But, in reality, this past year has been really difficult, depressing, unexciting, and depriving. I did audition for everything, and it turned out to be a horrible experience almost every time- I haven't been to a single pleasant audition all year! I did one play, which was free and performed outdoors (not such a great idea in New York's humid summers). I did four student films, none of which I was particularly fulfilled by, and was an extra in Oliver Stone's next film (if you think that sounds glamorous, think again. Extras are like bus-boys: necessary but unappreciated, underpaid and unhappy). I tried to be in a showcase, and it got canceled. I tried to put together a film group with some friends, and it fell apart. I tried to put up a play on my own, but then I couldn't get the rights. I submitted myself to 100 agencies, and didn't get a single call. Since I wanted to spend the year focusing on my career, I didn't take on a regular job, which means I had no salary, which made things like traveling to Europe impossible.

Without structure of any kind, my days blended into each other, and I started sleeping until noon, eating irregularly, and spending a lot of time alone in my apartment. My enthusiasm for acting started to seep out of me, and soon I found myself in a heavy cloud of sadness and defeat. The shock of going from acting, learning, and being around actors every day to the exact opposite started to settle in- and it was ugly.

By the way, that whole "you'll stay in touch with who really matters after school" thing is a lie. It's very easy to lose touch with everyone, even the people you care for, when you're not seeing them every day, and when everyone is depressed and struggling. After the first few months went by, I was only seeing my best friends maybe once every two or three weeks.

I went home to Brazil around christmas time, since I hadn't been home in a year and had to get out of New York, away from my life, before I did anything stupid or got any fatter. I was actually so depressed in New York I thought I might move back to Brazil permanently, but after two months there I realized my life was in New York and I had to get back to it. I did get better while I was away though, I got to rest, I took an acting workshop that brought me back to life, I lost some weight, ate healthy food, traveled with my mom, and, in an effort to awaken a long-sleeping closeted writer, started this blog. I returned to New York with a lot of new, restored energy. I was ready to start auditioning again and keep on trying to be an actress.

But the story repeated itself.

And now, over the past month especially, I have felt the wave of depression wear over me. It's been stronger this time, strong enough to make me really consider giving up on acting, as some previous blog posts may have given away.

I'm so scared of that thought though, that I have been trying everything I can think of to overcome it. I started the workbook "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, which is a great resource for struggling artists. I took a film-making for actors workshop and made my own little film, which really reconnected me to my deep, undying, beautiful love for acting. I started writing a play I'd been thinking about, and asked a friend to help me so that I would really do it, not just think about it. And I write here as often as inspiration hits me. I keep submitting myself for things, auditioning, hearing no's, or not hearing anything at all, and auditioning some more. I've also started looking for a paying job that might have something to do with writing. The truth is, I don't want to give up on acting, I'm just really tired of this business and scared of how it's deadening my soul- part of me thinks that maybe if I leave it now, at least I'll still preserve the part of me that still loves acting. The last thing I want is to become jaded, angry, and bitter about acting.

It's been a really hard year, and I think that anyone about to embark on their first year out of school should know just how hard it is. Maybe if I had known then I would've prepared myself a little. Painted a wall in my apartment bright pink to fight depression away. Made a schedule for myself that gave me some structure, every day, and involved physical exercise and some joy in it. Created realistic goals that I could actually achieve this year- maybe just get a call-back, instead of getting the part, or put up a reading of a play, instead of the whole play. Plan a day-trip to the beach instead of a long month-long trip to Europe.

I don't know if the year to come will be any easier, but I am hoping it will be different. Maybe I'll be a little more prepared now for the hard times. I did buy some bright colored shirts to break my all-black wardrobe, got a plant, and planned to do yoga regularly. And I've written a prayer, which I'll share here since this is one place where I connect with the world through creativity, and maybe someone else can use this prayer as well.

Dear Universe,

I ask for guidance and help with my career as an actress and writer.

May opportunities come my way, and may they feed my creative soul as well as further my career.

May I see the light and beauty in the harder times, and may I find truth in the moments of doubt.

I pray for strength, perseverance, opportunity, and joy.

I am grateful for my gifts, and I pray that I may express them to their full potential.

With love,

Larissa Dzegar

Dreams

I ran into someone from college today, a fellow actress, at an audition, and was stunned into sadness. This young woman, who had once been full of life and excitement about her prospective acting career, sat before me today looking like a zombie- jaded, angry, and unhappy. It's been four years since we graduated from college, she reminded me, and clearly she wasn't where she'd thought she would be by now. I see so many actors like her, who once had dreams and passions, but who have been beaten down by the industry, who are borderline crazy because of how limited they feel. She was still physically alive, of course. Her heart is still beating and all. But her dreams, what made her a beautiful human being, were almost gone. She was sitting at that audition for an unpaid part in a short film because after a while, after a lifetime of this, you just don't know what else to do.

As I looked at her picking the decoration off her phone as she waited her turn, I started thinking, since this business kills them, can we have a graveyard for our dreams? Every time we are treated like cattle, can we have an address, a physical place, where we can mourn them? Along with objectifying us and then coldly rejecting us, can we get the certainty, in the form of a legal document, that our dreams are dead now?

I have always known acting is a lonely battle against a soul-devouring business that seeks to profit from my dreams. I just always thought my passion was stronger than anything and anyone, and my need to do this would outweigh the disappointments. And it can be that way, but it requires a lot of work. Work that doesn't feel like work and that has no value to the outside world- such as decompressing after an audition by going for a walk, or writing about it, or crying about it, or listening to lots of good songs on your ipod, or eating some sweet potato fries, or all of the above, until you can get it all out of your system. It's a full-time job, staying strong enough to handle this business. I have to make time, every day, to nurture my creativity in some way. I have to force myself to have positive thoughts about myself as an actress. I have to protect myself from the often desperate energy at audition waiting rooms, and then from the often dismissive energy at the auditions themselves. I have to eat right and exercise, keep my body and mind working together so that they know I want them to be healthy for me. I have to keep my heart open and willing. I have to love deeply and daily. I have to create my own projects since the ones I audition for are rarely compatible with my interests as an artist. I have to look like the best version of myself, every day. And on top of all that, I have to find a way to support myself financially and emotionally while not being able to devote myself to a full-time day job and usually not being able to afford myself the time to fully prepare for or fully recover from the day-to-day life in this business.

It's a lot of what I call "invisible work". It's the work I have to do in order to still be a sensitive vessel for creativity and inspiration, and it's what I have to do to stay sane and not end up like the young woman I ran into today.

There are days when I wake up and I'm all about it, I'm ready to keep going, I'm in love with my life, I can't wait to start another day of submitting-auditioning-creating-preparing-nurturing-hoping-wanting-waiting-wishing-loving-needing. Then there are days when I don't want to get out of bed. When I consider going on craigslist and trying to find a regular 9-5 job that numbs my mind. That way, at least I'd be the one burying my dreams, rather than the industry.

And, to be honest, I do give in to the latter days every once in a while. I stay in bed till noon and when I do get up, it's just to eat something, mope, and then go on craigslist and look for a job as a secretary.

Luckily though, my heart will usually end up screaming, Don't give up yet, you can't. Don't go be someone's secretary. You have a masters degree. You're capable of doing what you dream of. Let's go!

It's a battle, really. It takes courage to stay in it, and it takes courage to get out of it. It's not easy to bury a dream, and it's not easy to keep it alive either.

I read something the other day that inspired me, and I've been trying to remember it on days like today. It went something like, "If you have a gift, it means you were chosen, and you are best living by expressing your gift."

I liked it. It made me feel like I actually have an obligation to keep trying and working, living and dreaming, because I didn't choose this, it chose me. Sometimes it's hard to be grateful about that, but I have to remember that that's what dreams are: precious gifts for me to unwrap daily, with love and care.

So then I start thinking, Never mind. I don't want a graveyard for my dreams. I'll hold on to them a little longer. Thank you, Universe.

And my dreams smile, relieved that they get to live a little longer.

Are you still dreaming?

Rejection

Since I blogged about the traumatizing inhumane qualities of auditioning in my last post, I thought I'd blog about the outcome of that very audition.

I received a letter today, and my dad knew I was expecting it, so he called me when he saw that it had arrived. I was at a film shoot in brooklyn, and luckily got to go home shortly after he called me so I could open the letter without too many hours of anticipation.

In the 45-minute train-ride home I swear I aged some fifteen years. I comforted myself by noticing the details around me. One man looking over another man's shoulder to read his paper. A girl with a bright blue dress that made her skin seem so fair. A man with a black suit and a red tie, looking rather tired from his day yet refusing to take a seat. A woman with a long black skirt and cotton shoes that seemed too big for her feet. The details went by me, one by one, and finally, I was home.

My parents had gone out, so I was home alone. I held the letter in my hand for a while. I sat on the edge of my couch, near my cactus. The room looked pretty, with the sunlight coming in softly and all. I started feeling like I was about to experience something good, something wonderful, something magical.

I thought I had gotten it. I really did. I felt it in my gut. And my gut always feels so right.

But this time it was wrong.

The cold short distant letter started with, thank you but...

Do you know how exquisitely horrible it is to open a letter that rejects you from something you worked so hard for, for something that in some way defines your sense of worth?

It felt like getting punched so hard in the stomach that the blow actually broke my spine and the hand that threw the punch never got removed. I still feel that heavy hand in my insides, crushing my organs, holding on to my breath, smothering my dreams. If the experience of wanting something and having to go through a sort of animal parade to try and get it is bad- I'm referring to auditioning here- then the experience of not getting it after going though that is beyond any realistic description of awful.

I went for a walk. I needed to be alone but surrounded by people. I walked for a little while, then stopped at Barnes & Noble's when it started raining. I started texting and calling my friends. It was a cryfest. I spilled coffee all over my dress at one point, and found myself crying in the bathroom of Barnes & Noble's while throwing water on myself and getting soaked.

I felt pathetic, stupid, and worthless.

When I got home my parents were waiting for me. I had told them. I fell on my mother's lap and cried.

And then, slowly, I started breathing again. I ate something. I started putting things in perspective. Started telling myself the things we have to tell ourselves in order to survive these things, Everything happens for a reason. I'm better off. I didn't want it that bad. This doesn't mean as much as I'm making it mean. I'm not a worthless piece of shit. I can still act. It's ok. I'm gonna be ok.

These affirmations went on all day, amidst sobs and cries. They may have to go on for a few days, weeks, months. I will detach myself from the experience with time, look at it from a distance. And it won't seem so bad, perhaps.

But the experience of this rejection will always live within me, little as it may get. The words on that letter are inside me now, and though they may come to mean different things, I'll always remember what they meant and did to me today.

They took a little piece of me with them, and I can't get it back anymore. It may be one of the saddest things I've ever known.

Trapped Tears

I was 7 and I fell and hurt my knee. I wailed in pain as tears streamed down my face and I sobbed wildly. It was simple then: I got hurt, I was in pain, I cried. Not just "cried" with my eyes, but with my whole body. I sobbed hard, gasping for air, letting out whatever screams my body developed in response to the pain. It was a complete release of what I was feeling at that moment. There was no self-consciousness, there was no censorship, there was no control.

Then the woman who was taking care of me got down on her knees, took my face into her hands, and said, "Don't cry darling. A lady never cries."

Those words quickly and imperceptibly traveled from her lips and into my face, freezing themselves onto my cheeks, where they would cozily create an army base called Fort Larissa Shall Not Cry.

Our bodies are smart. They figure out what they have to do to survive and they remember it forever. On that day, when my 7-year-old self's ladyhood was threatened, my body was quick to help me: it froze my face so that no tears would cross it, no matter what.

Here's the thing, though, about our bodies deciding something for us when we're 7 years old: we're bound to forget the decision was ever made. It's possible I would not have been bothered by that, if I weren't an actress. But I am, and I found out that sometimes characters have to cry. So I soon realized that it was practically impossible for me to shed a single tear in front of other people, even if I was completely emotionally connected to a character's reality. And I really thought I would never be able to change that. I didn't know why that was the case- I figured maybe it was because I should only play "strong" women who never cry.

That could have worked for the rest of my life, if I were the kind of actor who only wants to play one kind of character. As you may have guessed, that was not the case. I went through high school and college trying out all sorts of tricks, reading all kinds of books, studying with many teachers. But to no avail. I couldn't cry. One day, shortly after graduating from college, in a moment of despair, thinking I would never be a great actress, I wrote a prayer, "Please, to the Powers That Be, I ask that you help me open up as an actor and be able to express every emotion necessary with truth and honesty."

A month later I was accepted to The Actor's Studio M.F.A program, and I went. I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the answer to my prayer. It was actually a simple phrase that did it. After one of the basic exercises in sense memory, I was frustrated with my inability to let go and be fully affected by the exercise, and my genius teacher said, "Your problems in life are your problems in acting. Your habits in life are your habits on stage. Your blocks as a person are your blocks as an actor."

Immediately I was transported back to that day, 14 years earlier, when my body made a decision that would become so permanent I would assume I had no choice over it whatsoever. As though the Fort Larissa Shall Not Cry residing in my cheeks had been made of solid ice, my teacher's words became the hot air that melted it, and I was free.

It was not an immediate process. I was able to let out a few tears, but there were simply too many years of repressed sobs for me to be able to suddenly let it all go. I would find myself, weeks later, lying in bed at night and suddenly sobbing, loudly, like a child, for no particular reason. I knew something had really shifted when I watched the movie, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and cried hysterically in front of friends who had never seen me cry before. At the same time that I was crying, and they were asking me over and over again what was wrong, I was laughing. I was so incredibly happy, I felt so relieved! I was crying, really really crying, with abundant tears and crazy child-like noises, in front of my friends!

As my teacher predicted, as soon as I started letting go of my armor in life, I was able to open up on stage, and my prayer was answered. Bringing that day when I, at 7, learned that a lady never cries, to consciousness, gave me a choice over it. I told another teacher of mine about it and she said, "well, ladies can't be actresses, so you better give that up anyway." And I did. I cried. I cried in front of people- and not gracefully. I was no lady.

I still have to soften my face and give myself permission to cry, every day, and certainly every time before I act. It's funny because people who have only known me within the past four years think I'm a cry-baby; they think I have absolutely no problem whatsoever accessing my vulnerability and releasing emotions. I'd go so far as to say I'm known for my ability to cry. I was even recommended recently for a part that demanded a lot of crying, under the premises that "Oh, Larissa can totally cry on cue." I have to say it's still hard for me to believe that something that was nearly impossible for me for 14 years is now only a breath away, but it is, and I am forever grateful.

As I have said in a previous post, I aim to be an open vessel for every character I play to live through me. It is a gift, not only to me but to every character I play, to have this block removed from my face, history, and heart. In life, too, I find the moments when it's appropriate to sob, scream, thrash, gasp for air, and cry ferociously, uncontrollably- like a 7-year-old who has never been told a lady never cries.

It's delicious, it's precious, it's choice, and it's freedom.

Faith

I am sick with an ugly cold, which usually means I need to slow down and re-assess my life, but since I've been on vacation for two months, doing nothing but slowing down and re-assessing my life, I'm restless and not at all in the mood to stay in bed and think. And so, against my will, I found myself in bed this morning, shivering, having the following sequence of thoughts, "I feel like shit. Oh God, please let me feel better. Did I just talk to God? Yes, I did. How dare I turn to God now, when I need Him. Did I just call God a Him? With a capital H no less? Who am I? I need to figure out what I believe in. Do I? Yes, I do, so that I don't feel guilty. Uhg, guilt is such a Catholic thing to feel. Well, Larissa, you were raised Catholic- sort of. Once a Catholic always a Catholic, right? No, I don't think so. I don't support religion, really. And yet- here I am, talking to God. Choosing my words carefully, in fact, so as to not piss Him off. There, I did it again, I called God a Him. Well what's wrong with that? Could the feminist in me just shut up for two seconds so I can figure out what I believe in? Actually, Brain, can you just stop thinking so I can sleep and God can do God's thing and I can feel better when I wake up?"

Needless to say, I didn't stop thinking. I started tracing my history with religion and faith, which, of course, starts with my parents.

My mother is Catholic, but I wouldn't say she's an extremist on any grounds. She baptized us and I had a First Communion and I read the Bible (sort of) and she wore her saints around her neck, but she never really forced her children to be Catholic. She took us to church, but when we didn't want to go, she didn't make us, which I think is rather remarkable. I didn't have a bad experience with Catholicism, I mostly just found it boring. And I was never going to memorize all the I Shall and I Shall Not's in order to live my life as a good Catholic, so I pretty much gave up on that at around the age of 10.

My father is not religious at all, but very spiritual. He had a metaphysical magazine for 8 years called Amaluz, meaning Love Light, which was the Brazilian version of the Sedona Journal. He once published some poems of mine in his magazine when I was 13, which was a beautiful gesture and surely influenced my sense of my worth as a writer, as well as poking at my curiosity as to what it was he believed in. Behind his office he has a meditation room, filled with his pyramids and crystals and books on quantum physics. He never once mentioned God to me, but he taught me about meditation. And meditation, for me, brings up an energy that is far beyond my physical self, an energy that connects me to what I call my "soul" and to what I call a "Higher Being".

And then there's the main reason I know there's "something" beyond my human existence: Acting. I felt it the first time I stepped on stage, at the age of ten, to impersonate Nathanial Greene in our Social Studies class. The very shy child that I was known to be transformed instantly and completely into the Revolutionary War General and awed my classmates and teachers. I remember stepping off the stage feeling the most alive I had ever felt, thinking, "Was that me up there?", a question I would continue to ask after every time I performed for years to come.

And the answer I have now (I am aware it will probably change, since I'm still in the beginning of my journey, relatively speaking), is that No, it's not exactly me up there. I am a vessel for a force much higher than myself to express itself. My job is to keep my heart, body, mind, and soul open for this force to shine through me and tell the stories it needs to tell. As a teacher I had in grad school used to say, As an actor we open up our hearts so the people in the audience, in the safety of their dark seats, might open theirs as well. People will go to the theatre or to a movie before they go to therapy, and so in a way, actors are humanity's healers, offering them a glimpse into their own wounds as well as an opportunity to mend them. This explains as well why when I feel like I have failed I take the blame upon myself, whereas when I succeed I attribute it to a higher force. If I "fail"- a term that is difficult to use, since I am not quite sure if it is in fact failure- I believe it is because something in me is closed, and so I have failed at being a vessel for creative expression. When I am open and out of my own way, it all "just happens", my performance "flows". And it is in those moments that a Higher Being, that God, that the Creative Forces of the Universe, are real to me. It is in the space between technique and talent that this untouchable energy exists and I find my faith. I call it, simply, "It", since I cannot find a word that truly encompasses everything "It" means to me. What I know is that I have to have faith in It, nurture It, speak to It, and pray to It, in order to succeed as an performer. My heart won't open if I ignore It, and what I do is simply too important to me- I dare say it's vital for my existence- for me to dishonor It in any way.

Acting is sacred to me, I have rituals and prayers and charms for it, and I really believe it is my mission in this life to be an actor. I don't even like to say I have a "talent", I much rather call it a "gift". I was given this body, this heart, this mind, this soul, this life, so that I can tell the stories and bring to life the characters that humanity needs me to.

So, my faith seems quite clear to me in regards to acting, but it's still rather hazy in daily life. I hesitate to speak directly to God because I attach the deity to religions I do not identify with. And I do not want to attach a gender to my Supreme Being, and God most certainly feels masculine to me. I often end up speaking to The Powers That Be, which also sounds religious, but feels more accurate than God, especially since I do not feel this Energy to be singular.

I think that's how it's supposed to be though. Dictionary.com defines Faith as "Belief that is not based on proof". And so I conclude that part of faith is doubt, and not knowing quite how to define it doesn't mean it's absent from my life. Plus, it's probably healthier to accept the ambiguity of it than to attach myself to certain definitions and thereby limit something that feels so immeasurable. I shall rest my mind now, and let equivocal faith bring its teachings and treasures into my life as it so wishes.