just be funny

One morning, in a bright classroom filled with last summer’s sun, I and my classmates were told to be seeds. Ronlin meandering between our still bodies calling out our frustratingly vague instructions, “You are a seed, blooming into a flower. Feel your breath as you open toward the sun light. Feel your petals opening and your stem stretching. Now you are closing back into your seed. Feel your exhalation as you fold into yourself.” We all obeyed without hesitation, telling ourselves internally how much of a seed we were. “Don’t act like a seed, BE a seed!” he yelled. I remember trying so hard to be a seed, so focused on not focusing, so intent to be authentic like I was told. I was never a seed that day, and now, with that in mind, I begin to panic.

The work of Dell’Arte, that place I devoted one excruciating year to, is all about authenticity. That in its simplicity. And this summer I will be embarking on a nation-wide tour — my first big break. So as I sat remembering that morning’s task and how I failed, I grew more and more scared. Scared that I’m not good enough, not creative enough; scared I don’t have the right stuff to make it in the big city. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not made for this? What if I’m just not authentic?

My greatest worry is that I will not succeed in some more broad sense, that I do not already contain within me nor can I hope to eventually come to a place where I can authentically express to others what I want to express.

However, I think that my re-visitation of the seed exercise shows precisely that I am seeking to be authentic, and that I will find a way to grow into that authentic self of mine, and to ultimately be able to express whatever I choose to whomever I choose. The exercise was about authenticity, and that in a way, we all ‘failed’ to become the seeds we were trying so desperately to become. But this is a different kind of success, a different kind of journey, more along the lines of the ‘via negativa’ principle that the school was also partially based on. ‘Is this it?’ ‘No, that’s not it.’ ‘Is this it?’ ‘No, that’s not it.’ And in this manner, all dross and preconceptions and misconceptions can be stripped away to reveal a pulsing, sensate being, capable of great empathy. We didn’t become seeds that day, but we grew from the experience of becoming not-seeds.

I am not a finite sculpture to be judged. Me, Amelia, if I am willing to accept it and move forward from it, am more a block of brilliant marble, cut from the same quarry as we all are, waiting to be chiseled down. I could probably ramble on about this metaphor for a while. But what I’m trying to illustrate, is that I think I see myself as inherently something that will fall short of others’ expectations, and thus my own. What the seed teaches, and what Dell’Arte taught me, after I let it, is that the journey will take me as far as I follow it; that authenticity is not innate, but a process of stripping away what barricades us; that I am my own sculptor and sculpture, I chip into my own porous matter to find what shape is revealed there. Sometimes others will come and tell me how to hold the tools. Sometimes others will come and suggest something else that could be found within me, and I can then reveal it. But this journey I am about to fall deeper into is not something that I can ‘fail’. If I embody every moment of my work, if I continue to constantly question myself and find ways to answer, I will become more authentic, and I will learn my own sense of ‘success’. I will realize what my shape is capable of, and I will hopefully then do what it is the calling of all artists to do, which is share this discovery with others and guide them in their own quest to examine their lives and become genuine and joyful.

The short answer is that, it’s all about the journey, and I have to learn to accept it. I can’t worry about not ‘getting it’, can’t worry about the shape of the others surrounding me, can’t worry about impressing upon people my worth or my talent. While much of ‘show business’ is about these things, the core of Dell’Arte is not, and true artistic work is certainly not. The core is about shaping people through journeying, not imparting a specific mold to them.

This is the most terrifying work: to be constantly with myself, as I am confused, as I am scared, as I feel less than my capability, less than my peers, as I question my worth to my work and the world at large. This is not failure, this is the success, that I am becoming and will become more capable, every day, of finding answers to these questions and beginning to ask even deeper ones, that I will discover things about myself that are true that I never understood, and learn to let go parts of myself that are no longer relevant, no matter how comfortable I am with them. I am enough. And more importantly than telling myself this, I have to discover it for myself, because I am seeking, and I will not give up, even if I question if I will.