Different Ways #29, Chapter 7, The Academy Award
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...
As You Like It, Wm. Shakespeare
In high school, I went into the theater arts primarily to be an actress - to be someone else as much as possible and to receive attention. I got both. The part of me that danced was the real me because there was no Spanish inquisition or interaction with others around that. I danced solo, mostly. I hit a sweet spot in doing theater but it was a steep and slippery slope with my sexuality and my relationships.
The weight of my past and how I had reacted to it was catching up with me as my hormones aligned. My body responded and took to a dysfunction of involuntary weeping. It was like my body, though I did not know it then, was carrying an abundance of shame that the seed of trauma planted in me as being bad and unworthy in some fundamental way. I couldn't reconcile that with the enthusiasm of being creative that I was experiencing. I was also being offered support and approval which could not be mine under the those circumstances either. Every time I would feel the excitement of being creatively engaged in something and, as it aimed for my self confidence, it would deflect to a deep sense of unworthiness. This manifested, in my case, as uncontrollable weeping. I ignored the tears but the school could not and I was suspended and lost all of my classes and theater projects. I was sent home to sit in my room, which I did.
I would take on many of roles for the rest of my life with various degrees of credence. I ended up an actress anyway...playing many parts, all designed for someone else in an attempt to run away from the part of myself that insisted that being anyone else would be better than being me.
Different Ways, Chapter 7, The Academy Award, pp. 59-63.
We know a lot more now about the side effects of childhood trauma. This was not a part of the lexicon of that time, however. Many violations to children and to women were actually common place and passively accepted. I didn't receive much help through psychology then but I made an important connection I would use later when the world and I would be better equipped for me to face my particular variety of problems. I'm here to tell you this now, that with all of the awful things that are blowing up into our faces these days, things are actually better now than they were in the sixties for realizing the kinds of healing that needs to happen around these and many other issues of human suffering. We can see now what we couldn't see at that time and we have ways of healing we did not have access to then.
Music: I listened a lot to Franz Ferdinand when I was writing the memoir so I'm inclined to reflect on these writings with these songs playing in the background in my mind. As stated by Shakespeare, it is said again here where it spoke to my modern situation.
Show me the body These pictures will shock you Love is the drag We don’t need any more We don’t need to score Show me the body 404 – gateway not found my wife is such a fan Show me the body now
We’re starring in the movies of our lives
And the Academy Award For Good Times goes to… you
There’s a camera held in every hand The clamor of applause in every mind But the Academy Award For Good Times goes to you
Show me the body Hikikomori Through liquid crystal We look at the world From our parents’ homes Show me the body The secret of longevity Is to stay away from men Show me the body now
We’re starring in the movies of our lives
And the Academy Award For Good Times goes to you…
Show me the body You never realize How much eight pints are Until you see them on the ground They cover so much ground Laptop-Predator Hunter-Gatherer Once-rare commodity Now easily found Salt sugar and fat There’s heavy traffic Show me the body now
We’re starring in the movies of our lives
And the Academy Award For Good Times goes to you...
Thank you for joining me here. The memoir Different Ways: Revealing the Feminine can be purchased through my website using a link to Village Books at AlltheDifferentWays.com. There will soon be an eBook version available with an independent retailer. The e-book on Amazon is a bit of a mess but free if you are a Kindle member.
The BlogCast that outlines my intentions for this series of readings from my book, Different Ways, Revealing the Feminine can be found here in the post, Between the Lines.