Over the past four weeks, I have survived the grueling demands of six consecutive auditions for full-time drama schools. Huzzah!
I thought I would summarise what I’ve learnt from these rigorous months.
1) On the matter of ‘hear say’: A lot of fellow actors-in-training would recount anecdotes of terrifying, draining, horrible experiences during their auditions.
I have learnt to pay as little heed as possible to these anecdotes, because at the end of the day, you will have YOUR experience of the audition and what YOU make of it.
2) Fall in love with the process, rather than becoming obsessed with the outcome
I have been preparing for these auditions more intensively since late July 2010. This means that I have been working on the same 5 monologues for approximately 5 months.
It began with Shakespeare classes with Lyn Pierse at Actors Center Australia on Tuesday and Thursday nights as well as with audition preparation classes with Michael Denkha all day on Saturdays.
Lyn’s tutelage was invaluable in getting me to deeply comprehend and ecstatically love Shakespeare’s works. She helped all of us to have fun with the language and to grasp the emotional core of a piece of text.
Working with Michael was like working with a completely new director, who gave a different opinion on the execution of the monologues.
For example, whilst playing Carol from Oleana by David Mamet, he stressed the importance of paying attention to the ‘music of the text’. He gave excruciating attention to the punctuation of a piece as this gives clues as to how the text can be delivered with maximum emotional impact (amongst other things), the way the writer intended it to be delivered.
Following the conclusion of these 12-week courses, I still had a month leading up to my first audition. And so, I continued to work on the monologues, touching on them 3-4 times a week, dedicating 2.5-3 hours for each session.
It became clear to me that a useful challenge to set myself was to practice the craft of keeping a constantly open and curious attitude to the already ‘familiar’ pieces.
I hired out affordable rehearsal spaces from Queen St Studios and met weekly with my fellow-actor-friend, Sam Herps.
Sam greatly assisted me to stay curious about the monologues. He would point out the beauty of certain words that I was taking for granted. For example, in Black Sequin Dress (Jenny Kemp), Woman 1 describes the ecstatic atmosphere of a nightclub by declaring: ‘I love, I love, I love love they think. Love me, me, me, me, all of me.’ He urged me to think about the significance of the word ‘love’, especially given that it features so often throughout the monologue. With his prompting, I separated out the different qualities that ‘love’ may embody: lust, infatuation, childish crushes and so on.
I cannot stress enough how helpful it was to have someone give me feedback as to the work I was doing. An outside eye is more able to pick up whether the pace of your performance is engaging or not, whether there is a clarity of the images behind your eyes as you visualize a person/object/place relevant to the monologue, whether you have effective comic timing, whether you are holding tension in any areas of your body and so on.
By keeping at the forefront of my mind, that every piece will continue to yield up treasures I had not seen previously, as long as I remained open and curious, the past grueling 5 months have been a wondrous journey of falling more and more deeply in love with the craft of acting.
3) On the day of the auditions:
I have Andrew Lloyd from Actors Center Australia in particular to thank for the following words of wisdom: Let go of ‘being good’. Every performance is different. Your only responsibility now is ‘to be in the moment’ and to communicate with the other actor.
This is possibly the most terrifying thing you can say to a perfectionist control-freak such as myself: Let go of all the work you’ve done and focus on being in the moment. This gives the impression that you really have no control over what happens next.
I discovered that it is important to distinguish between what you can focus on (different to ‘what you can control’) and what it is that you just have to let go of (mainly- how you perform the monologue on the day).
For every audition, I set myself a different goal to focus on.
12th November (NIDA): Let go. Be present. Let loose. Let the breath replace itself.
23rd November (VCA): Keep discovering. Stay curious. Honour my impulses. Thought by thought. Loose hips, pelvis, knees, jaw.
24th November (ACA): Do it with love.
25th November (VCA Recall): Let go. Really go with them, trust their direction. Do it with joy!
29th November (NIDA Recall): Where you are most uncomfortable about going is where you will learn the most!
1st December (ACA Recall): I think by this point I was too tired to write down a particular goal, but I do remember ‘letting go’ being at the forefront of my consciousness.
I experienced something beautiful during my VCA audition with regards to ‘being in the moment’.
I focused on my breath, felt the floor beneath my feet and noticed how I was holding weight or tension in my body. Then, suddenly it hit me.
There was nowhere else that I would rather be.
I thought about my family in Indonesia, whom I love dearly and no, no matter how much I missed them, Indonesia was not where I needed to be. I thought about my family in San Francisco, whom I have not seen for 5 years, about my loving partner who was at work at the time and neither of them pulled me so strongly that I felt torn between them and that room at Sydney Theater Company, working with the directors of VCA.
There was nowhere else I would rather be.
What a wholesome feeling.
Where? Here. When? Now.
4) Exult in the wondrous instrument that is your body
I cannot tell you enough times how grounding it was, within such a pressured environment, to return back to my breath, return down through my feet and into the ground.
Rowena Balos stresses the importance of the actor having a loose and released body in order to channel the moment-by-moment shifts that a fully-embodied character is constantly experiencing.
She highlights the need to give your body enough information whilst you are exploring a piece, so that when it comes to performing, your body does not become confused and you can trust in the remarkable intelligence of the mindful body.
To this end, trusting in my body completely, I found that I was time and time again aroused whilst working on the Black Sequin Dress. Woman 1 describes ‘women melting into their partner’s bodies, the men wrapped around them like blankets’; ‘bare bodies under not much’ and other such sexually alluring images.
Holy Toledo! Let me assure you, I engaged in vigorous masturbating sessions whilst working this piece. No way was my body getting confused about where Woman 1 was coming from- this is about primal sexual prowess, baby!
Having done the homework, so to speak, I found that I was able to really let go whilst performing Black Sequin Dress at ACA. I absolutely enjoyed the orgasm that Woman 1 experiences: ‘Ping! Bulls’ eye. Right to the hungry spot. Ping! And then, ah, ah. That was it.’ A fellow auditionee who was watching said that when I laughed at this point, it seemed so natural. I had not even realized that I was laughing. I was too busy cumming!
It is absolutely wondrous what a loose and released body can imbue your work with. During the month of auditions I committed to having a massage once a week and continued with my practice of swimming and morning yoga. I felt exulted in my body and the rewards that my body yielded up to me were more than fantastic!
5) Train your voice
6) Have a clear code of ethics
During my Social Work training, we were introduced to the Australian Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics. The document itself was too bland and too generalized to be of any real use to a practicing social worker.
Nonetheless, it helped me to start thinking about what ethical principles I want guiding my life. I think it necessary to have such a code to adhere to, whatever your chosen career path.
For myself, in my performing arts career, I commit to an ethic of generous compassion, not competitiveness.
Let’s cut the shit here. A part of me will always be competitive. To a large extent this has been a personality trait of mine since childhood and the competitive nature of the performing arts industry will ensure that this trait will continue to live on.
However, higher than competitiveness, I strive to uphold compassion. As Dean Carey said on the day of the ACA audition, ‘Competitiveness is destructive to creativity.’ If I can curb my competitiveness so that it stays to about a 10-15% portion of the propelling drive of my creative practice, I will be happy with this.
On the day of the auditions, I focused on really loving my fellow auditionees. I found this easier to do once I had already performed my monologue, but nonetheless, my intention was to really hold each one in my gaze, to give them my full attention and support.
In this way, I participated in how exciting it was when they had a moment of discovery, of released creative impulse whilst working with the audition panel. Their breakthrough was not a threat to my self-worth as an actor instead it was a shared exciting event!
7) On the matter of one’s ego- the need to be resilient.
I felt a sharp pain in my chest when my name was not called out 2/3 of the way through the NIDA recall. This meant that I did not even have the chance of being shortlisted for this year’s cohort.
Instead of going home to mope, or even worse, to beat myself up and ask the trillion questions I could have asked myself as to how I could have done things differently etc, I stayed out and met up with my ever-supportive partner and one of our good friends, who had similarly put herself on the line for NIDA and VCA.
Their company and conversation helped me to maintain perspective on what I had just missed out on, and also to remember the ample more opportunities that were still open to me.
When I got home, another blow was rained upon my confidence! I received a letter stating that I had not been offered a place in the early round of offers for VCA. Now this really stung. I had gotten all the way through into their shortlist. My feelings about getting in were abuzzed with excitement… and then this damned letter had arrived.
I cried a little. Raved a lot. Let myself feel the disappointment. Engaged in a little bit of denial by looking up rental properties in South Melbourne. Then wrote a sad email to my friends and family.
The stream of supportive emails that I received in response served as a timely reminder as to the loving community that I was a part of. I felt infinitely grateful. Most importantly, their messages of hope helped me to stay alive to the other possibilities of how I can grow as an artist.
My partner made the very good point that this was the start of growing skills in how to be resilient. This career path is rife with rejections and only the occasional ‘Yes’.
I used this experience to dust myself off and try again. And dust myself off I did! I had to! I had my ACA recall just two days later.
Every day is a new day. Stay alive to what this has to offer you.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Unseen Visions
I am sitting in the waiting room of the Day Surgery unit at Lions Eye Institute in Perth, Western Australia.
I am waiting for my father to come out from an operation for cataracts in his left eye.
It is the first time I have had to fill a caring role for one of my parents. My father had to abstain from food and water since 2am this morning. I was parched when I woke up, I didn’t want to dwell too much about how starved and thirsty he must be feeling, under the Western Australian sun, already so harsh at eight in the morning.
The nurse asks if I will be the one to care for him tonight. I say, ‘Yes’, without hesitating. This surprised me. Me? Care for him? He was the one paying for my dresses just last night! What do I know about caring for him?
Nonetheless, I say, ‘Yes.’
He puts on a gown and disappears into the care of strange withered white men with hands I hope are sturdier than they look.
As I wait, my eyes, thirty-six years younger than those of my father’s, glide along the room.
On the walls are framed paintings of E. Van Wilgenburg’s experience of Macular Degeneration, an eye condition that is the leading cause of blindness in Australia. I am wholly unfamiliar with it, but I gain an ironically visual sense of the condition, through the paintings on the wall.
There are ink washes of darkness, surrounded by a cooling aqua blue, reminiscent of monochromatic black holes that feature in my nightmares from time to time. In one painting, Wilgenburg has depicted fleeting bright lights not unlike the clearest pictures of young stars. In another painting, Wilgenburg drew a meticulous golden pond underneath a mottled maroon sky, a vision generated post-surgery. On another canvas, in place of darkness, we see aurora borealis, quickly replaced by mysterious dancing orbs.
It is of some consolation to me that here is one person who created some wondrous art through their experiences of becoming temporarily ‘blind’. Their paintings are a testament to the variety of visions that they encountered in ‘losing’ their eyesight.
Contrary to my belief that becoming blind plunges you into a world of darkness, the journey for Wilgenburg meant that they were privy to visions that everyone else was excluded from seeing. Wilgenburg had an ever-evolving canvas stretched over their pupils and irises. They couldn’t see what other people were seeing: grey asphalt, electric poles, corporate slogans on billboards… More importantly, no one else could see the miracles they were beholding everyday, without even having to open their eyelids.
It is interesting that I myself have just finished performing in Blind, As you see it, a hybrid physical theatre and puppetry performance based on the experiences of people losing their eyesight, created by Michal Imielski. Here was another example of the creation of something beautiful out of painful and emotionally exigent experiences.
What a silver lining! I wonder whether my father and I will find our own silver lining through this new stage of our father-daughter relationship?
I am waiting for my father to come out from an operation for cataracts in his left eye.
It is the first time I have had to fill a caring role for one of my parents. My father had to abstain from food and water since 2am this morning. I was parched when I woke up, I didn’t want to dwell too much about how starved and thirsty he must be feeling, under the Western Australian sun, already so harsh at eight in the morning.
The nurse asks if I will be the one to care for him tonight. I say, ‘Yes’, without hesitating. This surprised me. Me? Care for him? He was the one paying for my dresses just last night! What do I know about caring for him?
Nonetheless, I say, ‘Yes.’
He puts on a gown and disappears into the care of strange withered white men with hands I hope are sturdier than they look.
As I wait, my eyes, thirty-six years younger than those of my father’s, glide along the room.
On the walls are framed paintings of E. Van Wilgenburg’s experience of Macular Degeneration, an eye condition that is the leading cause of blindness in Australia. I am wholly unfamiliar with it, but I gain an ironically visual sense of the condition, through the paintings on the wall.
There are ink washes of darkness, surrounded by a cooling aqua blue, reminiscent of monochromatic black holes that feature in my nightmares from time to time. In one painting, Wilgenburg has depicted fleeting bright lights not unlike the clearest pictures of young stars. In another painting, Wilgenburg drew a meticulous golden pond underneath a mottled maroon sky, a vision generated post-surgery. On another canvas, in place of darkness, we see aurora borealis, quickly replaced by mysterious dancing orbs.
It is of some consolation to me that here is one person who created some wondrous art through their experiences of becoming temporarily ‘blind’. Their paintings are a testament to the variety of visions that they encountered in ‘losing’ their eyesight.
Contrary to my belief that becoming blind plunges you into a world of darkness, the journey for Wilgenburg meant that they were privy to visions that everyone else was excluded from seeing. Wilgenburg had an ever-evolving canvas stretched over their pupils and irises. They couldn’t see what other people were seeing: grey asphalt, electric poles, corporate slogans on billboards… More importantly, no one else could see the miracles they were beholding everyday, without even having to open their eyelids.
It is interesting that I myself have just finished performing in Blind, As you see it, a hybrid physical theatre and puppetry performance based on the experiences of people losing their eyesight, created by Michal Imielski. Here was another example of the creation of something beautiful out of painful and emotionally exigent experiences.
What a silver lining! I wonder whether my father and I will find our own silver lining through this new stage of our father-daughter relationship?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
GUILT
I had the first opportunity in at least 3 months to access professional supervision last week. I've juggled two jobs, one as a caseworker for asylum seekers and the other as a support worker in a homeless shelter, so as a result I had a lot to de-brief about.
I expressed during the session that one of the things I keep thinking about is how 'the only reason why I am not in the same shitty situation as asylum seekers [in how I came to be in Australia], is that my parents had the money to pay for the student visa, the school fees, the apartment we lived in, the boarding school, and finally, the permanent residency visa!'
The supervisor looked at me thoughtfully and said, 'Rani, do you feel guilty for these things?'
I exploded: 'OF COURSE I FEEL GUILTY! GUILT IS THE MAIN PROPELLING FACTOR IN MY LIFE! I THINK THE ONLY REASON I EVER BECAME A SOCIAL WORKER IS BECAUSE OF GUILT!'
I added somewhere along the lines that I also had, *sigh*, hang-ups about being born Chinese. I have had plenty of opportunities to develop such a hang-up. All the discriminatory attitudes towards Chinese people in Indonesia, the accusations of Chinese people being the richest of a poor nation, the ways in which 'Chinese!' has been used as a taunting insult to my face, both in Indonesia as well as in Australia- although bigots of this country tend to say, 'Chink!'
This surprise outburst left me feeling winded. But oh no, the supervisor did not give me a chance to take a breath, because the next thing she said trigerred heaving sobs from me:
'Rani, you are not a bad person for having been born into a rich, Chinese family.'
Oh dear. Open the floodgates. Let loose the wolves! Bring on the thunderstorms and expunge a decade's worth of guilt from your lungs! Go on!
So I did.
Then I asked her to repeat what she had just said because it was the sweetest phrase I had heard in a long long time.
Later on in the week, I recounted this experience to a fellow actor-in-training who is working for a well-established international aid organisation.
She responded with surprising enthusiasm and shared how so many people in her workplace suffer from 'white people's guilt', especially when it comes to working with Indigenous peoples.
She then shared her opinion that if all of her co-workers had a similar realisation to the one that I have just had, it may convert the driving force of their work from '90% guilt and 10% inspiration into 90% inspiration and 10% guilt'.
After wiping my tears away and calming down somewhat, the supervisor then encouraged me to do 'what it is that makes your heart sing'. I had a ready answer for this: 'performing, acting'.
Then I laughed. Because just saying it was a relief. Because just hearing it was a relief.
So many fears come with this realisation. But I was reading an article in the New Internationalist that gave me hope. The May 2010 issue of New Internationalist is devoted to the situation in
One expose looks at the state of artists surviving in
Surely, if a militia man can make the decision to turn his life around and become an actor, a social worker can turn her life around and become an actor?
DISENCHANTMENT
After 6 months fresh out of university, I am considering a career change.
To be honest, halfway through my Social Work degree, I discovered the wonders of "theatre" and only completed the degree as I had convinced myself that the discipline of finishing what you have started is indeed, a virtue. Now, with a degree I only half-heartedly completed (but still excelled at, mind you!) I am left wondering whether this was the best attitude to have taken.
That said, I have had some challenging experiences that I will not regret having had. They continue to inform my sense of ethics and how I relate to people in the world, striving for empathy and a practice of non-judgementalism.
How many actors-in-training can say that, I ask you?
The challenge I am confronted with now, however, is not so much a matter of adhering to ethics, or committing to my principles... it has more to do with the lack of financial stability that I am finding whilst working for organisations that I truly believe in.
I first came across the need for better financial management and better prioritising of fundraising in the 'community sector' when I did an internship for an organisation that campaigns for international aid justice.
A job opportunity came up for which I was a likely candidate, but knowing the difficult financial situation that the organisation was in, I declined. I thought that I would be put in a position where I needed to find funding for my own position whilst still expected to fulfill the other obligations of my role as one half of a very small campaigning team.
Picturing the stress and insecurity that such an arrangement would involve, I decided to avoid the unstable situation. In addition, I had seen the people who filled these roles leave as a result of feeling 'burnt-out' and 'over-worked'.
Sadly, I find myself in exactly such a situation now, whilst working for a different independent organisation. I work for an organisation that advocates and provides (to a limited extent) for the welfare of asylum seekers- a purpose I hold in high regard.
However, after scantly 3 months there, I have been told that the organisation's future is at risk, given its dire financial situation.
Why, oh why do all these organisations whose values I truly believe in, and whose work I know to be essential in making this country and indeed, the world, a better place (however small its contribution), why- do they keep dissolving into an unsustainable mess?
To be honest, halfway through my Social Work degree, I discovered the wonders of "theatre" and only completed the degree as I had convinced myself that the discipline of finishing what you have started is indeed, a virtue. Now, with a degree I only half-heartedly completed (but still excelled at, mind you!) I am left wondering whether this was the best attitude to have taken.
That said, I have had some challenging experiences that I will not regret having had. They continue to inform my sense of ethics and how I relate to people in the world, striving for empathy and a practice of non-judgementalism.
How many actors-in-training can say that, I ask you?
The challenge I am confronted with now, however, is not so much a matter of adhering to ethics, or committing to my principles... it has more to do with the lack of financial stability that I am finding whilst working for organisations that I truly believe in.
I first came across the need for better financial management and better prioritising of fundraising in the 'community sector' when I did an internship for an organisation that campaigns for international aid justice.
A job opportunity came up for which I was a likely candidate, but knowing the difficult financial situation that the organisation was in, I declined. I thought that I would be put in a position where I needed to find funding for my own position whilst still expected to fulfill the other obligations of my role as one half of a very small campaigning team.
Picturing the stress and insecurity that such an arrangement would involve, I decided to avoid the unstable situation. In addition, I had seen the people who filled these roles leave as a result of feeling 'burnt-out' and 'over-worked'.
Sadly, I find myself in exactly such a situation now, whilst working for a different independent organisation. I work for an organisation that advocates and provides (to a limited extent) for the welfare of asylum seekers- a purpose I hold in high regard.
However, after scantly 3 months there, I have been told that the organisation's future is at risk, given its dire financial situation.
Why, oh why do all these organisations whose values I truly believe in, and whose work I know to be essential in making this country and indeed, the world, a better place (however small its contribution), why- do they keep dissolving into an unsustainable mess?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Compass
I'm restless.
Want a new face
new arms
new legs
new job, jobs.
Want a new air.
New voice
New smile
New feeling to wake up to
New fingers to rhyme with
New tongue to frown with
New pockmarked friends to play with
New lover.
Lovers.
I want something new
Someone new
Something breaks,
replace it.
Something tears,
keep wearing it.
Something drags,
pull it out with your teeth.
I want something new.
Something new.
Give me somewhere new to play with.
New country.
Been there, done that.
Painful.
New parents.
Parent.
Been there, done that.
Painful.
New direction.
Where to go to?
Never been there.
Never done that.
Want a new face
new arms
new legs
new job, jobs.
Want a new air.
New voice
New smile
New feeling to wake up to
New fingers to rhyme with
New tongue to frown with
New pockmarked friends to play with
New lover.
Lovers.
I want something new
Someone new
Something breaks,
replace it.
Something tears,
keep wearing it.
Something drags,
pull it out with your teeth.
I want something new.
Something new.
Give me somewhere new to play with.
New country.
Been there, done that.
Painful.
New parents.
Parent.
Been there, done that.
Painful.
New direction.
Where to go to?
Never been there.
Never done that.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Quotes to illustrate my life
It is a new year in the Roman calendar. When I was in Indonesia in December 2009, the celebrations for the Javanese New Year was in full swing. The Lunar Chinese New Year will be upon us next month. New years: the more recognised landmarks of time and changes.
I thought I would share some quotes that I hope will illustrate my life over the coming year.
'When one is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' - John Keats
Completing my Bachelor of Arts/ Social Work after six years of university life was a recent landmark for me, one that has foregrounded an element of 'uncertainty' in my life. No longer am I able to give a simple summary for the next year's anticipated plans in the form of: 'Oh, I'm going to uni', 'Yep, still at uni', 'Uh-huh, in my 2nd last year'.
Unlike my Arts degree, which arrived in the mail and provided me with an unmissed anticlimax, I actually made an effort to complete my Bachelor of Social Work. Perhaps this is why its completion will leave a more indelible mark in my life.
I considered quiting many a time and akin to my pedantic nature, I did thorough research into the pros and cons of quiting halfway through. I interviewed friends who had graduated with B.Arts and compared their experiences with friends who had graduated with B. Social Work. I started a scrapbook for possible pathways with and without a double degree. Jesus. I'm crazy.
The last milestone was going through a Mental Health placement with my own emotional organs faltering. I convinced myself that there is discipline to be cultivated in completing something that I started and have now lost conviction for.
Was this the right attitude to take at the time? I don't know. But, as Paula Abood says, 'It is the process that matters.'
Paula Abood is a community worker and activist who spoke at the launch of the Lilla International Women's Network on November the 8th, 2009, an event that I helped to organise.
I cannot recall everything that she spoke about, but these words of hers resounded with me because too often we are overly concerned about the end 'tangible' product, e.g. the obtainment of a piece of paper attesting to my having spent the past six years at university.
But really, what I gained from the past six years was not just a degree. It was practice in communicating with people whose views offended me. It was practice in challenging those closest to me and not just agreeing to passively 'be' with 'like-minded' people. It was habitualising my body and my presence to certain localities, like Cafe Ellas on Abercrombie St in Redfern, creating micro-homes, if you like.
The past six years are still helping me to laugh more easily at cringe-worthy moments, such as when I elected to become an Anti-Racism Officer and completely exoticised peoples in Western Sydney by suggesting that our first activity as a collective should be to organise 'field trips' to sample the foods out west.
CRINGE.
Let's not even begin to discuss how I thought this would address racism. Hah!
The cringe indicates my having changed, my having gained more awareness of racial politics as embodied in the very demographic of Sydney, e.g. the dynamics shaping white-dominated luxurious suburbs of Bondi and Paddington, in contrast to the Arabic-speaking populations of Lakemba, the Assyrian populations in Liverpool-Fairfield... and so on.
Yes, I stumbled, blundered, made a fool of myself and continue to be pig-headed and stubborn about views that I will come to regret, but 'it is the process that matters'...
Another quote I picked out from a poem, 'Say Yes' by Andrea Gibson, and illustrates a sentiment I will strive to uphold:
'Turn in that silver platter, for something that matters.'
I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but certainly as my parents continued to accumulate wealth throughout my childhood, this bestowed me with a gold-laced upbringing within a poverty stricken country.
This year, finally weaned off my parents' dwindling trust fund (yes, I had a trust fund all throughout university life), I am going to attempt to live on my casual earnings from a homeless shelter and maximise the flexibility of this arrangement, in order to pursue theater training.
Whenever the bank balance runs low (and believe me it is low!), I repeat this quote like a mantra and visualise being able to take on more theater commitments. As my Papa says, 'Eat that idealism until you go hungry!' Oh yes, I am eating it, alright! Mmm... Mmm... Mmm...
My last quote for this post is from Alice Cummins, the Body Mind Centering practitioner I had written about in October 2009:
'Make space for uselessness.'
Alice was speaking about 'beauty' and how in many ways 'beauty' can be considered a useless 'thing', but that as human beings 'we need beauty, deeply and desperately'.
This year I hope to make space for 'useless' quiet times, without groping after a reason to justify such peace. I think this requires me to sign off, otherwise I will begin to list all the 'benefits' I will accrue from my 'useless quiet times'!
I wish you a year of growth, of reflection (no matter how occasional) and of fulfillment. Until next time!
I thought I would share some quotes that I hope will illustrate my life over the coming year.
'When one is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' - John Keats
Completing my Bachelor of Arts/ Social Work after six years of university life was a recent landmark for me, one that has foregrounded an element of 'uncertainty' in my life. No longer am I able to give a simple summary for the next year's anticipated plans in the form of: 'Oh, I'm going to uni', 'Yep, still at uni', 'Uh-huh, in my 2nd last year'.
Unlike my Arts degree, which arrived in the mail and provided me with an unmissed anticlimax, I actually made an effort to complete my Bachelor of Social Work. Perhaps this is why its completion will leave a more indelible mark in my life.
I considered quiting many a time and akin to my pedantic nature, I did thorough research into the pros and cons of quiting halfway through. I interviewed friends who had graduated with B.Arts and compared their experiences with friends who had graduated with B. Social Work. I started a scrapbook for possible pathways with and without a double degree. Jesus. I'm crazy.
The last milestone was going through a Mental Health placement with my own emotional organs faltering. I convinced myself that there is discipline to be cultivated in completing something that I started and have now lost conviction for.
Was this the right attitude to take at the time? I don't know. But, as Paula Abood says, 'It is the process that matters.'
Paula Abood is a community worker and activist who spoke at the launch of the Lilla International Women's Network on November the 8th, 2009, an event that I helped to organise.
I cannot recall everything that she spoke about, but these words of hers resounded with me because too often we are overly concerned about the end 'tangible' product, e.g. the obtainment of a piece of paper attesting to my having spent the past six years at university.
But really, what I gained from the past six years was not just a degree. It was practice in communicating with people whose views offended me. It was practice in challenging those closest to me and not just agreeing to passively 'be' with 'like-minded' people. It was habitualising my body and my presence to certain localities, like Cafe Ellas on Abercrombie St in Redfern, creating micro-homes, if you like.
The past six years are still helping me to laugh more easily at cringe-worthy moments, such as when I elected to become an Anti-Racism Officer and completely exoticised peoples in Western Sydney by suggesting that our first activity as a collective should be to organise 'field trips' to sample the foods out west.
CRINGE.
Let's not even begin to discuss how I thought this would address racism. Hah!
The cringe indicates my having changed, my having gained more awareness of racial politics as embodied in the very demographic of Sydney, e.g. the dynamics shaping white-dominated luxurious suburbs of Bondi and Paddington, in contrast to the Arabic-speaking populations of Lakemba, the Assyrian populations in Liverpool-Fairfield... and so on.
Yes, I stumbled, blundered, made a fool of myself and continue to be pig-headed and stubborn about views that I will come to regret, but 'it is the process that matters'...
Another quote I picked out from a poem, 'Say Yes' by Andrea Gibson, and illustrates a sentiment I will strive to uphold:
'Turn in that silver platter, for something that matters.'
I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but certainly as my parents continued to accumulate wealth throughout my childhood, this bestowed me with a gold-laced upbringing within a poverty stricken country.
This year, finally weaned off my parents' dwindling trust fund (yes, I had a trust fund all throughout university life), I am going to attempt to live on my casual earnings from a homeless shelter and maximise the flexibility of this arrangement, in order to pursue theater training.
Whenever the bank balance runs low (and believe me it is low!), I repeat this quote like a mantra and visualise being able to take on more theater commitments. As my Papa says, 'Eat that idealism until you go hungry!' Oh yes, I am eating it, alright! Mmm... Mmm... Mmm...
My last quote for this post is from Alice Cummins, the Body Mind Centering practitioner I had written about in October 2009:
'Make space for uselessness.'
Alice was speaking about 'beauty' and how in many ways 'beauty' can be considered a useless 'thing', but that as human beings 'we need beauty, deeply and desperately'.
This year I hope to make space for 'useless' quiet times, without groping after a reason to justify such peace. I think this requires me to sign off, otherwise I will begin to list all the 'benefits' I will accrue from my 'useless quiet times'!
I wish you a year of growth, of reflection (no matter how occasional) and of fulfillment. Until next time!
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