grasping at straws, finding a lifeline.
As promised, further personal reflections on the implications of taking on a Curator role for The Long Count at New Leaf. I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this in such a (semi-)public forum instead of just a regular old journal, but I think I need to understand it, and so I need a metaphor. And I do my best metaphors for an audience. That's my working theory, at any rate.
So. In the last few weeks, things have been feeling kind of bleak for me, personally. Feeling like the world doesn't value me for me. Coming off of the tremendously fulfilling experience of Six Years at New Leaf and starting 2009 with nothing lined up, not many auditions, not getting cast, then not getting called back, then not getting called in, and wondering if I'll ever work in this town again. Add to that some jostling and bruising of the heart, making me feel like I needed an artistic outlet even more. So, not dark, not awful. Just kind of like sitting in a cave, and knowing that there is a beautiful day outside because I was just there but not knowing how to get back outside.
And so I start grasping at straws. Or, perhaps, at fireflies. (Fireflies in a cave? Why not? It's my metaphor.) These little tiny ideas that are little flickers of light in the dim shadows. These are not strong, not solid. I reach for one (Ooh - maybe this company will cast me in this amazing play!) after another (A dashing, tall, dark, handsome stranger will fall madly in love with me -- tonight) The flashes remind me of the light outside. But I'm still just sitting in the cave, now with a firefly in my hand, which will surely die if I keep holding on it it, but when I let it go, it will just keep flashing at me, and reminding me of what that sunshine looked like and felt like.
So I'm reaching, and reaching, and getting out of breath from the effort, and resenting my time in the cave, and feeling like anyone as smart and wonderful as I am should have found her way out by now and reaching a point of utter frustration and running around in circles in the cave, hitting my head, pounding my fists against the walls, looking and looking for the secret trap door that will magically let me out.
And then. I trip. On something heavy. That feels like a rope. It's not pretty, per se. Hell, I can't even see it really -- it's too dark in here and the fireflies don't illuminate anything but themselves. I pick up one end of the rope. It's solid. I tug. There is resistance. I take a step toward the resistance. This feels familiar. Kind of. Yes. No, I know it now. This will lead me out of the cave. It will not lead me out the way I came in, and when I get outside the landscape will be different. But this is the way out.
So, I tie the rope around my waist and start walking. But the fireflies are still there, and so pretty! They fly ahead of me and behind me, even as I am trying to hold on to this rope and focus on walking, they are distracting and tempting and part of me wants to just sit back down in the damn cave and collect enough fireflies make a warm glow. And wouldn't that be easier, anyway. The rope is not how I imagined I would get out. And it doesn't sound like the kind of fun I was hoping for. But I'm going to let me brain win this one, I think. Give my little heart time to rest as my head and my feet lead me along the path of the rope. It will lead uphill, I suspect. And then I will stop seeing the fireflies. And then things will really look bleak. But this rope feels really solid.
That's where I am. Like all good metaphors, it is more true than the literal truth. But incomplete. I am deeply excited about this metaphorical rope in its own right, and have been for months -- I just never suspected that it would become a necessary step for my own personal growth, but if you've been following the New Leaf season and our over-arching question, you will have to agree that there is a certain poetic justice to the fact that I find myself building a future from a present I didn't expect.
Sidebar: I wonder if there is anyone who would pay me to create metaphors for a living. You see, I believe Life is like a metaphor. It always means something else.