"If I sing, it's for the music"
I spend so much time thinking I hardly have any time to live in between. Every moment has started to contain a revelation or a frustration, often both. The only time my brain finally quiets its boisterous voice is when I'm with friends. I love both thought and friends, but it is always my thoughts that weigh on me. While I sing, I have to stay conscious of all of the technique I have learned, and I beat my self up for every error, imagining each happening in a vital college audition. I dwell on each little thing I have forgotten to do, or purposefully neglected to do.
College is always on the mind, and somehow I still am not sure exactly which colleges I am going to apply to, despite the fact that I should have already written several essays in order to be on the ball. I want so many things all at once and it's absolutely silly. I have to carefully balance my social life with my practices, homework, and demands my mother makes. I'm not really used to that kind of pressure and organization of time. At Interlochen, every moment was nearly planned for you, a controlled intensity. Now, while fighting my inherent laziness, I also have to run myself successfully in order to finish this year with any sort of future ahead of me. On top of it all, I still feel the emptiness of being single that I have felt since freshman year. I have this nagging sense that if I could somehow attain a boyfriend I could relax somehow. Deep down, I feel like a boyfriend could become another obligation, someone else to maneuver my time for. Somehow, I really don't care. I want to be cared for. My strength and independence has to falter sometimes. I don't want to be alone when that happens. It's not even anymore that I want sex or to be held. I just keep falling apart and I'm always alone. I scan through the phonebook on my cell, unable to come up with anyone who I can call without feeling like I'm disturbing them. I haven't had love yet, and it really hurts me.
The moments I look forward most to are my voice lessons and acting classes where I get some kind of approval or disapproval, but at least I have some idea where I stand. I have renewed faith in my talent, and now, even with all my spare time not devoted to theatre, I still feel like I'm not able to practice enough for myself or the ever approaching auditions that will determine the rest of my life. I hear someone in class sing a song both technically well and full of proper feeling and action. And I want that. And I feel like I'm behind. I would sacrifice everything in my life in a second in order to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a legitimate performer.
Last week, I came across a box full of all of my papers and report card from elementary school and kindergarten. While looking through it mostly for sheer amusement (like my brilliant second grade report on rabbits that explained that they lay three to four eggs a year), I discovered some profound things in my development. As far back as first grade, I knew that I wanted to be an actor. In fifth grade, we wrote poems based on the famous one by William Carlos Williams. I think it is the most profound and clear thing I have written in my lifetime. Here it is, exactly as I wrote it nearly seven years ago on a small column of paper:
So much depends
upon
the clear
voice
of a tall
actor
on a black, wooden
stage
I almost cried when I read this. Soon after this discovery I found a report card from kindergarten. My teacher commented that I would spent long periods of time working on pieces of artwork, only to crumple them up because I had made a "mistake," frustrated that I could not make my piece look like it did in my head. Thus began my development as a performing artist. Each time I lose the truth in my scene or monologue, each time I fail to hit a note or sail flat underneath it, it represents to me another wall that I have to climb over. The walls are not nearly as tangible as they are in math or science, where each type of problem has a certain type of solution. Everything is internal. I often discourage people from watching my shows because I do not want to present "a work in progress," but a finely crafted piece that I don't yet know how to make. In another way, I strive for the attention to receive validation that something I am doing is likeable. This is my eternal struggle.
I was going to discuss my feelings on Dostoyevsky, as I am now reading him for school, but now is not the time.
College is always on the mind, and somehow I still am not sure exactly which colleges I am going to apply to, despite the fact that I should have already written several essays in order to be on the ball. I want so many things all at once and it's absolutely silly. I have to carefully balance my social life with my practices, homework, and demands my mother makes. I'm not really used to that kind of pressure and organization of time. At Interlochen, every moment was nearly planned for you, a controlled intensity. Now, while fighting my inherent laziness, I also have to run myself successfully in order to finish this year with any sort of future ahead of me. On top of it all, I still feel the emptiness of being single that I have felt since freshman year. I have this nagging sense that if I could somehow attain a boyfriend I could relax somehow. Deep down, I feel like a boyfriend could become another obligation, someone else to maneuver my time for. Somehow, I really don't care. I want to be cared for. My strength and independence has to falter sometimes. I don't want to be alone when that happens. It's not even anymore that I want sex or to be held. I just keep falling apart and I'm always alone. I scan through the phonebook on my cell, unable to come up with anyone who I can call without feeling like I'm disturbing them. I haven't had love yet, and it really hurts me.
The moments I look forward most to are my voice lessons and acting classes where I get some kind of approval or disapproval, but at least I have some idea where I stand. I have renewed faith in my talent, and now, even with all my spare time not devoted to theatre, I still feel like I'm not able to practice enough for myself or the ever approaching auditions that will determine the rest of my life. I hear someone in class sing a song both technically well and full of proper feeling and action. And I want that. And I feel like I'm behind. I would sacrifice everything in my life in a second in order to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a legitimate performer.
Last week, I came across a box full of all of my papers and report card from elementary school and kindergarten. While looking through it mostly for sheer amusement (like my brilliant second grade report on rabbits that explained that they lay three to four eggs a year), I discovered some profound things in my development. As far back as first grade, I knew that I wanted to be an actor. In fifth grade, we wrote poems based on the famous one by William Carlos Williams. I think it is the most profound and clear thing I have written in my lifetime. Here it is, exactly as I wrote it nearly seven years ago on a small column of paper:
So much depends
upon
the clear
voice
of a tall
actor
on a black, wooden
stage
I almost cried when I read this. Soon after this discovery I found a report card from kindergarten. My teacher commented that I would spent long periods of time working on pieces of artwork, only to crumple them up because I had made a "mistake," frustrated that I could not make my piece look like it did in my head. Thus began my development as a performing artist. Each time I lose the truth in my scene or monologue, each time I fail to hit a note or sail flat underneath it, it represents to me another wall that I have to climb over. The walls are not nearly as tangible as they are in math or science, where each type of problem has a certain type of solution. Everything is internal. I often discourage people from watching my shows because I do not want to present "a work in progress," but a finely crafted piece that I don't yet know how to make. In another way, I strive for the attention to receive validation that something I am doing is likeable. This is my eternal struggle.
I was going to discuss my feelings on Dostoyevsky, as I am now reading him for school, but now is not the time.