Reading between the lines, perhaps

[much_ado]

On Friday, driving home from work in Guelph for the last time as my contract wrapped, I was struck by a peculiar thought I had not entertained previously. That thought, as I posted to FB after I got into downtown Kitchener ahead of the survival celebration at Imbibe, was,

"And unexpectedly, the thought from nowhere that slammed home like a steel

Comments

[meirwen]

When you first posted that original note on FB, I had a kneejerk reaction dismissing the claim. But then I thought about it, and, as we do, I used my own experience as a touchstone.

I realized that by some measure, I am permanently defined as a professional singer. As a professional actress. As a professional writer. The uncontrovertible truth is that by many measurements (including some legal ones), once you have been paid in actual $$, upon which you were obligated to pay taxes, explicitly for those skills, you are those things. I once made the mistake of saying I was an amateur actress--and I got seriously "schooled" by a working actor of some stature that No!, I was not. It didn't matter that they were non-equity shows. I was paid for rehearsals, I was paid for performing. I was a professional actress, whether I was doing it at the time or not.

So by that measure, I am those things. I accept that.

But I no longer identify as those things. I identify as a teacher. That doesn't preclude me from, at any given time, being actively