Perseverance

“What’s within you is stronger than what’s in your way.” –Antoinette Lee Toscano via the anthology, Women and Water, edited by Straub, Russell, and Hirst

What’s in my way, usually, is self-doubt. I once interviewed a dancer for an article about international perspectives. I came away from it wishing for even a small dose of her arrogance. Modesty was not something she trafficked in. She knew her talent, her skill, her value as a performer and teacher, and saw no reason to belittle it.

Praise and encouragement are helpful, of course, but real self-esteem comes from within. And that means listening to feelings, no matter how awkward. Rage blew out the top of my head when a friend – years ago – said how wonderful the witch in a children’s play had been. I would have been BRILLIANT. And so I knew I wasn’t done with theatre, though I had tried to be. Instead of waiting to be noticed, I began choreographing and writing my own pieces, and creating installations and events. I needed no one’s permission but my own.

The inherited critic is strong. “Nobody’s going to Carnegie Hall,” sniped my mother at the fifth-grade concert. Wow. That’s what I struggle to overcome every single time I create. And every single time I shyly offer my work to others. And yet the Muses will not let up on me. Do it! they yell, louder than the critic. Do it!

And so I do.

“unreliable indicators of my worth”* (a poem)  

my weight 
my work
 
my color 
my car 

my gender 
my friends 

my health 
my wealth 

and last but not least 
your opinion of me

*from the upcoming book of poems & paintings, Dance First …ask questions later