Part Two: What Happened to Me at the Show
(Make sure you read Part One first! If you can get through it all...)
First, something happened on the way to the show. I saw some fantastic roses at a street booth, and I thought, oh, I should get HJ flowers, and give them to him at the end, on stage. I'm sure he'll get a few, but it's opening night and what if he doesn't, that would be awful. But then part of me said, no, that's silly, who are you to give roses to Hugh Jackman? It's absurd. However, as I well know, most of the fantastic moments in life come from when one has the courage to say YES to absurd ideas, and how was I to know if this was just foolishness or an authentic impulse I should follow, on the general principle that "when in doubt, say yes to life."
The flowers were $20 per dozen, but I liked the two dozen bunch - they were really spectacular - and as I hesitated to consider the implications of this impulse, the flower seller said he'd give me the double dozen for just $25, so I said yes, and off I went. As I made my way towards the theater, though, I began to feel bad, and I didn't know why. Part of me was like, what the hell are you thinking? Did you just blow $25 on flowers for a person who doesn't know you...and doesn't need to? What do you hope to accomplish with this gesture?
Then, as I was waiting to cross the street before the theater, a homeless older black man selling Street Sheets - working the crowd, as they sometimes do - said, "What a bunch of pretty roses for such a pretty lady" and I smiled, and he smiled back, and I moved on. But suddenly, I thought, you know, that man has nothing, and HJ has plenty. He's got many women who adore him, and he doesn't need me giving him flowers. All that will do it make *me* feel good, and....I turned across, crossed back, and went up to the homeless man.
"I bought these for a friend," I said, "but now I am having second thoughts. If I gave them to you, could you find a good use for them?"
"Why, yes, ma'am, yes, I could," he said, very pleased. "I definitely have someone I can give these to." So I gave him the roses, and because it seemed like a much better use of them. I immediately felt much better. (As it happened, ONE person did give HJ flowers at the end, so I was off the hook anyway.)
But what happened, really, to me? What was that all about? I think I was trying to figure out my relationship with HJ - and if that sounds weird, just remember that I am one of those people who think that every single person in the world has a relationship with every other person by the fact of sharing the same planet. Some relationships, like that with family and friends, are very personal. Some, like the ones you have with the drivers around you in traffic, for instance, are impersonal but no less real. The ones you have with artists, especially those long-dead ones, are really tricky. It only goes, for the most part, one way, and we all know how tough unrequited love is. I can't tell you how many books I have read, only to feel an intense desire to thank and connect with the author, and be very disappointed to find out he has been dead for two decades.
I experience, on a regular basis, a form of creative guilt - by which I mean, I feel like I have received *so* much from an artist, I want to give back, give back something of myself to the artist, something that is as personal and as beautiful as what he gave me. The immense pleasure, and perceptions, and life-changing revelations I get from some works of art (plays, music, films) are so intense, so profound, so beautiful that they feel like a relationship, and since I am human and since humans crave connection, I feel like I want to connect also with the artist, to sort of complete the connection to the art.
And, as I've mentioned before, sometimes this feeling also coincides with these moments of revelation and insight and emotion I have, often from very unexpected sources - not always "art" in the traditional sense. In fact, here's an excerpt from an earlier blog entry, and I think you will see where I am headed:
One of reasons I like film in general so much is that I've had, more than once, an epiphany from it; or not, actually, from a film, but a film will be the catalyst, or the theme, correspond with the artistic slant of that particular period of enlightenment in my life. Not always a "great" film, either - I mean, it happened once with X-Men for God's sake (and yes, if you must know, it was me getting in touch with the sort of "tougher" and more demanding "Wolverine" side of my nature - embarrassing, maybe, but immensely helpful nonetheless in my personal growth process).
Let me expand on that a little. When I saw X-Men back in 2000, I had been in therapy for a couple of year and was just getting to the big parts of dealing with parents. I'm sure I was just ripe for a breakthrough, and it could just as easily have been something else, but for whatever reason, I was really struck by this character of Logan, and more specifically, his relationship to Rogue, the younger innocent girl who is trying to grow up and having a hard time. She needs love and protection and guidance, and Logan - not really a model of competent parenting, per so - happens to be the right person at the right time to help her. He, in fact, literally rescues her.
Now, it's a thing that pretty much all women (as little girls, especially) want to be loved and protected, and every man has wanted to have the ability to truly love and protect. There's a sweetness and tenderness to that arrangement that is heart-breaking, and people flocked to X-Men, partially, I think, because the Logan/Rogue relationship was so resonant - he perfectly symbolized that mix of father/lover that every woman wants - I won't get too psychological but I've got to give some idea of the whole picture.
The thing is, what happens when you grow up, when you become an adult (which has nothing to do with your biological age), you need to learn to be your own parent, your own protector. You realize you aren't going to BE rescued, but that you have to rescue yourself, and in fact, that is the ONLY way to be saved, because if someone else does it, it doesn't really work. This is a very hard message, and the difficulty of really doing it is the reason so many people never become fully realized human beings, with the ability to truly love and connect.
And why is that? Because there's something about the dark and troubled side of life that makes us want to be shielded from it. That buffer between between us as we like to see ourselves, and our Wolverine natures (aggressive, dark, dangerous), which are inevitably part of being human. The light and dark not only co-existing but being absolutely dependent on each other is one of my life's major themes, and the major realization I had about accepting both came, God knows why, from watching Hugh Jackman play Logan.
You see, I'd been treating all the "bad" parts of my life as something to get through. I'd been hearing everyone - the wise Masters of Living - who all universally said the world is full of darkness and light and the two cannot be separated, but I didn't quite believe it. I'd been willing to delve into the dark depths but only with a view of coming out the other side. And I realized that having that idea - of eventual release - was keeping me from actually digging down. I'd been standing on the edge of the abyss and looking down, knowing that if I jumped, there would be a light at the end. But it was no good to jump just in order to get to the light. You have to jump, I realized, with a mindset of never, perhaps, getting to the light; otherwise, it's not really the abyss you are jumping in to.
That concept, when it came, was very frightening, and liberating. Having watched Logan negotiate his own abysses - and I love that he self-heals, for so do we all, once we are fully and completely grown - I knew how to start to do it myself. You can stay safe, childlike, looking around for rescue and protection all your life, or you can make the tough call and go ahead and stick your claws right into your own self to get out of the trap, and just trust you will heal. It was about me making the transition to being my own parent, my own Logan, and I went to see X-Men a bunch of times until I got the message, and I felt infinite gratitude to Hugh Jackman for being my unwitting teacher.
It stuck, by the way; right around then, my life took off and has been going full bore ever since. Nine times out of ten, I look around and for the adult in the room to take care of whatever, and then realize *I* am it. All my natural leadership qualities, which I had been so afraid to use and trust before, fell into place, and I've been growing ever since.
Which brings me to what happened at the show. What was I expecting? Well, HJ is sexy, we know that, and he can sing and dance, we know that. I thought, this will be fun. I enjoy sensing different people's energies, especially the powerful charisma of famous sexy men because it's rarely encountered and therefore a sort of litmus test. The true test of how self-possessed you are is how authentic you can remain in the face of extreme fame, power and/or money. If you can remain yourself, and yet still connect, you are doing well. I am actually pretty good at it, and I was curious, in the back of my mind, of how this would affect me, just being around him AND also in the light of my prior connection to him, as the artist who brought to light the character that so helped me once.
So what happened? Well, HJ was so open, so honest, so obviously himself. He even said (in a Facebook live interview I watched) that he loves performing; this show was essentially his idea of a great night out, sort of orchestral karaoke to assemble his favorite songs and sing them in this great old theater in a fantastic town, and he only hoped the audience would enjoy it as much as he was going to. Great. And I mean that: one of the lessons I've learned in the last few years is that if you want to do anything artistic, or creative, the first step is really not caring about what others are going to think of you. When I sing - when I really can let it all out, in my singing circle - it's about leaving fear and judgement behind and just BEING who you are, with abandon.
This includes, in the best scenarios, involving those around you; I've written before about how what people REALLY want is to be magically included in whatever amazing thing is happening - friends like to listen to me sing and play my uke, sure, but love when I get everyone else singing along. We all like to be pulled up onstage for the Ophelia scream, like my semi-famous, semi-friend Charles did (see early entry: http://kardavis.blogspot.com/2010/06/nothing-like-soft-summer-dusk.html). If we can't get the creative spirit to visit, the next best thing is someone around you who will include you in theirs.
And as I was watching HJ perform, with abandon (and expertise), I started to feel...what? Sure, he turned a little bit from the distant sexy hero into the charismatic friend everyone wants to come to their parties; that was, I supposed, to be expected. But I did NOT expect him to be so...well....goofy and silly and approachable. He managed to keep that balance of silliness and seriousness that I love, which is indicative of my favorite kind of art. Anyone who has heard my "Eye of the Tiger" on the ukulele know I love that stuff that just plays right on the edge. As I like to say to people who ask me how I manage to be so personable and personal at the same time I am so professional (and yes, people DO ask me), it's because, basically, I am always serious, and I am always joking. This is how HJ performed - and it worked, I think (as it does with me) because he's totally self-possessed.
During the show, I started to feel myself slipping away from the rest of the audience, feeling out of camaraderie with them. I wasn't watching and enjoying HJ like they were, I was feeling something else, but I didn't know what, and it's stuck with me as I've continued to think about it.
Finally, I said to J, my partner, "You know, ultimately that show was, frankly, a little disturbing to me, and I don't know why."
"I know why. Didn't you tell me? He was too familiar with the audience."
"He was."
"Well then, there you are," J said. "Because it's weird, since he feels like your friend, but he's too famous to actually BE your friend. If he were, your life would change. I mean, it would have to be different, because you live in two separate worlds, and you'd have to be living in a different world for him to be so familiar."
And I then I realized, that was *exactly* the problem: because it was true. Not that there was a separate other world of fame and success that HJ was part of and I was not, but that the world didn't feel all that separate. He was very familiar with the audience, but he felt very familiar to me. He strongly reminded me of Charles, my wildly outgoing actor acquaintance (who, I think, shares a bit of that exhibitionist streak with HJ), and the last guy I slept with before my partner (yikes, a long time ago now!), and my very first childhood romance, when I was 12 and he was 17. He never reminded me of someone I didn't know. In fact, in the end, who he most reminded me of was...me.
(Yes, I know I in no way resemble Hugh Jackman, in objective reality. I'm exploring ideas. Go with it. But hey, there are a couple similarities: we're the same age, and we've both spent time in life-size furry suits for very little money - me, Chip at Disneyland, him, as a giant panda for reasons unknown.)
Now I realize that may be the hallmark of a great showman, the winking conspiratorial grin. Didn't I say earlier that good art is about inclusion, about creating community? Art is supposed to explore possibilities, open doors, make you feel emotions you didn't know were possible. As Alan Arkin says in his excellent autobiography, it's like a hypodermic shot that fills you up with possibility, vision - expands you as a human. It doesn't last, this effect art has on the audience, and the best way to keep it going, to find it again, is to create art yourself. Not to listen to the music, or even make the music, but BE the music.
And I do this. I mean, I am not a famous sexy performer, but as anyone who knows me knows, I am famous at my company (semi), and the center of the M___ House community (small but hardy, and very meaningful for the people who are in it). I'm known in the circles I perform and live in (whether it's the uke in the living room or the presentations I do for hundreds of employees) for being the person who is most willing to be herself, to let it all out, and yet entertain and amuse and, if possible, elevate while doing so. It seems like how can that be so, but evidence points to it, and I guess I have to believe it.
So, I think I was disturbed, because - as with my revelations prompted by Logan - I was staring straight at the inevitability of my success, which is often scary and certainly difficult to accept. My work, these days, is wildly successful - I am always in the room with bigger dogs than me, managing up. My artistic endeavors also seem to be going well (my partner just told me he thinks my last song was better than Dylan, high praise indeed!). I've been feeling myself expand these days, and in the last couple months have had this complete change from the rest of my life which is almost impossible to describe but basically is this: I finally feel like I am present in my own life, that the reality I create around me is what actually is, and not incidental but central.
I used to look at my life, with all its facts: yes, I've performed at Yoshi's three times. Yes, I've been to Europe many times. Yes, I spoke a little Arabic in Egypt. Yes, the people at my work have honored me extensively over the years. Yes, people come to when they need a person to really listen, and to give sage advice. Yes, my songs have made at least one person cry. But it all always seemed....accidental, luck, tenuous, precarious. Not like how I imagined other people when I heard then talk about stock options and years of season opera tickets. "It's not what you think," I'd say. Yes, I have done those things, but I am not like those other people that do those things. I am lesser. I mean, I know me, so I know how lesser I am.
But, as my therapist (I went back last month, after an 8 year hiatus) said, "Everyone feels that way. The most successful people I know feel that they are going to someone be found out. But you won't be. Because you are actually doing it. You really are who you are."
It's summed up, even better than my therapist can say it, by the famous Nelson Mandela quote:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us: it's in everyone. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Exactly. What I felt, sitting there watching Hugh Jackman perform was kinship, not worship. And that's a lot harder to walk out of the theater with. In some ways, every great performance is a call to action, but in this case, it wasn't that HJ was reminding me of what I should be doing (which is how great performances, great performers, great artists usually make me feel) but that he was reminding me that I am, in fact, already doing it - in my own way, of course, on my scale.
So, I have a lot to thank Hugh Jackman for. And, if you're reading this, thank you too. This blog is, as my friend E said once, "deeply personal" so I wonder if I should have told this story. But why not? That's what it should be, right? How else can you connect unless you allow yourself to BE who you are, without shame, and with abandon. Because maybe someone will read this - even if it's just one person, even if it's just me, later in my life when I've momentarily been brought down by circumstances and need some perspective - then I'll have given back, played the Hugh Jackman role, shining out a little bit of light, clarifying a few things, and maybe, just maybe, inspiring someone to be a little bit *more* than they were capable of being before.
So, ultimately my review is this: most people just enjoyed HJ shaking his booty, belting out those big Broadway notes, and laughing at his charming stories. But me, I was deeply grateful, once again, to a man I don't know, for giving out a bit of himself, and making me a better person for it. I can't say you'll have the same experience if you catch the show....but you never know.
(Make sure you read Part One first! If you can get through it all...)
First, something happened on the way to the show. I saw some fantastic roses at a street booth, and I thought, oh, I should get HJ flowers, and give them to him at the end, on stage. I'm sure he'll get a few, but it's opening night and what if he doesn't, that would be awful. But then part of me said, no, that's silly, who are you to give roses to Hugh Jackman? It's absurd. However, as I well know, most of the fantastic moments in life come from when one has the courage to say YES to absurd ideas, and how was I to know if this was just foolishness or an authentic impulse I should follow, on the general principle that "when in doubt, say yes to life."
The flowers were $20 per dozen, but I liked the two dozen bunch - they were really spectacular - and as I hesitated to consider the implications of this impulse, the flower seller said he'd give me the double dozen for just $25, so I said yes, and off I went. As I made my way towards the theater, though, I began to feel bad, and I didn't know why. Part of me was like, what the hell are you thinking? Did you just blow $25 on flowers for a person who doesn't know you...and doesn't need to? What do you hope to accomplish with this gesture?
Then, as I was waiting to cross the street before the theater, a homeless older black man selling Street Sheets - working the crowd, as they sometimes do - said, "What a bunch of pretty roses for such a pretty lady" and I smiled, and he smiled back, and I moved on. But suddenly, I thought, you know, that man has nothing, and HJ has plenty. He's got many women who adore him, and he doesn't need me giving him flowers. All that will do it make *me* feel good, and....I turned across, crossed back, and went up to the homeless man.
"I bought these for a friend," I said, "but now I am having second thoughts. If I gave them to you, could you find a good use for them?"
"Why, yes, ma'am, yes, I could," he said, very pleased. "I definitely have someone I can give these to." So I gave him the roses, and because it seemed like a much better use of them. I immediately felt much better. (As it happened, ONE person did give HJ flowers at the end, so I was off the hook anyway.)
But what happened, really, to me? What was that all about? I think I was trying to figure out my relationship with HJ - and if that sounds weird, just remember that I am one of those people who think that every single person in the world has a relationship with every other person by the fact of sharing the same planet. Some relationships, like that with family and friends, are very personal. Some, like the ones you have with the drivers around you in traffic, for instance, are impersonal but no less real. The ones you have with artists, especially those long-dead ones, are really tricky. It only goes, for the most part, one way, and we all know how tough unrequited love is. I can't tell you how many books I have read, only to feel an intense desire to thank and connect with the author, and be very disappointed to find out he has been dead for two decades.
I experience, on a regular basis, a form of creative guilt - by which I mean, I feel like I have received *so* much from an artist, I want to give back, give back something of myself to the artist, something that is as personal and as beautiful as what he gave me. The immense pleasure, and perceptions, and life-changing revelations I get from some works of art (plays, music, films) are so intense, so profound, so beautiful that they feel like a relationship, and since I am human and since humans crave connection, I feel like I want to connect also with the artist, to sort of complete the connection to the art.
And, as I've mentioned before, sometimes this feeling also coincides with these moments of revelation and insight and emotion I have, often from very unexpected sources - not always "art" in the traditional sense. In fact, here's an excerpt from an earlier blog entry, and I think you will see where I am headed:
One of reasons I like film in general so much is that I've had, more than once, an epiphany from it; or not, actually, from a film, but a film will be the catalyst, or the theme, correspond with the artistic slant of that particular period of enlightenment in my life. Not always a "great" film, either - I mean, it happened once with X-Men for God's sake (and yes, if you must know, it was me getting in touch with the sort of "tougher" and more demanding "Wolverine" side of my nature - embarrassing, maybe, but immensely helpful nonetheless in my personal growth process).
Let me expand on that a little. When I saw X-Men back in 2000, I had been in therapy for a couple of year and was just getting to the big parts of dealing with parents. I'm sure I was just ripe for a breakthrough, and it could just as easily have been something else, but for whatever reason, I was really struck by this character of Logan, and more specifically, his relationship to Rogue, the younger innocent girl who is trying to grow up and having a hard time. She needs love and protection and guidance, and Logan - not really a model of competent parenting, per so - happens to be the right person at the right time to help her. He, in fact, literally rescues her.
Now, it's a thing that pretty much all women (as little girls, especially) want to be loved and protected, and every man has wanted to have the ability to truly love and protect. There's a sweetness and tenderness to that arrangement that is heart-breaking, and people flocked to X-Men, partially, I think, because the Logan/Rogue relationship was so resonant - he perfectly symbolized that mix of father/lover that every woman wants - I won't get too psychological but I've got to give some idea of the whole picture.
The thing is, what happens when you grow up, when you become an adult (which has nothing to do with your biological age), you need to learn to be your own parent, your own protector. You realize you aren't going to BE rescued, but that you have to rescue yourself, and in fact, that is the ONLY way to be saved, because if someone else does it, it doesn't really work. This is a very hard message, and the difficulty of really doing it is the reason so many people never become fully realized human beings, with the ability to truly love and connect.
And why is that? Because there's something about the dark and troubled side of life that makes us want to be shielded from it. That buffer between between us as we like to see ourselves, and our Wolverine natures (aggressive, dark, dangerous), which are inevitably part of being human. The light and dark not only co-existing but being absolutely dependent on each other is one of my life's major themes, and the major realization I had about accepting both came, God knows why, from watching Hugh Jackman play Logan.
You see, I'd been treating all the "bad" parts of my life as something to get through. I'd been hearing everyone - the wise Masters of Living - who all universally said the world is full of darkness and light and the two cannot be separated, but I didn't quite believe it. I'd been willing to delve into the dark depths but only with a view of coming out the other side. And I realized that having that idea - of eventual release - was keeping me from actually digging down. I'd been standing on the edge of the abyss and looking down, knowing that if I jumped, there would be a light at the end. But it was no good to jump just in order to get to the light. You have to jump, I realized, with a mindset of never, perhaps, getting to the light; otherwise, it's not really the abyss you are jumping in to.
That concept, when it came, was very frightening, and liberating. Having watched Logan negotiate his own abysses - and I love that he self-heals, for so do we all, once we are fully and completely grown - I knew how to start to do it myself. You can stay safe, childlike, looking around for rescue and protection all your life, or you can make the tough call and go ahead and stick your claws right into your own self to get out of the trap, and just trust you will heal. It was about me making the transition to being my own parent, my own Logan, and I went to see X-Men a bunch of times until I got the message, and I felt infinite gratitude to Hugh Jackman for being my unwitting teacher.
It stuck, by the way; right around then, my life took off and has been going full bore ever since. Nine times out of ten, I look around and for the adult in the room to take care of whatever, and then realize *I* am it. All my natural leadership qualities, which I had been so afraid to use and trust before, fell into place, and I've been growing ever since.
Which brings me to what happened at the show. What was I expecting? Well, HJ is sexy, we know that, and he can sing and dance, we know that. I thought, this will be fun. I enjoy sensing different people's energies, especially the powerful charisma of famous sexy men because it's rarely encountered and therefore a sort of litmus test. The true test of how self-possessed you are is how authentic you can remain in the face of extreme fame, power and/or money. If you can remain yourself, and yet still connect, you are doing well. I am actually pretty good at it, and I was curious, in the back of my mind, of how this would affect me, just being around him AND also in the light of my prior connection to him, as the artist who brought to light the character that so helped me once.
So what happened? Well, HJ was so open, so honest, so obviously himself. He even said (in a Facebook live interview I watched) that he loves performing; this show was essentially his idea of a great night out, sort of orchestral karaoke to assemble his favorite songs and sing them in this great old theater in a fantastic town, and he only hoped the audience would enjoy it as much as he was going to. Great. And I mean that: one of the lessons I've learned in the last few years is that if you want to do anything artistic, or creative, the first step is really not caring about what others are going to think of you. When I sing - when I really can let it all out, in my singing circle - it's about leaving fear and judgement behind and just BEING who you are, with abandon.
This includes, in the best scenarios, involving those around you; I've written before about how what people REALLY want is to be magically included in whatever amazing thing is happening - friends like to listen to me sing and play my uke, sure, but love when I get everyone else singing along. We all like to be pulled up onstage for the Ophelia scream, like my semi-famous, semi-friend Charles did (see early entry: http://kardavis.blogspot.com/2010/06/nothing-like-soft-summer-dusk.html). If we can't get the creative spirit to visit, the next best thing is someone around you who will include you in theirs.
And as I was watching HJ perform, with abandon (and expertise), I started to feel...what? Sure, he turned a little bit from the distant sexy hero into the charismatic friend everyone wants to come to their parties; that was, I supposed, to be expected. But I did NOT expect him to be so...well....goofy and silly and approachable. He managed to keep that balance of silliness and seriousness that I love, which is indicative of my favorite kind of art. Anyone who has heard my "Eye of the Tiger" on the ukulele know I love that stuff that just plays right on the edge. As I like to say to people who ask me how I manage to be so personable and personal at the same time I am so professional (and yes, people DO ask me), it's because, basically, I am always serious, and I am always joking. This is how HJ performed - and it worked, I think (as it does with me) because he's totally self-possessed.
During the show, I started to feel myself slipping away from the rest of the audience, feeling out of camaraderie with them. I wasn't watching and enjoying HJ like they were, I was feeling something else, but I didn't know what, and it's stuck with me as I've continued to think about it.
Finally, I said to J, my partner, "You know, ultimately that show was, frankly, a little disturbing to me, and I don't know why."
"I know why. Didn't you tell me? He was too familiar with the audience."
"He was."
"Well then, there you are," J said. "Because it's weird, since he feels like your friend, but he's too famous to actually BE your friend. If he were, your life would change. I mean, it would have to be different, because you live in two separate worlds, and you'd have to be living in a different world for him to be so familiar."
And I then I realized, that was *exactly* the problem: because it was true. Not that there was a separate other world of fame and success that HJ was part of and I was not, but that the world didn't feel all that separate. He was very familiar with the audience, but he felt very familiar to me. He strongly reminded me of Charles, my wildly outgoing actor acquaintance (who, I think, shares a bit of that exhibitionist streak with HJ), and the last guy I slept with before my partner (yikes, a long time ago now!), and my very first childhood romance, when I was 12 and he was 17. He never reminded me of someone I didn't know. In fact, in the end, who he most reminded me of was...me.
(Yes, I know I in no way resemble Hugh Jackman, in objective reality. I'm exploring ideas. Go with it. But hey, there are a couple similarities: we're the same age, and we've both spent time in life-size furry suits for very little money - me, Chip at Disneyland, him, as a giant panda for reasons unknown.)
Now I realize that may be the hallmark of a great showman, the winking conspiratorial grin. Didn't I say earlier that good art is about inclusion, about creating community? Art is supposed to explore possibilities, open doors, make you feel emotions you didn't know were possible. As Alan Arkin says in his excellent autobiography, it's like a hypodermic shot that fills you up with possibility, vision - expands you as a human. It doesn't last, this effect art has on the audience, and the best way to keep it going, to find it again, is to create art yourself. Not to listen to the music, or even make the music, but BE the music.
And I do this. I mean, I am not a famous sexy performer, but as anyone who knows me knows, I am famous at my company (semi), and the center of the M___ House community (small but hardy, and very meaningful for the people who are in it). I'm known in the circles I perform and live in (whether it's the uke in the living room or the presentations I do for hundreds of employees) for being the person who is most willing to be herself, to let it all out, and yet entertain and amuse and, if possible, elevate while doing so. It seems like how can that be so, but evidence points to it, and I guess I have to believe it.
So, I think I was disturbed, because - as with my revelations prompted by Logan - I was staring straight at the inevitability of my success, which is often scary and certainly difficult to accept. My work, these days, is wildly successful - I am always in the room with bigger dogs than me, managing up. My artistic endeavors also seem to be going well (my partner just told me he thinks my last song was better than Dylan, high praise indeed!). I've been feeling myself expand these days, and in the last couple months have had this complete change from the rest of my life which is almost impossible to describe but basically is this: I finally feel like I am present in my own life, that the reality I create around me is what actually is, and not incidental but central.
I used to look at my life, with all its facts: yes, I've performed at Yoshi's three times. Yes, I've been to Europe many times. Yes, I spoke a little Arabic in Egypt. Yes, the people at my work have honored me extensively over the years. Yes, people come to when they need a person to really listen, and to give sage advice. Yes, my songs have made at least one person cry. But it all always seemed....accidental, luck, tenuous, precarious. Not like how I imagined other people when I heard then talk about stock options and years of season opera tickets. "It's not what you think," I'd say. Yes, I have done those things, but I am not like those other people that do those things. I am lesser. I mean, I know me, so I know how lesser I am.
But, as my therapist (I went back last month, after an 8 year hiatus) said, "Everyone feels that way. The most successful people I know feel that they are going to someone be found out. But you won't be. Because you are actually doing it. You really are who you are."
It's summed up, even better than my therapist can say it, by the famous Nelson Mandela quote:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us: it's in everyone. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Exactly. What I felt, sitting there watching Hugh Jackman perform was kinship, not worship. And that's a lot harder to walk out of the theater with. In some ways, every great performance is a call to action, but in this case, it wasn't that HJ was reminding me of what I should be doing (which is how great performances, great performers, great artists usually make me feel) but that he was reminding me that I am, in fact, already doing it - in my own way, of course, on my scale.
So, I have a lot to thank Hugh Jackman for. And, if you're reading this, thank you too. This blog is, as my friend E said once, "deeply personal" so I wonder if I should have told this story. But why not? That's what it should be, right? How else can you connect unless you allow yourself to BE who you are, without shame, and with abandon. Because maybe someone will read this - even if it's just one person, even if it's just me, later in my life when I've momentarily been brought down by circumstances and need some perspective - then I'll have given back, played the Hugh Jackman role, shining out a little bit of light, clarifying a few things, and maybe, just maybe, inspiring someone to be a little bit *more* than they were capable of being before.
So, ultimately my review is this: most people just enjoyed HJ shaking his booty, belting out those big Broadway notes, and laughing at his charming stories. But me, I was deeply grateful, once again, to a man I don't know, for giving out a bit of himself, and making me a better person for it. I can't say you'll have the same experience if you catch the show....but you never know.
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