August 16. 2006

Hello people,

Whew, peace & quiet again. If you live in Toronto and are the child of West Indian parents, the entire period surrounding Caribana can only be described as sheer craziness. It's a hoot having relatives visit from all over the place and we always laugh and eat way too much, but for awhile it's hard to recall the sound of silence! Speaking of sheer craziness, what in the world is going on around this planet? It burns my eyes to watch the news, but after seeing the incredible commitment and love for humanity that I witnessed at the opening of the AIDS conference on Sunday night, I can hear hope whisper. When you see people who look the same killing each other, and then are under the same roof with 25,000 from every corner of the earth who only want to hold and help each other, it speaks to the promise... the prayer... the possibilities.

I experienced one of those thunderstorms I spoke of in the last newsletter this spring when I lost my job, which hurt tremendously but did provide one of those "Okay, what now?" flashes of lightning that are so very important. I decided to further immerse myself in something that has become soul food for me this year, and I went back to school part-time. I'm studying Theatrical Performance and I swear to God, it feels like slipping into my most comfy slippers. I love it, but it's tiring! A lot of physical energy expended but so much emotional energy too, which is fantastic because I've definitely needed somewhere to put it all. At our very first class, we had to choose monologues to present the following week. Naturally, a lot of people were a bit nervous so they chose pretty short, safe pieces that they thought they could get through without having to delve too deep right off the bat. But of course, I wanted the exact opposite. =) So in Week Two amidst a slew of nice little monologues, I walk demurely to front of the class and launch into a diatribe as Claudia, the character played by Barbra Streisand in the film NUTS. It felt sooooo good. I swear I could feel electricity running up and down me and it was wild. About halfway through it I had one of those "lightbulb moments" that Oprah talks about. It was like "Yeah, I should be doing this. I should be doing this." As much as I've always believed it subconsciously, it still hadn't lived at surface level before that instant. For so, so long I'd believed that absolutely nothing in the world could ever inspire me, move me or surprise me the way that making music does. But the work I've done in theatre this year has been truly transformative. I could've done The Vagina Monologues for a month and been completely content.

A couple of days after the NUTS piece I got a call at home from the program coordinator, who has also been an acting professor for thirty years. I figured she wanted to give me some tips on how to make it better for the second go-round, since we were to do our pieces at the beginning of the course and then again at the end to see how they (and we) had evolved. Instead, she told me she was giving me a different monologue for the second presentation. So I said "Um, why? Was there something wrong with the first one?" And she said "No, that's just it. You're good. You got it. I want to see what you can do with something else now." I thanked her, put down the phone and involuntarily began this strange blend of laughing and sobbing that I can't quite put into words except to say that I probably looked a tad insane at the time. That was another flash of lightning for me. The only thought in my head at that second was "I love acting. I LOVE it", and I could feel the distinction between "like" and "love" in my gut when I thought it. I like graphic design. I like interior decorating. But music and acting... I love. Then last week, one of my co-directors from the Monologues told me about this intensive Acting programme at The Players' Academy and encouraged me to audition. She called me "the real deal" and once again my eyes welled up. Nothing in my life has ever felt as natural to me as singing and writing (well, nothing suitable for a PG newsletter =) - except for this. The realization was so crystal clear. "This is as much me as that is." It was huge, one of those moments that's superquiet and superloud at the same time.

Thanks to the lovely Kirsten Jones for having me join her to provide impromptu harmony vocals on a couple of tunes at her show on Saturday night. There are few things more fun than ending up on stage when you had no idea you were going to! It may seem as though not much is happening with me on the musical front, but that couldn't be further from the truth. There are SO many new songs and it's exciting but overwhelming. I feel like I'm really chronicling my experiences and my observations as they happen and capturing this period of my life well - thunderstorms and all. Luckily, I now have two umbrellas.

Yours, Tanisha