Archive for the 'Creativity & Edges' Category

Do you remember the first time you realized that everything is connected to everything else? For me, it was first semester of freshman year at Macalester College. I was shocked to discover that each of my classes, disparate as they were (Theatre With a Global Perspective, The Biology of Conservation) kept on resonating with each other. It became a game each semester to notice what themes were emerging across all my classes.

This weekend the theme of Sacred Stories rose up out of the disparate activities of my weekend. On Saturday I attended The Sacred Story Project: Messages to the World. What a sweet workshop offered by Cynthia Winton-Henry, founder of InterPlay. We spent the day telling stories about experiences infused with love and experiences that suck (thanks, Cynthia, for keeping it real!). We were searching for the stories from our lives that we want to tell over and over.

I was in kind of a bad mood on Saturday, so I had a hard time accessing stories that felt nourishing. I kept on thinking about the stories that I DO tell over and over which I’m TIRED of telling. Stories of pain, abandonment, disconnection, dysfunction. Going to therapy seems all about retelling my pain stories over and over. And even in my academic coaching work, although I often ask my clients, “What went well this week?,” we seem to dwell even more on the question, “What didn’t go well, why, and how can we fix it?”

At the Sacred Stories workshop, it occurred to me that I want to start harvesting all the joy stories from my life. There are so many of them! I want to mine my own life for the joy stories, and I want to hear my friends’ stories as well. You can bet that tomorrow at Tuesday Night InterPlay (which also happens to be my birthday!) we will be playing dancing, singing and telling our joy stories. And I’m so curious about my academic coaching clients as well. When was the last time I asked them about what their most joyful moment last week was? I wonder if any of them will tell stories of experiences in the classroom, with teachers, learning?! I hope so. And if not, I hope to start directing their attention towards those small moments of joy in learning.

As I remember my little “game” that I played each semester back at Macalester, I realize how joyful it felt when I discovered a new theme emerging among my classes. Aha!! I’d feel. Look at this revelation I’ve uncovered!! Through my InterPlay teaching and my academic coaching, I hope to help myself and my companions continue noticing their own joy moments and turning them into stories for safe keeping. (By the way, this doesn’t mean we won’t also keep talking about what sucks. Sometimes that’s soooo necessary and empowering! I’m just looking to create some balance…).

Shoot! This blog entry got so long, I didn’t get to tell you about the OTHER event this weekend that was all about claiming the sacred stories in our lives: I went to the Berkeley Rep to see How To Write a New Book for the Bible. I won’t say more, other than that I highly recommend it!

OK, if you’re one of my teen coaching clients, don’t read this. My image as Perfect Adult With No Bad Habits will be forever destroyed.

I just frittered away 2 hours on the computer designing a t-shirt on Cafe Press while IM’ing with a friend on Facebook (see, dear clients, you are not the only ones to give in to the Technology Twitch). I just got sucked into the computer. And I was supposed to be creating a piece of art, because it’s Art Every Day Month.

So I guess I’ll just have to consider the t-shirt my art-for-the-day.

The inspiration to design the t-shirt hit me while I was writing an email to my friends and family. It’s kinda long, but since it’s relevant I’ll quote it here:

As some of you know, two weeks from now my Tuesday Night InterPlay class is performing for the first time. This is also MY DEBUT leading an InterPlay performance. I’m getting nervous and excited, and just yesterday I realized what a *special* event this is for me.

See, I’ve always been a theatre person without a vision (or so I thought). I went to a Performing Arts high school (kinda like the TV show Fame!) where my theatre teacher told me I didn’t have the “spark” of a professional actress; I then minored in theatre in college, where I longed to be a director but felt I had “nothing to say.” This led to a stint in India studying Indian performance (if you can’t do it, might as well study it, which depressed me because I felt so disconnected), and a job at a theatre company writing/directing educational mini-dramas (which was actually pretty cool because I loved teaching). When I decided to become a teacher, I left it all behind…

…until InterPlay came along. InterPlay has slowly been giving me back my artist self. During my first untensive, I reclaimed my authority as a storyteller. Then others started calling me a dancer (and I’m slowly embracing that, too). Two years ago I got to go BACK to India with InterPlayers (which felt like a beautiful coming-full-circle). Since I’ve been teaching the performance class, I’ve been feeling like a director again.

And guess what — I have something to SAY now. I get to say to my InterPlay students, “Be your biggest, fullest, most expressive, most luscious selves!! Be you! Be art! Be seen!”

As soon as I hit “send” on this email, I realized: I wanted a Tuesday Night InterPlay T-shirt to wear during my directorial debut. And so I designed the ones pictured above. The small print on the back is a little racy, and I’m a bit shy to wear it. (Interplayers often seem so sweet and pure at first glance; dare I sport a swear word?!).

We’ll find out come Tuesday… And if you’re local and want to read the fine print on my t-shirt yourself, come to the performance! Here are the details: