What’s The Why?

What was the moment when you knew you must follow your dream? What triggered it? We all have those times in our life that a crossroad is laid before us. Do you continue straight? Left? Right? Back? Hopefully you always chose forward.

Desire meets opportunity

In the 10th grade, I was a less than average student, a less than average gangly athlete, not having any plan. Then my English teacher recommended me to the Drama teacher to replace someone in the school play. (what in the hell was a high school in Southern Maryland doing with a Drama teacher?) Evidently I had been clowning around in English class when we read Shakespeare. I knew absolutely nothing about acting. But my first stage appearance was in “Our Town” as Howie Newsome, the milkman. My New England accent was somewhere between Alaska and Tallahassee, but it worked OK. I had fun. I was right where I needed to be. WE ALL ARE RIGHT WHERE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE. EVERYDAY.

My Drama teacher was a dominant, by the book, stickler of detail instructor of the deliberate kind. And I was grateful for it. She was teaching Stanislavsky in HIGH SCHOOL! WHAT? When you look back at events in your life, you realize that moment was meant just for YOU.

This is it

After jumping in head first, as always, it was on. I was in every production. In my junior year, while performing in “Alice in Wonderland”, I KNEW this was my path. Was it the attention? The applause? I just knew, visceraly , I HAD to pursue this. Not “Oh, I’ll dabble in this a while”, or “This is a cute hobby”. No. An artist KNOWS THEY HAVE TO. It’s like a beam of energy surging to you and through you. It’s source energy from the Universe. I can’t explain it any better. My parents wanted me to be an Insurance agent.

I didn’t have a WHY for insurance.