It’s June, I just got back from my honeymoon, and, well, I’m just happy and relaxed and super content.
Coming back to “real life” is both exciting and jarring since after a time of so much blissful rest, it can be tough to recalibrate.
Melissa and I were talking about this today, and she mentioned how we all tend to compartmentalize our lives: work, play, creativity, rest, spirituality, etc. all get relegated to separate places like on a high school cafeteria tray.
Then I thought…what if we were more intentional about getting these different areas of our lives to touch? To extend the cafeteria tray metaphor, I hope you aren’t offended by touching food. As my mom used to say, “It all goes to the same place.”
And it should all go to the same place.
Let’s take a second to think about how this can apply in our lives as creative people/performers. What if we let our creative natures influence the places in our lives that often get pushed to the mundane category? Washing dishes, paying bills, going to your day job.
Not only can we let creativity enter these areas; I think we can also let rest and relaxation enter in. You don’t have to be on a vacation to experience rest. You can wash a dish with a bad attitude, or you can be thankful for hot running water, soap, the food you just ate off that plate, and the roof that’s over your head as you wash the dish.
Get my point? As actors, we think that the work we do gets to happen only when we are in rehearsal, on stage, or at an audition. Not true. Our work is all the time because when we get to the rehearsal hall and then the stage, what we have is the everyday experience to draw from. If we walk through life asleep to the richness of everything, then we miss the opportunity to bring that rich life to the stage when we get the chance.
I think we need to decide to look at the world with a childlike wonder, and whether or not we feel like it or believe it, just say wow.
Now go listen to Louis Armstrong sing “What a Wonderful World,” and when you wash a dish today, pay attention to how cool soap bubbles really are and say a quiet thank you for hot running water.
Have a great June everybody!
