🎧 Listen to the audio version of the email here.
I gotta tell you: here in the northeastern United States (especially Massachusetts?) parents are infected with a special kind of extracurricular activity panic.
“So, what are your boys doing? Are they playing soccer? Are they in basketball or lacrosse this season? Are they doing flag football? Jujitsu? What instruments are they learning? Language immersion? Oh, they’re so lucky. Bobby’s hockey team has an 8:30 AM Sunday morning ice time. We have to be there at 7.”
I was reviewing the notes from Nugget #1’s last pediatrician visit, and I saw that the NP had marked down that he wasn’t involved in any structured activities at the time, and I felt a twinge of guilt.
I mean seriously. We’re just trying to keep the boys fed, make sure nobody breaks a window, and keep the bathrooms reasonably clean.
Nugget #1 was also telling us last summer that he was interested in playing flag football. We were pretty sure we’d missed the deadline for signup because we’d been traveling. (You also have to plop down several hundred dollars per child for the privilege of playing a sport in our particular town.) I’m sure there were equipment fees when I played Little League baseball, but I’m pretty positive my Mama and Deddy weren’t needing to climb on top of the bar stool to pull some hidden C-notes out of Grandma’s ceramic bowl so I could do some prime daydreaming in right field. (I actually really enjoyed baseball.)
But Little League football? Nope.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
You will not be surprised to hear that my boys were quite astounded that I actually played football. Twice.
I played a few years in Little League and then I played one year of varsity football in high school.
I ate well and wore husky jeans; therefore: “Callaway, you oughta play football.”
And my dad thought so as well.
Growing up as a little boy in the South and preferring to pick clover flowers and do cartwheels in the outfield rather than razzing the batter comes with a lot of social challenges.
I think my dad was afraid of what I might face, too. He didn’t land upon a growth spurt until ninth grade; his boyhood was filled with daily bullying and fighting back. Folks wax nostalgic about the good old days, but they seem to forget kids wuz mean, and violence was valued. You don’t have to look far to see how that’s still very baked into American culture.
Dad was trying to teach me how to throw a solid punch when I was in seventh grade and going through some intense bullying — like diarrhea every second period kind of stuff. My pre-algebra teacher didn’t even bother with the hall pass after a while.
I had the punch mechanics down and everything, but then I cried, “But Daddy, that will hurt them,” to which he shouted, “I know, son! That’s the whole point!”
So, football wasn’t my jam. As soon as the pads and helmet went on, I was in misery town.
While the boys were questioning me about my surprising history with the pigskin, I told them that their Pops basically forced me to play.
“WHAAAAT???” Nugget #2 said.
“He MADE you play?”
“Yes,” I answered. “He thought I needed to toughen up. He thought I needed to know that I could knock somebody over.”
Nugget #2, still incredulous, said, “Why didn’t he just let you be you?”
And even as I report back to you on that moment, tears come to my eyes.
A a big part of me understands my dad’s rationale. I’m even grateful he made me play. There’ve been situations when knowing that I could take a hit and could knock somebody over was important evidence.
But to hear our younger boy live so squarely in the given — that a parent could notice a child’s nature and make a space for that to thrive — even now that’s bringing up some things I want to breathe through.
Our boys’ response healed something in me that night.
“Daddy, are you crying?”
“Yes, buddy, I am”.
His question cracked a hard shell inside me. And I looked back on that kid in fifth grade, took off his football helmet, and hugged and smelled his sweaty head.
Like all things in life, it’s a big mixture. Dad would take me to the Square Pharmacy after football practice, and he’d buy me a vanilla milkshake (like a proper old-school milkshake made it to the counter). He taught me about Motown and protest rock in his rattly work van (he’d been a professional rock drummer for several years and missed it deeply). He gave a lot of time in the way he could.
And when I decided I wanted to major in something as sure-bet as musical theater at a small liberal arts college in North Carolina, he was in my corner.
Later on, I’d get to play the role of Jim Taylor in the play Lombardi, and my football experience came in handy.
We ran full-contact drills and plays in the space, which was great for the production; I was excited to run some drills and finally enjoy myself with football. I still didn’t like it. At one rehearsal, the actor playing Coach took a little too long to blow the whistle on a drill, and I might have erupted with a few expletives to stop already.
My nature as a clover picker cartwheel turner is confirmed.
Last week I wrote about how actors and storytellers feel this pressure to contain themselves in a very understandable cubbyhole. We call it type or branding.
At the same time, actors are told that you should be able to belt a high Q-flat, knock out a triple pirouette with ease, and master 37 dialects. Also, wail Janis Joplin followed by “Quando m’en vo” from La Bohème.
Be a defined brand and also be able to do everything. That’s not stressful.
I just want to offer you the words of our very wise Nugget #2: “What if you let you be you?”
Um, how?
I know. I actually have a practical method for you to try.
And I don’t offer this like many of the platitudes that often get flung at training storytellers. Some of my favorites are “Just stop overthinking!” “Relax,” or “You have to just get out of your own way.”
I invite you to run an experiment with these two words: “I want.”
These are two very tricky syllables. My dad wanted me to play football. My deep desire to walk off the practice field, throw my shoulder pads on the gravel driveway, and go flip on the playground bars did not appear to be an option to 11-year-old me.
It happens this way. Right now, I’m doing what my dad wants me to do. What I want to do is not available to me, so I’ll turn off my wanter. Which means I’ll cut off my access to the emotion of wanting.
Then I become an adult, and someone says, “Where do you want to get dinner?”
“Wherever you want to get dinner.”
“What kind of music do you want to listen to?”
“You pick.”
“Where do you want the sofa to go?”
“You decide.”
And we wonder why actors struggle so much with trying to figure out what the table people want in an audition, what the audience wants when they actually have a job, or what all the imaginary people who might be watching the Instagram reel want when they make up the funny parody song that might have delighted them just a little bit.
So, here’s the step. You don’t even have to know what you want. I still don’t a lot of the time.
You can just say to yourself, “I wonder what I might want. And I wonder what wanting might feel like.”
Some of us were taught that wanting was dangerous, that we couldn’t trust what we wanted. And there can be wisdom in that. (Basically the whole plot of Into the Woods, right?)
Often, the things we think we want are so much cookie dough and cotton candy sitting on top of a whole lot of things underneath that would truly satisfy. But I’m not going to know what those things are unless I gently excavate through the simple carbohydrates and Instagram hearts.
And your tool is very precise and very easy to use.
It’s just the words: “I wonder.”
Wonder is of the heart. Run a quick experiment. If you say, “I’m curious about this,” see where your energy focuses itself. For me, it’s my head-brain. If I say, “I wonder what that’s about,” I feel the question move to my heart. There’s a lot of wisdom there where all your brains can collaborate.
So, I invite you into that. I wonder how hot I’d like the water to be to wash these dishes. (Wow, hot running water.) I wonder what temperature I’d like to set the heat. (Whoa, thanks heat.) I wonder what pair of socks might feel fun on my feet. (How nice to have socks.)
Let me know how it goes. I’ll update you on my end too.
This will easily translate over into… I wonder what kind of song I want to sing. I wonder what kind of story I want to tell. I wonder what kind of artist I want to be.
I’m a huge fan of wonder.
I wonder what you will discover.
One thing I don’t wonder about? That there’s only one you, and somebody would love to hear the story only you can sing. You are an objective wonder of inimitability and multiplicity.
Love much,
Dan
PS I wonder how you’ll grow, demystify, and discover your voice and point of view when you join us in the Voice Map community and library. Ask me anything at our Q&A sessions. Get the full Voice Map course that teaches you all about the systems of your voice and how they work together, and access to the library, tools, and community. It’s a terrific, accessible, and affordable place where you can build your voice and shore up your confidence and skill. I hope you’ll find a safe zone where you can do plenty of wholehearted wondering. Check it out here.
PPS I was today years old when I fully understood the joke in “Adelaide’s Lament” when she says, “Shows a neurotic tendency (See note.) See note? Oooooh, See note.”
