Being an Audience Member of Life
It's SHOWCASE season here in Perth!
And I've been burning my sympathetic candle seeing the dancers, actors, performers and musicians finish their year with a bang.
I love working with these young adults.
The conversations they are willing to have about their nervous system, anxiety, sex, self pleasure, drugs... and bowel movements... is refreshing.
These youngsters are fun, courageous, and have so much passion and creative flair it's insanely satisfying to bear witness to their maturation.
Being an audience member brings me so much joy.
Watching students in their final showcase, or in their debut role with a company, when they are finding their 'voice' with a new work, or when they move onto the BIG arena, as is happening for many of my peers producing work for international festivals.
But all this watching has got me reflecting on how I often feel like an audience member to the lives of those around me, particularly my children's lives, and to my own life.
Having children - if you have them, or have been one, or are still one ;) - as you will know is a rollercoaster ride. Having teens can feel like something else entirely, maybe like trying to drink too hot tea while skateboarding down the side of an active volcano?!
Sometimes I'm a backseat witness to the humour, chaos and detours, sometimes I'm in on the laughs, and sometimes I'm a reluctant participant blindly guided round in circles by my high octane sloth.
The teenager living in my house right now is so classically a teen. Having experienced the difficulty of getting him to shower and brush his hair more than once a month as a child, he now showers 2 x a day and spends much time fussing over tendrils of hair that are "doing his head in"
And while he creates fabric mountains in his room, he is also the first person to have a load of washing on and hung out!
Most of the time he is surgically attached to his newest evolutionary organ - his phone - and is messaging while doing his homework, checking Paddy Mill's shot stats, and blaring illegible music.
But others days he's playing golf, op shopping, at the beach, building a website, cooking up a 3 course meal with his mates, and giving us endless renditions of the latest tic toc memes.
A few months ago it was a challenge to prize him out of bed. Now he's at they gym at 5:30am and waking us up with the Thermomix turning oats, berries and eggs into breakfast.
There is never a dull moment. But we certainly see him a lot less these days and I am finding myself ever more a witness to his life rather than a player in it.
But how much I am really a player in my own life?!
Sometimes I feel as though I'm gallantly steering my ship with total precision, other times I think I'm just looking out the long windows of a high speed train and maybe I bought a ticket to a destination or maybe I just hoped on a random train?!
As someone who leans toward evolutionary biology, I'm one of those annoying humans who is not sure free will exists, but over the years I have also found genuine comfort in these ideas too.
Realising that I am truely not in control of this thing and that while I can get busy making things happen, and I can put a stop to things that are silly, I also know that sometimes all I can do is sit back, bare witness and open my heart to the wonderful and awful things unfolding.
Feldenkrais has taught me so much about turning up to my life as me - embracing this genetic blueprint, this body, this personality, this passion, this feeling, this breath.
But I have also come across other wonderful humans who have supported me in finding peace with myself and with this life and I wanted to pass on a book that I recommend to my clients and my arts students.
I was introduced to this book by the wonderful Sharon, Anne and Michael who are the Courage and Renewal facilitators in WA.
The book is called
Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer
and it is a small treasure!
10 years later its words still guide me.
His offerings on 'Way opening' and 'Way closing' marry beautifully with following my somatic sense of Yes and No, using my body to think and make decisions, but here Parker puts forward the even bigger Yes and No. The Yes and No of the world and the universe.
What's so lovely about this gift is realising there are things that will happen and things that won't, and that I don't need to push, or try, or force because my life will become a "story that makes sense" (David Whyte) without effort by me.
And if I pause and listen deeply I can hear life telling "me what it intends to do with me" and when I really listen, the bossy anxious voice telling life "what I intend to do with it" is slowly soothed with calm clarity.
If you are looking for some support in how to feel settled and content in your own life, or your looking for guidance on how to choose the next path, I can not recommend this book enough.
I would lend you my copy, but I have given mine away so many times it has flown the nest completely.
On that note if you have a book of mine, now is the time to send it back my way! ;)