For the most part, I don't think about myself as someone who has much talent of any kind (in my chosen field or in any other). Once upon a time, this attitude was a product of true self-loathing but nowadays it's usually born of the awareness of the truly talented people I know - I know amazingly talented people, and enjoy the talent of lots of people I don't know. Once you've met and experienced real talent, it's impossible to call your own feeble motions anything grand or successful. Even when my sweet husband says "You're amazing" to me, I tend to shrug it off, because I'm well aware I am pretty ordinary.
But.
I actually do have a talent, one I forget about until exactly the right combination of factors comes together. I can take a handful of leftover ingredients, mix it with a few staples, and without using a recipe, I can make tremendously tasty meals. Outrageously tasty. The one downside is that they can only rarely be duplicated, because their creation is utterly spontaneous.
Of course I want to lead up to what I made tonight. It was spectacular. Let's leave aside the fact that I made homemade strawberry ice cream, because I did use a recipe for that and I made it because I got an entire flat of strawberries (8 lbs) for $0.49. That's a ton of strawberries. I may have to make pancakes in the morning to make this worth my while.
BUT that isn't what I made. I had a bag of grainy/orzoy/couscousy mixed goodness (trader joe's - it's really tasty no matter what you dump in with it), cooked that up (using chicken stock, thank you very much), roasted grape tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and tofu slices in a lemon juice/olive oil marinade I just made up, tossed that all in with the mixed grains and some feta cheese, drizzled the whole thing with more lemon juice, and....it was excellent. I was impressed in spite of myself.
It doesn't hurt that the strawberry ice cream also turned out so creamy and delicious. Y'all - I'm not a food genius, but give me a handful of ingredients that go together and a half of an idea and you will get a great dinner out of it. It only really works when my back is against the wall and I have to combine foodstuffs before they go bad and have to be tossed out. But when it works, it really works.
Come for dinner sometime - you'll see.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
Perspective
So, most of the time, when you audition for something, you have no way of knowing what the people in the room think about your audition, unless you get cast. And even then (not that they would cast someone they don't think can do a role), you don't know the details of what they think - were you good at one thing and not another but they're willing to risk it? Did you happen to complement someone they already cast? Were you really really close to being chosen but some tiny sticking point forced them to make another choice?
You just don't know.
It was completely fascinating, therefore, to do an audition recently where I had a dependable mole in the room. First, my audition was late in the evening, so I heard a lot of the auditioning going on beforehand. A lot of it was shouty, which made me question my approach. My approach to this character was a woman intensely in control, and hearing all that emotion come through the wall, I doubted myself. Was I underplaying it? Was I choosing small, less interesting emotional journeys?
Still, I stuck to my guns and tried to stay true to the text and the moments. I enjoyed it all hugely. I tried to keep her control in place, to fight the way I thought she would fight, to genuinely react to the characters around me. When asked to try scenes again, I changed what I was doing to prove I had more than one thought in my head.
It seemed to go well but I couldn't be sure.
My mole told me it was far and away clear to everyone in the room that I was ideal for this role. That I just was her. Now, for various reasons (some political), I won't get this role. I can handle that so much better knowing I did a great job, knowing that for an hour at least, I really was her.
And it sounds as if this whole story is about ego - yay, I was good! Hooray! Of course that plays into it - I love acting, I love this play, I want to be good at it, but there are two things so much more gratifying at work here for me.
One, maybe I can finally start trusting myself. My instincts won't work for every project and every role, but I really felt I had a handle on this woman, that I knew who she was, and that knowledge was more constructive than all the emoting and yelling coming through the walls. Knowledge trumps fervor in most cases. I've definitely auditioned for plays where I didn't feel comfortable with the role or have a handle on who that person was, and that shows.
Two, just because I don't get cast doesn't mean I don't have talent. The stars really have to line up perfectly to give you the chances, and even this time they did not. I have to trust that down the line, something else will come up and I can prepare and knock it out of the park and I'll be in the perfect place to make it happen. It does break my heart just a little that I had such a good audition and that I love the play and that it would be such a great opportunity but that circumstances just do not allow me to do it. BUT I have to trust the larger universe. There are always more plays. There are always more chances. I have to keep getting better and showing up with the same level of confidence in my work. I can't get thrown by the no's anymore, because I'm learning they may not necessarily mean "no". They may mean, not right now, not opposite this person, not with this company.
It may be obvious, but the above is entirely for me. Someday soon I will be feeling low, and will have been rejected from something, and will feel it means I can never do this. I need to leaf back and remember that I can, and that more chances will come my way. The stars are moving all the time - you never know when they will line up directly over your head and shower you with everything you want.
In the meantime, I really enjoyed that audition. I hope I can enjoy them all that much.
You just don't know.
It was completely fascinating, therefore, to do an audition recently where I had a dependable mole in the room. First, my audition was late in the evening, so I heard a lot of the auditioning going on beforehand. A lot of it was shouty, which made me question my approach. My approach to this character was a woman intensely in control, and hearing all that emotion come through the wall, I doubted myself. Was I underplaying it? Was I choosing small, less interesting emotional journeys?
Still, I stuck to my guns and tried to stay true to the text and the moments. I enjoyed it all hugely. I tried to keep her control in place, to fight the way I thought she would fight, to genuinely react to the characters around me. When asked to try scenes again, I changed what I was doing to prove I had more than one thought in my head.
It seemed to go well but I couldn't be sure.
My mole told me it was far and away clear to everyone in the room that I was ideal for this role. That I just was her. Now, for various reasons (some political), I won't get this role. I can handle that so much better knowing I did a great job, knowing that for an hour at least, I really was her.
And it sounds as if this whole story is about ego - yay, I was good! Hooray! Of course that plays into it - I love acting, I love this play, I want to be good at it, but there are two things so much more gratifying at work here for me.
One, maybe I can finally start trusting myself. My instincts won't work for every project and every role, but I really felt I had a handle on this woman, that I knew who she was, and that knowledge was more constructive than all the emoting and yelling coming through the walls. Knowledge trumps fervor in most cases. I've definitely auditioned for plays where I didn't feel comfortable with the role or have a handle on who that person was, and that shows.
Two, just because I don't get cast doesn't mean I don't have talent. The stars really have to line up perfectly to give you the chances, and even this time they did not. I have to trust that down the line, something else will come up and I can prepare and knock it out of the park and I'll be in the perfect place to make it happen. It does break my heart just a little that I had such a good audition and that I love the play and that it would be such a great opportunity but that circumstances just do not allow me to do it. BUT I have to trust the larger universe. There are always more plays. There are always more chances. I have to keep getting better and showing up with the same level of confidence in my work. I can't get thrown by the no's anymore, because I'm learning they may not necessarily mean "no". They may mean, not right now, not opposite this person, not with this company.
It may be obvious, but the above is entirely for me. Someday soon I will be feeling low, and will have been rejected from something, and will feel it means I can never do this. I need to leaf back and remember that I can, and that more chances will come my way. The stars are moving all the time - you never know when they will line up directly over your head and shower you with everything you want.
In the meantime, I really enjoyed that audition. I hope I can enjoy them all that much.
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