You know one thing I love? I love when you’re doing something you love to do, minding your own business, and life throws you a ball and says Here! Come do it more of it over here! And I’ll even send some money your way while I’m at it.
I love to sing. Like really really love to sing. I sing all the time, but it’s not for any purpose other than my own joy. My daughter Luciana, who’s almost 12, also loves to sing. She takes lessons from our piano teacher, and before her upcoming recital our teacher asked if I would work with Luciana on the acting part of the song—to help Luciana shake up some habits we all fall into. I said YES and Luciana said YES (which touched me so much because accepting help from your mom when one is a tween is not always the go-to). When we worked I got to use a lot of the tools I use when I’m preparing an audition, when I’m in rehearsal, when I want to keep exploring a role while I’m performing. Luciana drank it all in, and her presence in the song changed A LOT.
The next time our teacher came over and heard the song she got really excited and asked if I would work with another one of her students who has an incredible voice and completely freezes up in her body when she sings.
It was a big fat YES for me, and I didn’t even know why. I’ve never had any desire to teach acting. I have so many friends who are so good at that, I’m happy to refer people to them, and it just never called to me. But when this offer came up I said Yes before I could even think about why I was responding that way. I got to work with this girl twice this week, before she auditions for a play on Monday. I had tons of ideas pulled from my decades as an actress, my years as a yoga teacher, my stint as a coach, and my deep love of singing. We played with a whole bunch of things, and while we worked I saw such a change: her face opened up, her eyes told a story, her voice found all kinds of levels. I saw her leaning into the music rather than actually physically pulling back. I also saw the struggle it can be to know what we have inside and not know how to let it out, or even if we should.
I am so touched by girls this age. Luciana and I went to see Are You There, God, It’s Me Margaret recently (she hasn’t read the book yet which I think I read 5 times at her age) and I had a rush while I was watching that movie of how blessed I feel to get to mother a girl through tween-hood. It’s such a beautiful time. It can be such a hard time. For me it was such a painful time. So I knew that however I worked with my student this week my primary intention was to love her. And in being a presence of love, to be someone that could help her awaken to her own power and magic. It’s not about how she moves a hand or chooses to walk or stand still—-we can tweak all that when and if we choose—but at this beginning stage I wanted to help her connect to the knowledge that she already has everything she needs. She just gets to play with how she wants to express it, and allow herself to be surprised by the flow of her own creativity.
So. There I was, singing and supporting my daughter and being open to any and all ways Creativity wants to move through me and I got a chance to do this. I felt like I was being of service, I felt I got to strengthen for myself powerful lessons—that’s what happens when we coach someone else in them—-I felt I got to work in another facet of the creative field I love so much. Thank you, Life. I welcome more.