My voice class in particular has been a shit show lately. I guess I take it for granted the understanding that the way you direct your body, movement, and voice has a profound impact on various things that come up for you psychologically. Mind-body connection and all that. It's not "woo-woo," as one of my rehab's yoginis would say; it's actually science. You change your physicality; you change your thinking. You speak from a deeper place physically; you speak from a deeper place emotionally.
OH GOD NO.
So we do exercises, you know, to foster this kind of progress. And it's a small class. You can't bullshit anything for more than five minutes without the professor coming over and literally forcing you to do it right. "[AJ], you're super flexible. Make the stretch deeper." Fuck you. If I make the stretch deeper, I start to tremor, and then a few seconds after that I get all teary and I want to throw something. And everyone else in this damn class is making fucking guttural noises and getting all deep and shit. I don't want to stretch and holler. I want to write a fucking fifteen-page term paper with a full annotated bibliography, 100 sources. That is so much safer.
So I shouted, one day, as everyone else was belting out a Shakespearean sonnet independently, and my voice was indistinguishable from the rest of the cacophony about me: "I'M CHANGING MY FUCKING MAJOR!"
Immediately. Tears started to flow. I didn't even feel a lump in my throat. I didn't feel my eyes sting. But there they were, marbles of salt water rolling down my cheeks. I turned to face the wall. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
People cry in voice class all the time. Because that's what happens. Shit comes up that you didn't even know you had in you. But I -- I don't cry in voice class. AJ does not cry. AJ is a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside of an enigma and you would be a fool to try to ask her how anything makes her feel.
And my heart was breaking, right here in voice class, because for the first time I was seriously entertaining the notion of switching majors. It wasn't as though I hadn't threatened to before. But in the past, these threats had been similar to those of the idiots who say they're moving to Canada every time the nation elects a politician they don't like. You know their frustration is real, but you also know they won't be relocating to a new country any time soon.
Now it was different. Now, I thought, oh my God. I can't survive in this fucking class. Look at what it's doing to me. Even anorexia-induced numbness can't grant me complete solace.
But I didn't want to switch my major. I kept telling myself -- "it's not the right decision, but it might be the only decision." And that scared me. And I cried when I got home, and I stared at my wall and I cried some more. And I looked at the clock after a couple hours and realized I needed to head back to campus for acting class. Next to eating, it was one of the last things I felt like doing.
I did, though, because even amid all these threats to switch my major, acting -- "doing the work" -- is the only thing that ever takes me out of myself and away from these emotions. It's become a necessity. I need to absorb every fictional detail; completely immerse myself in whatever alternate universe the director gives me. And my craftsmanship has benefitted from it. Immensely.
So I went. And after acting class was over, and I'd done my scene, and had the only good time I was to have that day... as a grieving widow... the professor pulled me aside and once again asked how things were going for me. He does this every couple of weeks. He is a saint.
I shrugged. "Difficult," I said, politely. "It's gotten to the point where I've been thinking about switching majors -- not because I want to do anything with my life other than acting, but --"
"Then don't," he said, cutting me off abruptly. "I know it means putting yourself through a lot to be here, but don't make any rash decisions. Because..." he paused. "... you've really got something. You know what you're doing up there. You've got something."
It meant the world to hear that coming from a man I so respected as an actor, scholar, and director. Some day I'll tell him so.
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