There's A Special Kind Of Crazy...
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I can’t take credit for the original picture taken by my
neighbor, Jan, in the Berkshires, but cropping and flipping the image to illustrate my state
of mind seemed appropriate for this post.
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Why am I surprised when I observe myself acting against my
better judgement? Or have my “filters” just become less restrictive as I get
older and have more experience? I am referring to moments when I realize that I
should have stopped talking about five minutes sooner. As is often the case, verbal
diarrhea is a symptom of deeper issues, and I guess my current “tics” are
rooted in anxieties or insecurities surfacing as I countdown to my departure
for India.
Over the next few months, I will be meeting a lot of new
people and this can be a mixed bag of emotions for me. This past week in New
York City found me making new acquaintances to discuss everything from
commissioning music to participating in new ventures after I return from India
in 2019, and just approaching strangers to share my admiration for their work.
As a freelance professional, a lot of my projects are
realized through introductions by email or over the phone. However, I do my
best to meet, with associates on any project, in person at the earliest
possible time. As a Fulbright-Nehru grantee, the concept, as I understand it,
is that I offer to work with foreign institutions with minimal expectation of
financial support from those institutions to share my expertise with the hopes
that a mutually beneficial exchange of culture and knowledge will take place
through these opportunities. Now I
would be suspicious of anyone “cold calling” me with an offer to come from a
foreign country to work for “free”, and by the way, they have a lifetime of international
experience in the field. So I have been careful to make my electronic
introductions to strangers with the blessings of a mutual acquaintance.
Fortunately, video conferencing services like Skype and WhatsApp have made
follow up “calls” more personable. But, for me, nothing beats being in the same
room.
I have admittedly always been aware of the primary
institutions with which I wanted to work before I applied for either of my two
Fulbright grants. My first is described in my earlier post “What Don’t I Know?”,
and the basics of this grant is covered in “How Come & Why I am Heading to
India.” However, with India, I have been making contact with a number of people
I will not meet in person until I am actually in country, whereas in New
Zealand, I had actually met the majority of my associates on a project two
years earlier in 2009.
So let’s get back to where I started this post. I like to
think of myself as someone who “interviews” well, whether it is for public relations on behalf of a project,
for a job, or for just a social gathering. I grew up with great traditions of “talk
story” from both my Chinese ancestry and the West Indian environs where I grew
up as a second generation immigrant in Jamaica. However, in training to become
a professional dancer, “talking” was not usually a priority of the curriculum,
and when I was called upon to speak, knowledge was expected to be delivered
with modesty and decorum. This is to what I am referring when I write my “better
judgement.”
Experience has taught me to not be shy about my accomplishments,
since they are usually a part of, if not, the reason I have the opportunities
about which I am in discussion. However, it took a long time to overcome the sense
of modesty that might preclude opening up about my background unless asked, and
it seemed indecorous to “name drop”, unless it was to provide the listener with
a mutual point of reference. All of this said, listening is a big part of any
conversation, and understanding about what a new acquaintance might be
interested is maybe more important than what I have to say. As such, I have
been known to stop talking almost mid-thought/sentence as I realized that I was
likely hearing myself talk more than I thought might have been appropriate at the
time.
In any given moment I might question “how did I come to have the opportunities before me?” and “why do I deserve these opportunities?” I remember clearly when I was asked to be on the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Dance Advisory Panel (Panel) which provided recommendations to NYSCA on their grant awards to dance institutions in New York State. I was about to retire from thirty years of performing, and the director of the program at the time asked if I would be interested in serving. These are positions filled by invitation only, and I had known of many well respected directors, teachers, choreographers, presenters who had served on the Panel. In light of that knowledge, I was not only flattered and intimidated at the prospect of whom else might be in the room. I was curious as to how my name had risen to be of note, but I never did ask the question. My second year on the panel found me being named chairman, and in this case I felt it was because I demonstrated an ability to keep discussions on point and on schedule. For the three years I served on the Panel, I never failed to be in awe of my fellow panelists, and am grateful for sharing a less formal connection when we run into each other at performances today.
There are always
going to be people with more experience, with greater accomplishments, or just better
qualified than me. And at the same time, only I can make the most of the
opportunities my efforts in life have made possible to me. It is hard to not
play the “comparison game” where we measure our lives and our worth against how
we perceive those around us. But for me, I have tried to pride myself in an “uncommon”
life where the myriad ups and downs have led me on paths I could never have
dreamed of as a child growing up in Jamaica. Irrespective of how I once
answered, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, there was no chance I
could have imagined what my life has been.
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| I have always loved looking out over the water from a beach! |
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