Growing up, getting older... it's about time.

Yesterday, I was sitting in Central Park, at the base of the C curved tree in this photo, experimenting with food coloring and glitter. A gust of wind blew away my excess glitter so that the leaves next to me shimmered. It was quite beautiful.

Today, I had an incredibly inspiring conversation with my roommate Amy, where we tried to figure out what we were doing with our lives. (Me as a recent college graduate, her in her final year.) I am doing well as far as a theatrical career goes. Last night I attended a staged reading that the Hangar did in the city, and got to reconnect with many people from the summer. It was great to stand in front of my former employers and say, "I'm designing five shows right now." (and getting paid for pretty much all of them.) However, I find myself with very little interest in climbing any "theatrical career ladder". I don't want fame, or anything like that… the only real benefit I can see is more money and it being easier to produce my work. I'm used to working on a great number of shows at once; I'm good at functioning that way and pretty soon, with more experience and connections under my belt, I'll be able to make a living that way.

My question is: do I want to?

I sense that, rather soon (one of my peers gives me 18 months), I'm going to master the technology of it, and then I'm going to get bored, twiddling my thumbs waiting for new toys. Sound is one of the more flexible elements, it has fewer necessary functions it MUST perform than set, lights, or costumes, so there's more of a discovery of how sound is essential in each production. That's exciting. But I'm already starting to feel that boredom sink in, because while every show is different, every show is also the same. I'm finding that it's the people who actually make the show worth doing or not.

This summer, I had the joy of working with some people who I want to work with forever. There was a strong (happily mutual) artistic attraction, finding both them and their ideas interesting, which revitalized my work. It was absolutely thrilling. I had a joke with one of them that she would come to New York and we'd be anonymous art fairies, doing anonymous public art pieces for the purposes of spreading beauty and magic. Like glitter on a leaf in Central Park.

In my conversation with Amy, we talked about how our generation from PHTS seems less interested in forming theater companies than even the people just before us. (That's the thing to do; leave school, found a theater company.) There are many problems with this system, which creates a lot of very young theater companies which mostly fold before they're 10 years old, and there's going to need to be a new option coming to the forefront for young artists presenting work, but beyond the producing aspects of it, we seem to be more interested in different ideas of organization. We're the guerrilla artists, we're the ones brought up in a very specific time on the Internet that celebrated randomness and open, collective creation across boundaries of location. Amy and I started talking about how to engage people who were not "artists" in the "I went to art school" sense of the word in free art and creation, and I started thinking about two things. One, the Cheap Art Manifesto, published by the Bread and Puppet Theater in 1984:

And this quote by William Morris:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

I believe art is important. I believe art should permeate the world. One of my main interests as an artist is helping to change how people see the world and each other, to see magic and possibility in all things. (see God in all things… same thing.) I believe that art is particularly essential in this moment because this is a moment of change, of things beginning to burst, and art can help lead us towards the positive right now. I believe that art needs to be everywhere--not just in the theaters and museums where people who can afford it can pay for it, but in the streets, on buildings, on the sidewalk, surprising you in a subway, shouted from a rooftop.

These thoughts about wanting to do more free art, about what is required of me to have a career as a designer, about how delightful it is to work with people I truly feel drawn to working with, has led me to a scary conclusion:

I am going to be happier and more artistically fulfilled if I do not have to make my living doing theater.

This is a scary thing to admit, and there's some young art school voice that's telling me it's cowardly, or a cop-out, or giving up, if I decide not to make my living doing theater. In an ideal world, I'd be able to make all the money I needed doing theater with the people I really want to work with, but that's not going to happen any time soon. In the almost-ideal world, I'd be able to make all the money I needed by novelwriting and doing theater with the people I really want to work with, but that's not going to happen immediately, either. I would rather have some weird, well-paying day job (today I was looking randomly at being an ultrasound technician or being an embalmer) and then only do the shows with people I truly want to work with, than do the number of shows I would have to do to make my living as a career designer. Why? I haven't been working that long, but I've been working a lot. I did 43 shows in 7 semesters. I did 11 shows this summer. I'm doing 5 shows right now. And now I'm 22 and approaching burnout, and I feel it kick in when I'm working on things I am not incredibly passionate about. I could keep it up, but why should I do that to myself and make it so I am unable to fully give myself with enthusiasm and energy to the shows I really want to do? Also, how will I be able to do more free art if I have to rely on art to eat?

My art fairy friend tells me that this is a very wise thing to recognize and that I've saved myself much stress and life trauma by realizing it now. Thinking about it, I am greeted with a feeling of relief and an overwhelming sensation that this is right, because it gives me a freedom to create without worrying about the business end of it. Funnily enough, by doing less I am then able to give and impact more. But it's odd to see a viable career burgeoning (in a field where this is difficult), and realize that it's not what I want. I think I had to see that it was possible. I just don't think what it'll take to make a living there is worth what it will cost. Not saying I don't want to do theater, at all. Not saying that I don't want to do theater professionally. (See notes on ideal lives in the previous paragraph.) Just saying that I don't want having to survive on it to make it sour for me.

With this realization I feel myself opening up in ways I haven't been open in a while. I feel like blogging again. Perhaps this was the thing I've been trying to figure out for the last half a year, that I had to go away to understand. I'm making it out and embracing life again, and it feels good.

I am what I am.

Today (well, technically yesterday, as of the posting of this blog at around 1am), is National Coming Out Day. What I've come on the blog to say today, finally, is something that some people have known for a long time now, some people have probably suspected, and some people have no idea about: I am bisexual.

I have known this for a very long time. I remember being confused in elementary school because I knew there was straight and I knew there was gay but I didn't know there was anything in between, and I knew I like both genders. It was around seventh grade when I learned bisexuality existed, and I came out to my friends shortly thereafter. My parents a bit later (they were great about it). I went to an arts high school, and just started out of the closet there and there was no problem. By the time I got to NYU… well, I was in NYU Drama, probably the most LGBT-friendly place in the country. The place where this has been the most tricky is at church.

I have been lucky as far as my church and issues of sexuality. Bon Air UMC, my church in Virginia, has always been really good about talking about the issue, especially when it has come up as an issue for the denomination-wide General Assembly. Being able to talk about things like this is key to moving forward as a church, as a society, and as a faith. Being able to listen to other people's points of view, having a safe space to raise questions (this goes for both sides… it irks me to no end when "liberals" refuse to listen to points made by "conservatives" as well as the other way around). I came out to a good amount of my youth group on one trip to Lake Junaluska for Music and Arts Week years ago, and instead of shying away, they attacked me with questions about my girlfriend with great enthusiasm, the same way they would have attacked me with questions about a boyfriend.

I know the scriptures. Trust me, I know all of the scriptural arguments and can counter them with other scriptural arguments like a trained swordfighter. (It's been the same arguments for ten years of my life.) What I can say from my point of view is that, nope, this isn't a choice, if it was a choice, I would have made an easier one, growing up in the South. I am attracted to who I am attracted to. Gender is secondary. (I am the least concerned about gender of everyone I know. Lots of artists are very into gender as theme or a major part of their work. I am not. People will say, "This is CLEARLY about the gender politics of.." and I will have had no thought of that. Down to me often looking androgynous.) And I cannot, for the life of me, believe that a loving God would condemn me for something that is natural.

What disturbs me greatly is the fact that many people who are not heterosexual are blocked out of the church. We have been met with hostility, with quotations of fire and brimstone. The messages towards non-heterosexuals as a whole have not been messages of Christ's love--not the Christ who would eat with the prostitutes, not the Christ who would save a woman from being stoned. Not the Christ who preached of loving others instead of condemning them. If there is one thing that Christ teaches, is that is God's love is for all people, and that we are called to love everyone. Period.

The sad fact is that the message of THE CHURCH as a whole is so negative while I know that this is NOT how every church or every Christian functions. I went to a Baptist church in Ithaca that had recently officiated a gay wedding and said a particular prayer that day for the coming of the day when all God's children would be accepted and affirmed in all churches. There IS a place in churches for us, but it's often so hard to find it. And the toll on that for people who desperately want to be connected, involved, who are looking to be more alive in their faith is actually tremendous. Friends have often sent their confused, non-hetereosexual Christian friends to me to help talk out their confusion, and it's tragic that people feel like they are cast out, not just from the church, but from the entire Kingdom of God, for something that is out of their control. This talk of "curing" homosexuality is absurd. You can "cure" anything, you can deny something that's natural all you want but that's not doing anything except suppressing something that makes you, you. Instead of celebrating the life God has given you, you spend your time denying it and living a lie--and THAT is the sin. I am tired of watching people destroy themselves, be it by denying a part of them or by believing that who they are is unworthy or considered disgusting--for the faith that I love so much.

I am deeply devoted to my faith. (To the point where I specifically did not date for a a good while because I was instead using that energy to further my relationship with God.) Now, I am also dating an incredible woman who has done so much for my faith and helped me further understand the nature of God. I am a Christian, and I am bisexual, and it's sad that people think that's an impossible combination. I am posting this not as a cathartic moment for me. Coming out is always a process--especially where I'm from, you're straight until proven gay, so despite the romanticism that surrounds "coming out of the closet! living freely!", it's a constant, lifelong process. I am posting this today to say, by example, that it IS possible to be a Christian, to be involved in the church, and not be heterosexual.

If there is going to be any change, churches are going to have to be outspokenly accepting and affirming. With the reputation of the church as far as this issue goes, it is not enough to be quietly welcoming, or have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. (I've even had hesitancies in admitting my sexuality to those from my churches, and I come from very open and accepting backgrounds, unlike many.) It is, in fact, we in the church who are responsible for sharing God's love. It's a light we cannot hide under a bushel just because they have a lifestyle we are uncomfortable with. That wasn't something Christ ever allowed himself, and he doesn't let us off the hook, either.

If anyone has any questions or wants to talk about issues of faith and sexuality (from any angle), please let me know and I'd be happy to talk. This is not an issue that's going to be resolved any time soon... so let's just start talking, because communication is the only we're going to get anywhere.