Dear Girl...It's Called, "Acting."

     There is really nothing wrong with giving something your best shot.  Pauline Pataky, a dear family friend, used to say, "Dream Big."   Those were strong and empowering words for a young impressionable woman to hear.   So after being called to audition for Star Search and after the mention in the New York Times for my performance in Hair ("For musical highlights, note her perfectly sung "Frank Mills,"...yeah, I memorized it!) I made the plunge to give up a full time job, a lease and access to financial stability to move my bony Italian arse to New York City on those strong and empowering Pauline Pataky words. 
     It is quite possibly the reason I chose not to travel and delayed any trips to other side of the Atlantic.  I sort of veered my life's journey off the path for a bit. A bit of ten years. That was a choice I made with life-altering consequences, some not so great, others undeniably pivotal. 
     In my first Upper West Side apartment, I shacked up with "Hakim," the ridiculously smart man who foolishly owed Uncle Sam, and "Amanda", the wonderfully obsessive actress who inspired me to get out there and be seen. My bed was in a living room behind a curtain for a $650 2-month summer sublet.  I remember dancing around the Lincoln Center fountain in a pair of blue print Anne Taylor pants thinking I was all that and a glass of milk.  No one in my family had ever made such a move.  It was bold.  It was gutsy.
     I lived in three other apartments in diverse neighborhoods.  One was close to a church that I never attended, but I chose the apartment because it was close to a church.  One sported bullet holes in the entryway.  And one smelled of the decomposing mouse that my superintendent Benny discovered electrocuted behind the stove. Auditioning and budgeting and temping and dreaming never really got me on my feet long enough to hold steady. So I toppled over through heartaches and disappointments with few good roles thrown in for good measure. The Rocky Horror Stage Production was a crazy blast of a show, and I still can't believe I spent three months prancing around a stage in a bra and panties singing the songs Susan Sarandon made famous.  "Persistence pays," Pauline would say, so I would continue, often temping way more than entertaining, attempting to get out of the church basement, each attempt leading me to choices I needed to make.
     Sir Lawrence Olivier mythically judged Dustin Hoffman for his method approach to a role by saying, "Dear boy, it's called acting."  I had heard of the drastic measures actors were known to take for the sake of their craft.  Maureen Moore as the poor Mrs. Johnstone, allegedly scrubbed the stairwell with Lestoil before her cue in Blood Brothers. I told myself I wasn't sophisticated enough for that kind of preparation and slowly my dream defaulted enough times until I dimmed the lights on that stage for good.
     I really, really pride myself on the attempts I made as a young actress.  I can never wonder what my life would have been like if I had taken that risk twenty something years ago.  Each fork in the road challenged me to a risk I willfully took and there are, consequently, no regrets.  Along my journey I have relished in experiences that nestle in the fondest memories of my life. The current chapter, the one entitled, "Keep it Together" leaves me with a different kind of pride, one that makes a difference in the lives of other people besides me. 
     Dear girl...It's called living.