You can binge a TV series or stay up all night reading a novel, but you can’t rush the one story you’re dying to find out -- the story of how your kid grows up to be.
There are plenty of clues along the way, dreams worshipped and discarded, but it’s simply not predictable.
At the age of eight, after watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes until she’d memorized much of the script and could belt out a complete version of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” my daughter Samara walked into the kitchen one day and announced:
“I’m going to be like Marilyn, but I’m not going to die that way.”
She proceeded to be in one play or another, both in school and community theater, nonstop for years, with me driving her to rehearsals until she could drive herself.
In high school she took an economics class that required the students to research the financial situation of people in the profession to which they aspired, interviewing at least two people in that field. Samara naturally wrote about becoming an actress. She discovered in one of her interviews that in all of San Francisco, there were only two women who were making a living purely as actors. In almost every way, she wrote, the profession of actor was, without extraordinary luck, financially disastrous. But that made no difference to her. She became a working actress in New York City and later got an MFA in Theatre. She was willing to take the gamble, and pursued it with all her heart.
Around the time she went to New York I wrote these lines:
“She walked into a life of art/No blinders on her eyes/Loving the work was the only prize”.
But then what? I had no idea what to write next. This was not a story I was just making up. So I put it away and forgot about it.
Fifteen years later I found those lines.
I realized I knew what came next. I had witnessed the pilot episode. A big story has taken off from there (see my first posted Substack song, “At the Podium”, which was inspired by Samara’s recent book), but this was her springboard.
A Life of Art
©2023 Nancy Ellen Abrams
She walked into a life of art
No blinders on her eyes
Loving the work was the only prize
Always entranced since she was young
By words moving trippingly across the tongue
Felt her heart expand whenever she was among
The theatre world
Nothing for her was more intriguing
Than the mystery of meaning through a human speaking
Every nuance was like delicious eating
To a hungry girl
She grew into a life of art
The dream came from her soul
There was no other choice, it was her childhood goal
But theatre friends began to peel away
As they approached graduation day
Heeded their parents, typed up resumes
Seeking a living wage
Wistfully hugging, they said goodbyes,
Put on high heels or suits and ties
Maturely reconsidered what they once despised
And simply turned the page
How could they turn the page?
She walked alone into her art
With dream-led clear intent
A little bit poor but radiant
Schlepping clothes, computer, all her needs for the day
A Starbucks her office, hours on the subway
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” they too often say
And she became aware
Of casting agents subtly contemptuous
Of beauty that is ethnically ambiguous
That doesn’t fit a standard of how you must
Look to make it there
She’s gonna make it there
She lived now in a world of art
She knew it was in her soul
But was coming to see, not under her control
Years of auditions, roles in unseen plays
Loving art and actors but hating the trade
Problems march before her in a long parade
And there’s no living wage
Refusing to wait tables, had to find a gig
A dream may be straight, but real life’s gonna zig
Is this the revenge of time’s whirligig?
She won’t turn the page
How could she turn the page?
She loved the magic in her art
But there was such a price
Weighing the dream against the sacrifice
Lying awake, she thinks, “I am that good!
But will I ever make it? What’s the likelihood?
I’d really like to leave this crappy neighborhood
What do I have to do?”
Facing the facts, she thinks, “It just can’t be
That there’s only one joy-filled path for me
And if there is, I’m not on it, that I can see
Let me read page two
I’m gonna read page two”
She still walks in a life of art
But true art makes demands
Got to trust yourself into unknown lands
She didn’t need a script to get behind
Her childhood goal was too small for her grown-up mind
Wisdom bubbled up in her like sparkling wine
And a new dream shone:
To live in the sweet spot of self-respect
Where usefulness, her gifts, and joy all intersect
Of her life she’s gonna be the architect
The bird has flown
I LOVE determined women! Women with a goal, with gumption, with dreams, with vision.
Wonderful story , lyrically told 🩷