“Be yourself,” said novelist Oscar Wilde. “Everyone else is already taken.”
My Aunt Ruth was an avid moviegoer. When I was small, she took me to Disney films and musicals at our local movie theater. She bought a buttered popcorn for herself and a Fudgsicle or a Creamsicle for me and we sat on the aisle. When the music started,
I stood up and danced up and down the aisles, throwing my arms over my head, swaying, twirling, jumping. When the music ended, I sat back down, breathless, and waited for the next one.
I wasn’t trying to get attention. I forgot there were other people in the theater. I danced because I was a dancer. When my extended family got together at Thanksgiving and Passover, I brought a record player and a record. After dinner when everyone was full of food and relaxing in the living room, I put on my pink satin ballet shoes, turned on the music and danced. I wasn’t looking for compliments. It never occurred to me that anyone might not like what I was doing. I just wanted to dance.
A lot of young girls want to be ballerinas when they grow up. I didn’t just want to be a ballerina. I was one. That was my calling, my identity. From the time I started lessons, I considered myself in training. It was rare for such a young child to know exactly what she wanted to do and who she was, but I was that child. I was a hazard to my family as I leapt and pirouetted my way around the house, throwing a leg behind me in an arabesque, hitting whomever was unfortunate enough to be standing there. I just wanted to dance.
As a child, I was not a bit self-conscious and that carried on to Junior High School. While the other girls were curling their hair, picking out lipsticks and flirting with boys, I pulled my hair back into a bun and I walked like a duck, something that happens when you spend hours on end turning your hips out. I heard later that the boys made fun of me, but I was oblivious at the time. I just wanted to dance.
I’ve gone through phases when I haven’t been so comfortable being me. I wanted to be prettier and more talented. I wanted to please the men I was with by becoming what I thought they wanted. I did some acting and I wanted to look how I thought an actor should look. But whenever I lost myself, I brought myself back by remembering that child who knew who she was and didn’t look outward for opinions. She just wanted to dance.
During my ghostwriting career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the most highly talented people in the world. Part of the work is to embody the client I’m working with. I ask myself, Who am I? A girl singer from Detroit? A member of the White House Press Corps? Was I in an Afghani prison for drug running? A basketball hero? An alcoholic rock star? A female morning show host?
I became all of these things but with each project I did, when I got home from work I had to make sure I got back to myself. A writer. A girlfriend. A soother. A reader. A sister. A daughter. A ballerina.
Of all my clients, no one embodied authenticity more than Grace Slick, lead singer of Jefferson Airplane. She was always Grace Slick. She didn’t try to be a rock and roll diva. She was one and if she said something to me, anything, she let me put it in the book. She had no concerns about what her readers might think about her. She was so unabashedly herself, it was a delight to be with her. I don’t think she even knew how to be someone else.
When I teach writing, many of my students are uncomfortable calling themselves writers. If you write anything, a poem, a story, an essay or a book, you’re a writer. If you love to dance, you’re a dancer. If you like to paint, you’re a painter. It’s pretty simple, but remember, none of us are just one thing. A serial killer may help a little old lady across the street.
When I left my ballet bubble, I had to learn how to be a regular person in the regular world. One evening, I was at a play with a friend and during intermission, she asked me, “Do you like it?”
I said that I did. But when she said she didn’t, I told her that I didn’t either. “Well, which one is it?” she asked me.
I didn’t know and I was embarrassed. I was a completely different person outside the ballet than when I was on the inside. It was a big “getting to know me” time. I hadn’t gone out on a date. I didn’t know what kind of clothes I liked best. I didn’t even know what music I liked besides Tchaikovsky and Chopin.
If you feel like a stranger to yourself and you want to change that, try starting with, “I’m a human being,” and you can go from there. You don’t have to try to fit into someone else’s mold.
Amy Schumer said, “I’ve always had my wrist slapped for being myself.”
Being you in a world that wants us to conform is an accomplishment. If finding out who you truly are stuns or suprises you, don’t try to change it. Get to know it.
Master painter Salvador Dali said, “Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy – the joy of being Salvador Dali – and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things is this Salvador Dali going to accomplish today?”
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