Inspiration or Anxiety?
An excerpt from my art therapy journal
"I want you to think about what inspiration looks like in your body...and what anxiety looks like."
I quickly smile into the camera on the top of my laptop, even though I’ve been focused on my therapist’s face as she dropped that juicy request. We're halfway through the year, a perfect time to check in on the goals I made back in January. One of them was simple on paper: center creativity.
Twice a month I meet with an art therapist. Sometimes we draw. Sometimes we collage. Sometimes we just sit together while I untangle the knot that forms whenever motherhood and making theatre occupy the same room.
Her question follows me long after we hang up.
What does inspiration feel like?
What does anxiety feel like?
Hero and I with our smoothies post gym.
Hero lost his first tooth the same week he graduated preschool.
We're resting at home before the giant leap into kindergarten this fall, and with hindsight being what it is, I can see how postpartum anxiety never really left, it just changed costumes. These days it doesn't look like panic attacks over naps or weaning off breastfeeding. It looks like a rehearsal schedule that includes childcare. It looks like wondering whether yet another barely-breaking-even production is worth the hours away from my husband and son.
Seattle Vice opens this Friday. I've been preparing for it for three months and, if I’m honest, the dread is equal to the excitement.
Then something happened last week.
I had a five-hour administrative day at Reverie Ballroom and scheduled a photoshoot for the next fall show immediately afterward. This has been my big idea - I would announce my new show on Seattle Vice’s opening night at the Triple Door! My audience would be so excited – and for a Halloween show, planting the seed in the summer would be perfect. No cast yet. No budget for models.
So, my husband put on a tuxedo and became my leading man. Hero came too, no childcare scheduled because when I’m deep in rehearsals all our money goes into care for him during those times. Not to mention, I miss him so much. That is real.
But on the day of, my first thought? This is going to be so hard.
Photoshoots are boring for five-year-olds (and honestly for most grownups!). There would be waiting. Costume changes. Adults talking about posing and lighting
But halfway through I looked over and saw Hero watching us. Not bored. Entranced. Watching his mom make something. Watching his dad step into the picture simply because he believes in her dream. He'll probably remember that. Just like I remember my own mother and her music career.
Suddenly I realize. This isn’t anxiety. This is inspiration.
Hero playing with his Dad’s watch while I pose during the photoshoot.
Rehearsals for Seattle Vice feel the same way. At first glance they steal twenty hours a week from my family. I’ll miss Hero. I’ll miss Christian. I worry about the logistics every waking hour in the month leading up to it. And then rehearsal begins. I’m asked a hundred questions and I know the answer to all of them. I make extended eye contact while doing the funky chicken and love every second. The band hits the opening chord of a song I wrote in my pajamas years ago, and 8 counts in I'm belting it at the top of my lungs with artists I admire beyond words.
Five hours disappear. That's inspiration too.
Anxiety has a different body. It tastes like metal. It refreshes the ticket sales page before breakfast. It whispers: What if no one comes? What if this is your last chance? As a producer, if the show doesn't break even I don't get paid. Simple as that.
One morning I was crying over breakfast, convinced I'd dragged my family into another impossible artistic gamble. Christian and Hero wrapped themselves around me from either side. Then my Sweetie said the thing I needed most.
"Can you have fun? If you're having fun, it doesn't matter about the money."
Leave it to the chef to simplify the recipe.
Eventually the ticket sales started moving. Friends shared the event. People I'd worked with at Trader Joes fifteen years ago reserved their booths. And I realized something. Maybe I've been asking the wrong question. I've been wondering if inspiration is supposed to replace anxiety. Maybe it never does. Maybe inspiration is simply the thing that keeps us moving forward instead of spiraling down. As I write this, Seattle Vice opens in just a few days. The new play is going on sale on opening night with the photos we took together as a family.
Hero is home for the summer. My calendar is ridiculous. My to-do list is impossible.
And yet...
This morning I went to the gym. I dropped Hero at the Kid’s Club. And for 90 minutes I melted into the steam room. I answered emails in the lobby afterward. Then we went home together, sharing a Peachey Keen smoothie. There are quiet moments tucked inside this patchwork artist's life. Soft places to land.
Inspiration has always been waiting there for me after the anxiety burns out. If you've ever bought a ticket to one of my shows, shared a post, brought a friend, or hugged me after curtain call, you've been part of it all. You are one of the people carrying this dream. And maybe that's why I’ve put so much pressure on this Opening Night. The curtain call and applause is not proof that anxiety did not exist at all, it is proof that I wasn’t carrying it alone.
