I want to hold the hands of Gods.

Is that really too lofty a goal?

For a long time now, I have been searching for the confluence of who I am as an individual with who I am/want to be as an artist.

The search continues, but the darkness that I have been seeing before me now as a pin-point of light beaming through the tunnel.

Why? I'd imagine that being in full-time training mode has something to do with it, as well as a somewhat voluntary exile into the mountains and deserts of Southern Utah. Here, cut off from my closest friends and the structure of a university, here I am finding myself juxtaposed between two forces: a hotbed of theatrical creativity and the serenity and purification of something those of us who spend far too much time within a city or suburb sorely lack: nature.

Yes, it must be these two forces at work. Day and night, Monday through Saturday, I work alongside some of the best actors in the regional theatre circuit, if not the country. I recognize that their processes aren't drastically different from my own, and yet they are so advanced in their art that I am definitely reminded of a frequent coaching we get back at U of I: "You're going to suck before you can get better."

Yep. No matter how well I feel I have played in larger roles elsewhere, being the minority in a strong company such as USF definitely makes me agree. I'm sucking. I'm going to get better.

I see these actors work. I get melancholic. But then I get inspired. And I think, 'hmm...I am HERE, though, right?' And then I feel better. Monday through Saturday. This is what I go through. And I love/hate it.

Then, on Sunday, inevitably I hit the trails of Zion, or Bryce Canyon, or some other remote yet tangible location. I look at the beauty that has been forged around me through time...and I feel at peace. I am reminded: beauty takes time. In nature. In art. In the self.

I exhaust myself in the absorption of nature, I press my body to the limit. I purge the fear and doubt. Beauty takes time.

So here I am. Two ideologies converging on one another. The summer break is here, I am working on my art, and I am ever still in the seat of training.

Someday I'll get to hold hands with the Gods.

But I have to suck before I can get better.

I have to stay ugly to become beautiful.