Earlier this month, a play I wrote was performed in a festival which was a two-week competition. Each night, about ten plays competed and were evaluated by two or three judges who selected one or two plays from the evening to move onto the final round, and the winners of the finals would then be published in a compilation. I had participated in this festival two times before and my plays were not selected as semi-finalists or deemed “winners” either time, but I had a strong feeling that the third time was going to be my charm. I felt thrilled and blessed to be working on a play I was so proud of with a phenomenal, insightful, brilliant director who totally “got” my play and was doing these fabulously subtle and nuanced things with it, and two extremely talented actors who could both easily be stars. To add to my giddy excitement, we were all getting this over-the-top positive feedback from people who had seen a rehearsal, and everything was falling so magically into place. As a playwright, it can be a frustrating, scary, and/or intimidating loss of control to work with others on something so close to my heart, but this entire process felt like a dream collaboration, and for me, exemplified all the best possibilities that working together to create a piece of theatre can be.
The night of our performance, I dressed up and wore eye shadow, the house was packed with friends and family, and afterwards, I went to the after-party I had planned to celebrate our accomplishment. I was told that the night’s winner would receive a call between midnight and 1:00am, so when I returned home a little after 11:00pm feeling very satisfied about my play and in the after-glow of my after-party, I busied myself arranging my flowers and checking email. A little after midnight I crawled into bed and proceeded to roll over every 5 to 7 minutes to check my cell phone for the time, and to see if I had missed any calls that had mysteriously and inexplicably gone straight to voicemail. By 12:38am I was starting to feel like that girl who is home alone on a Saturday night, lying awake, waiting for the emotionally unavailable man who she is madly in love with and who may or may not be out on a date with another woman, to call. At 1:04am I drifted off into sleep thinking that it would only be a few minutes until I would be awakened by the loud ringing of my phone...
At 3:00am I woke up and stared at the ceiling to the sinking realization that I (my play) didn’t win, but of course I took it personally and turned it into me – I lost. Again. Third time wasn’t so charming after all. All those things that I had wanted to happen, that I had anticipated happening, well, they weren’t going to happen, at least not now anyway. I thought I would finally get the recognition for my playwriting that would make things a little…easier. That one of the anonymous judges would be a literary agent who would be blown away by my talent and want to sign me on the spot, that my play (I) would win and get published which would open doors for me at theatres everywhere that would all want to produce my work. That everything would change for me because I wouldn’t have to convince anyone anymore that I was worthy of being produced, of being accepted instead of rejected, of being paid attention to. It would finally be proven.
At 3:00am I looked around my apartment in the dark and thought of all the stacks of papers I would have to organize and file, and the clothes strewn everywhere I would have to pick up, put away, and clean; of how I would now have to address all the things I had been putting off, avoiding, and neglecting while I was busy being caught up in pre-play preparations, excitement, and anticipation. The excitement was over and it was time to do my dishes. I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Lately in my life I have become obsessed with looking for the lesson in every single situation because as it turns out, there is really a lot to learn out there from all experiences – good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant – which can be annoying but still, true. The thing is, I’ve noticed that I sometimes like to impose my own lesson. For instance, with my play, I thought the lesson was going to be: You find great people to work with on a project you are deeply passionate about, you work hard, and then you are rewarded because you WIN! (And then you are even further validated when you are PUBLISHED!) Unfortunately, that pesky Life can be sooooo uncooperative and disobedient.
Which got me thinking. OK, that wasn’t the lesson that I wanted to learn, but there’s gotta be another one in here somewhere, and fortunately, it was not at all difficult to find.
About seven years ago I started writing lists of things I was grateful for in a small spiral hardbound notebook every night before I went to bed. I think I initially heard this suggested by Oprah. So I did this pretty conscientiously for several years and filled several notebooks, and then, when I was going through a challenging time that seemed beyond gratitude four years ago, I gave this practice up. Two years ago at a teacher’s suggestion, I went back to it, only this time I type it up daily, in the morning before I start my day, and email it to a close group of friends, and they in turn all email me their daily gratitude lists, which has resulted in a circle of friends I think of as my Gratitude Girls.
It seems like such a simple little practice, but really, it has helped me dramatically transform the way I think. Whereas I used to walk through my days cataloging all the things that were going wrong (“Damn it, I just missed my train!” Internal Dialogue: Why me? “Sh*t, my pedicure chipped!” ID: Why can’t anything ever go right? “&*#@$&^!!!! I spilled coffee on my brand new skirt!” ID: When will Life just cut me a break already???), which resulted in a downward spiral of despair, taking time every morning to note what I am grateful for has reoriented my thinking throughout the day, so that I now catalog all the things I am grateful for, all the things that are going right, as I make a mental note to remember them for my list, and as a result my Internal Dialogue is much more pleasant and less of a total downer to hang out with these days...
So with that in mind, after the initial disappointment of figuring out that my play did not win, after the exhaustion of realizing that now I had to attend to my life with all its accompanying tedious and lapsed chores, after a pep talk from my Mom during which time I cried not one but two times, and after a grande iced coffee at Starbucks where they were playing an uncharacteristically loud and upbeat 80’s Prince song as opposed to their usual somewhat melancholic morning musical fare ala Nina Simone, I was flooded with an abundance of gratitude, typed up my gratitude list, and emailed it out to my entire distribution comprised of essentially everyone I know, and even some I don’t, and it went like this:
Today, I am very grateful for/that:
- My play was performed last night!
- For all my wonderful friends & family who came out to see the play and to the after-party!
- For all my former co-workers who filled a row of seats
- For PARENTS of the KIDS I GREW UP WITH who came out last night and who come to see every play I write and follow my career!
- For the crew of festival for their assistance, support, enthusiasm, hard work, dedication, and for giving me this wonderful opportunity
- My Dad, who spontaneously decided to treat the entire after-party to a round of drinks
- My Mom, who brought to the party an enormous box of cookies from my favorite bakery, which is the place where she got all my birthday cakes from growing up
- The hostess at the lounge for getting a great back room for us ASAP when the bar was filled up, which turned out to be the perfect party venue
- The great music they played, including Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” which was my anthem in Sept. ‘06
- The theatre that offered us storage space
- D for making 150 COLOR COPIES of my program FOR FREE!
- The outpouring of emails I received this week from friends near & far who could & couldn’t make it, to wish me congratulations and luck
- Congratulations emails from one of my all-time favorite playwrights, and one of my all-time favorite writers, both of whom I admire tremendously, what an honor!
- The outpouring of emails I received last night and today asking how it went
- My dear friend K who supports me in everything I do, and who even carted around my giant GAP shopping bag filled with flowers all night!
- For beautiful opening night flowers!
- My wonderful friend Diva JG who took it upon herself to be the historian and take pictures all night, and that she actively sought out great photo ops!
- A friend who shall remain nameless (you’ll see, I’m protecting her identity) who skipped a work function last night because it was so important to her to be there to support me
- The actor’s former classmates from acting school attending the play, and how supportive they are, and passionate about theatre
- The most incredible theatrical collaboration with fantastic talents and just wonderful people in general
- For everyone who told me they want to know what happens next for my characters. This one-act is also the first scene of a full-length play, so stay tuned, there is more story to tell...And to any producers on this mailing list: Call me! We’ll talk!
- That because my play will not be performed in the finals on Sunday, I can spend Father’s Day with my Dad, and then take a big, long, juicy, delicious NAP!
- That when I went for my daily coffee first thing today at my neighborhood Starbucks, they were rocking a Prince song LOUD even though the normal morning soundtrack is usually of the easy listening variety, and that this instantly lifted me out of a crummy mood
- Feeling so absolutely supported, doing what I love
- Sharing an incredible evening, and an incredible experience, with wonderful family & friends
- Everyone on this list for being a part of this community
- I am grateful I am fiercely determined & persistent and I don’t have any intention of giving up. Like, ever.
- I am grateful that although one of my greatest struggles is that I am a results person, always looking for the next, bigger, better thing to just make me happy already, I had the presence of mind to recognize that happiness & enjoyment can truly only ever be found in the process, and that everything about this process was amazing & inspiring down to the very last drop!
So while, yeah, it would be very nice to win awards, that is not why I write. I am very ambitious with my writing, and I have much bigger goals. I write to give people something to think about, something to talk about, to look for, find, and awaken to the sparkling magnificence that is always present amidst the simple everydayness, and so that they, and I, can maybe, hopefully, feel more understood, or more accepted, or accept ourselves more. I write so that people can stop, and sit still, in this crazy, hectic fast-paced world that can be far too individuated and isolating for my liking, and we can share a moment together, in a theatre, or on the page, or in an email, of...connection. And I absolutely, without a doubt, feel that I accomplished my goal last night, so thank you all. I am so grateful!
And here’s the cool thing about gratitude: it is a very empowering way to flip a situation or relationship – even a challenging or disappointing one – upside-down and inside-out and claim the gifts present in it for yourself. Sitting in Starbucks the day after my play writing in my journal and listening to Prince, I had the opportunity to sink down into my disappointment, which can be such a slippery slope leading to depression, unworthiness, victimhood and more. But instead I thought, &@*% that, I am not going to let two or three people’s opinions determine how I feel about MY huge accomplishment, incredible experience, and entirely magical night, which were all mine to claim and enjoy no matter what. It didn’t turn out how I had wanted it to, but the inspiring collaborative creative process and the massive love and support I received far outweighed that, and I was able to appreciate that this was, in fact, a much greater win.
And so, because I get to choose, I chose gratitude.
Modified from Writeous Chicks Newsletter June 2007. Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Garam. All rights reserved.