There was all this unsettled energy in me so instead of returning to the hotel, I went to a bookstore I'd been to on a previous trip. I wandered to the second floor, thinking perhaps I'd look for a book on home and as I browsed the how to tare out a floor and put in cabinets section, I overhead three speakers talking to an audience. The bits and pieces I heard interested me but, being the rather shy sort, I couldn't muster the courage to go and sit since everyone was already sitting and I'd be noticed. But the more they talked the more something tugged at me until finally I planted my arse on a chair.

I made other changes that night - I asked a question. I'm one of those people who often gets a million questions in their head during lectures and is terribly inspired by conversation but, in a group setting, hates to be a hand raiser. But I made the choice to turn the car around and so up my hand went. I asked about connection.

I'd always been one to just somehow meet people; I'd know royalty, rockstars, the housekeeper, the boss, the grocery lady, the mayor. Somehow, just by talking or being open to people I'd meet everyone. But the last several years I've retreated from being open to meeting people for many reasons.

The first is that fame came my way in several areas. Fame wasn't a goal for me and so it took me by surprise which left me handling it badly. Being shy didn't help, either. Fame is a funny thing - most people want it or want what they think you have. So I'd start to receive a lot of email and personal invitations which at first I took as sincere but later learned that so many people just wanted my connections, just wanted advice or just wanted something. Because I tend to keep my personal life pretty private, people clung to an image they'd created about who I was and what I could do. This meant that I was almost only contacted about my work or what I could do for someone. I was almost never contacted for my birthday, for Christmas, for a hullo. All conversations were about work, about art, about my business, about advice I could give, about what I was doing and how could someone get in on it.

That became depressing to me, a girl who was never used to so much attention being placed in one area of her life. Even in the corporate world I seemed to talk about other things more or have different uses to people (I was the boogey friend, the tea drinking companion, the traveller, the gigglor, the rock climber and so forth). But all I had become was either a "web celebrity" or "a well-known writer" or the "girl at play" or the "Hollywood Player." There was no Alex when most people spoke to me - it was all about a thing.

So at this bookstore in Austin I raised my hand, asked how one could get connected to others or learn to reconnect. I asked how someone gets back to just being human rather than a thing. I asked how one could go back to the days where they didn't pay attention to what others thought.

And the answer I received was: trust your instincts in whom you open up to but keep being open. Make choices that are right for you and not for everyone else. You can't give at the expense of yourself.

For me, that simple answer was so huge because I had become so isolated from so many people. I had grown to loathe the "creative community" that simply just talked about art and feelings all the time. I had grown tired of hearing actors and directors just talk about each other. I grew tired of explaining myself over and over and over so I avoided it all. And in Austin, which is one friendly open town and one of the reasons I fell in-love with it, I found myself even scared to just smile at the grocery clerk - I couldn't even be open there.

Right then, I decided I had to be open again and, after the talk, met with a few of the people. Steve Harper, who was speaking about his book, The Ripple Effect, said to me, "we won't even ask you what it is you do for a living." And they didn't. We talked about raising goats, about the city, about people, about connecting. It was the first time in a long time I'd done this. It was the first night I had relaxed in a really long time because I had made a choice to be real and change all that wasn't.

Since that day I sat on the side of the highway and was confronted with a choice to live as I had been or live as I wanted to be, things have been different. There's hope in me once again. There's a positive energy here, too. Oh, I don't know exactly how it'll all add up or what the future holds or what my next move is. All I know is that I'm open to everything; connecting, sharing, talking, trying, raising my hand, living life and being me.

July 7, 2006 | Link to this | Filed in Everyday Play