Roar

I teach little kids, and the theme this week was a lion. A small child's first response to "We're lions!" is to roar. I have to roar too, but they are better at it than me. This is a precious time for them. It's before most of them will be punished into politeness, before You can watch TV if you stop screaming, and before their voices get tucked away for good. For now, they are rewarded for roaring. The bigger the roar, the better.

I was a shy child. If I had been my student, I likely would not have roared. I would have sat quietly in a corner and daydreamed myself into a different world, where no one ever made me do anything I didn't want to do. But that doesn't mean I didn't have a roar in me.

The first time I roared, I was nine, and I did it right at my mother. I was angry that she didn't let me sleep over at a friend's house, and while I would normally have quietly complied, my friend instructed me to at least put up a good fight, otherwise I would never be able to do anything I wanted. Your mother can't control you forever, she said. It was a new concept for me, and it gave me the courage to tread on uncharted territory: standing up for myself. I didn't throw a tantrum, but I stood my ground and used a voice I had not used ever before; a loud, demanding, unapologetic voice that sounded much like a roar. What will you do when I'm an adult? Keep me at home? You can't! You can't just not let me do things that everyone else does! I repeated what my friend had instructed me to say. I was using logic, but I was also being vocally fierce.

My mother thought her daughter had been abducted. She literally said, "This is not the daughter I know." I was afraid of my mother. The mildest misbehavior usually lead to being severely reprimanded, and I was a very sensitive child. I couldn't stand to be yelled at. But on that day, I was brave. And she did not scream back at me or punish me. She was in shock. She really did not know the child who stood before her. I, too, was being introduced to this part of myself for the first time. 

The next time I wanted to sleep over at a friend's house, she let me. 

Her reaction was the one most of my family members and teachers would have had. The Larissa they knew, the Larissa my mother raised, did not roar. She was not a lot of work. She was the good child. Polite, delicate, graceful, compliant, diplomatic, and sweet. My brother was "the terrorist." I was the saint. It was a role I was comfortable in, one of general invisibility and obedience.

But no child, no human being, is all terrorist or all saint. I had a roar in me and, from time to time, I would let it out and shock the people who knew me best. For the most part, no one was comfortable with this.

When I was 21, my dad and I were having an argument, and I started to roar. He interrupted me and said, "We're not going to talk anymore. We'll talk again when you calm down." I had a realization at that moment and burst into tears. I roared even louder, "NO! You will talk to me NOW. You don't get to choose to only talk to me when I'm calm! You have to deal with me NOW too, when I'm frantic and upset!"

As an adult, I was able to demand that my not-so-polite self be not only listened to, but loved. No one, not even my father, was going to get away with loving only the pleasant part of me anymore. You don't get the kitten unless you can accept the lioness that comes along with her. I had set my ultimatum.

It would, naturally, echo in other relationships as well, outside of family. At first, I didn't want anyone to fall in love with the good girl before they knew the bad girl. This extended to friendships as well as romantic relationships. No one was allowed to know that I wanted a monogamous committed relationship until they could accept and love the part of me that wanted to have sex on a first date.

It is a real challenge to find the balance between the gentle kitten and the roaring lioness. But if I ever try to repress one of them so that the other may flourish, it acts out when I least expect (and want) it to. Be the sweet, loving, kind girl for too long and a monster will come out. Similarly, roar and scratch for long enough and the desire to marry and have children starts to seep out of my pores. Despite my best efforts, I cannot keep either one silent for very long. If I listen to both parts of myself and let them out, then I am free. If not, I am a slave to the one I do not bring forth. That which you do not bring to the light will destroy you, we learned when we did shadow work at school. True words indeed.

Luckily, I have really come to love both of these creatures I can be. As I roared with my young students this week, with whom I have to be infinitely patient and kind, I felt my docility co-existing with my recklessness. ROAR and out came the lioness, followed by the sweet kitten, That's right boys and girls! Great job! I loved that I had both qualities in me, and that they could both serve me simultaneously and balance each other out.

I am grateful to that friend who, 17 years ago, encouraged me to find that first roar. I am so proud of my nine-year-old self who stood up for herself and kept on doing so, even though it was scary and didn't always please other people. I am also grateful for the well-behaved little girl in me who survived by going unnoticed for a long time, and who holds on to my sweetness, grace, and good manners.

And the lesson has been learned: inside every lioness is a kitten, and inside every kitten is the potential for a roar.

I think I look pretty good roaring.

Ideal Childhood

I'm allowed draw and paint all over the walls.


I eat rice with ketchup as often as I want. 


I never have to get out of my abandoned princess orphan costume.


I scream and cry. 


The word "lady" never enters my vocabulary. 


The playroom looks like a room children play in, instead of a room well-behaved children never make a mess in. 


My family always wants to see my homemade plays. 


I am allowed to collect rolly-polly's. 


I don't have to brush my hair, ever. 


I can play with cars too. 


Barbie never makes an appearance. 


Disney movies are banned. 


There's space for me to run around. 


I can rip the wrapping on presents. 


I don't have to speak up in class; I'm allowed to be quiet and shy. 


I sleep in a tent.


I am not careful with my clothes, they're inexpensive and they can get dirty and messed up. 


I am told that I am a beautiful little girl, and that I can have as many dreams, realistic or not, as I want.


We don't always get the childhoods we want and need; sometimes we have to give them to ourselves as adults. And, maybe, we can give a little bit of them to our children, if we're sensitive enough to know what they each need.

As the caretaker I wish I'd had to my Inner Child, I ask Little Larissa, What do you need today? If I can give it to her- to myself- I do. And so, all those impulses and dreams that were stifled long ago, begin to live again...

There's nothing as touching and sweet as a happy child who's allowed to dream, I think.

Their Story

Inspired by the poem "I Go Back to May 1937" by Sharon Olds, which was quoted in the film "Into the Wild".

They are drinking and laughing.

They are beautiful and stupid.

They are unwrinkled and full of life.

They are horny and blind.

I want to pull her out of there by her hair,

I want to knock him unconscious,

before they make a fatal mistake.

I want to yell No!

I want to tell her, Run away,

he'll hurt you,

he'll never love you.

I want to hold him back, warn him,

Don't do it,

she's not who she seems to be,

in a few years the girl you see in front of you

will be dead

inside the body of a tired, angry mother.

I want to shake her and say Stop!

Be careful!

No matter how many of his shirts you iron,

no matter how many of his children you raise,

you will never have his heart.

I want to kick him away and say Don't!

Watch out!

You'll never get to live the

life you wanted.

You'll never be able to get out.

I want to beg them,

Please, turn away while you still can

You will yell at each other until he goes deaf.

You will raise children in a home of war.

You will cut each other's souls and

kill each other's dreams.

Don't do it, I want to scream,

You are not the people you will become.

But I don't say it.

I let them fall in lust.

Let them turn into animals and suck the blood

from each other's hearts.

Let them age into soldiers fighting on different sides

of the same war.

Let them make their mistakes.

Let me be born of their biggest mistake.

Let them love me too much because they

can not love each other.

Let me learn love in a house of hate.

Let me be the quiet one.

Let me grow to be a story teller.

Let me be the only one who can tell their story.

Faith

I am sick with an ugly cold, which usually means I need to slow down and re-assess my life, but since I've been on vacation for two months, doing nothing but slowing down and re-assessing my life, I'm restless and not at all in the mood to stay in bed and think. And so, against my will, I found myself in bed this morning, shivering, having the following sequence of thoughts, "I feel like shit. Oh God, please let me feel better. Did I just talk to God? Yes, I did. How dare I turn to God now, when I need Him. Did I just call God a Him? With a capital H no less? Who am I? I need to figure out what I believe in. Do I? Yes, I do, so that I don't feel guilty. Uhg, guilt is such a Catholic thing to feel. Well, Larissa, you were raised Catholic- sort of. Once a Catholic always a Catholic, right? No, I don't think so. I don't support religion, really. And yet- here I am, talking to God. Choosing my words carefully, in fact, so as to not piss Him off. There, I did it again, I called God a Him. Well what's wrong with that? Could the feminist in me just shut up for two seconds so I can figure out what I believe in? Actually, Brain, can you just stop thinking so I can sleep and God can do God's thing and I can feel better when I wake up?"

Needless to say, I didn't stop thinking. I started tracing my history with religion and faith, which, of course, starts with my parents.

My mother is Catholic, but I wouldn't say she's an extremist on any grounds. She baptized us and I had a First Communion and I read the Bible (sort of) and she wore her saints around her neck, but she never really forced her children to be Catholic. She took us to church, but when we didn't want to go, she didn't make us, which I think is rather remarkable. I didn't have a bad experience with Catholicism, I mostly just found it boring. And I was never going to memorize all the I Shall and I Shall Not's in order to live my life as a good Catholic, so I pretty much gave up on that at around the age of 10.

My father is not religious at all, but very spiritual. He had a metaphysical magazine for 8 years called Amaluz, meaning Love Light, which was the Brazilian version of the Sedona Journal. He once published some poems of mine in his magazine when I was 13, which was a beautiful gesture and surely influenced my sense of my worth as a writer, as well as poking at my curiosity as to what it was he believed in. Behind his office he has a meditation room, filled with his pyramids and crystals and books on quantum physics. He never once mentioned God to me, but he taught me about meditation. And meditation, for me, brings up an energy that is far beyond my physical self, an energy that connects me to what I call my "soul" and to what I call a "Higher Being".

And then there's the main reason I know there's "something" beyond my human existence: Acting. I felt it the first time I stepped on stage, at the age of ten, to impersonate Nathanial Greene in our Social Studies class. The very shy child that I was known to be transformed instantly and completely into the Revolutionary War General and awed my classmates and teachers. I remember stepping off the stage feeling the most alive I had ever felt, thinking, "Was that me up there?", a question I would continue to ask after every time I performed for years to come.

And the answer I have now (I am aware it will probably change, since I'm still in the beginning of my journey, relatively speaking), is that No, it's not exactly me up there. I am a vessel for a force much higher than myself to express itself. My job is to keep my heart, body, mind, and soul open for this force to shine through me and tell the stories it needs to tell. As a teacher I had in grad school used to say, As an actor we open up our hearts so the people in the audience, in the safety of their dark seats, might open theirs as well. People will go to the theatre or to a movie before they go to therapy, and so in a way, actors are humanity's healers, offering them a glimpse into their own wounds as well as an opportunity to mend them. This explains as well why when I feel like I have failed I take the blame upon myself, whereas when I succeed I attribute it to a higher force. If I "fail"- a term that is difficult to use, since I am not quite sure if it is in fact failure- I believe it is because something in me is closed, and so I have failed at being a vessel for creative expression. When I am open and out of my own way, it all "just happens", my performance "flows". And it is in those moments that a Higher Being, that God, that the Creative Forces of the Universe, are real to me. It is in the space between technique and talent that this untouchable energy exists and I find my faith. I call it, simply, "It", since I cannot find a word that truly encompasses everything "It" means to me. What I know is that I have to have faith in It, nurture It, speak to It, and pray to It, in order to succeed as an performer. My heart won't open if I ignore It, and what I do is simply too important to me- I dare say it's vital for my existence- for me to dishonor It in any way.

Acting is sacred to me, I have rituals and prayers and charms for it, and I really believe it is my mission in this life to be an actor. I don't even like to say I have a "talent", I much rather call it a "gift". I was given this body, this heart, this mind, this soul, this life, so that I can tell the stories and bring to life the characters that humanity needs me to.

So, my faith seems quite clear to me in regards to acting, but it's still rather hazy in daily life. I hesitate to speak directly to God because I attach the deity to religions I do not identify with. And I do not want to attach a gender to my Supreme Being, and God most certainly feels masculine to me. I often end up speaking to The Powers That Be, which also sounds religious, but feels more accurate than God, especially since I do not feel this Energy to be singular.

I think that's how it's supposed to be though. Dictionary.com defines Faith as "Belief that is not based on proof". And so I conclude that part of faith is doubt, and not knowing quite how to define it doesn't mean it's absent from my life. Plus, it's probably healthier to accept the ambiguity of it than to attach myself to certain definitions and thereby limit something that feels so immeasurable. I shall rest my mind now, and let equivocal faith bring its teachings and treasures into my life as it so wishes.