Faking Me

              For thirteen consecutive summers I’ve been faking it. For three weeks every July since 2004 I’ve been posing as a drama teacher, exploring art and its meanings, and tolerating Christianity and homeschooling. Well, at least not saying anything about them. I’ve taught performing arts at this summer school since before I was married, before I was a father, since I could still say emphatically that I was young, and it has become a major part of my life. For several years I did not know how to let it go. Family needs and my own growth have called for me to end my time at in in 2016, when even in 2015 I had openly wondered how I could quit it at all.          

              As a means of catharsis I’m going to talk through that most were holding me in, and without dwelling on the personal reasons I have left, will speak further on one aspect I’m mostly happy to leave behind.

1)      Art. As I said, this was a performing arts school in a camp environment. The days were long, with classes and then rehearsals extending into the very late and sometimes wee hours. Three solid weeks. The down times—usually between classes or late at night—I buried myself in my own art. Writing, reading, studying. I felt like I was always operating on a higher plain of cognition. For years I was concerned that I couldn’t abandon this because my art would suffer. However, I’ve grown as an artist, matured, blossomed. I am confident every day that I wake up as an artist and lay my head down as one, no matter what happens between. I no longer need the prop, though I am grateful for its place in my growth.

2)      Going back to the well. You can live as artfully as you want but if the demands of career and family mean you can’t give time to your art, just what sort of an artist are you? And when you’re only scratching out a few minutes per day (week?) for your art it become frustrating. You need the selfish binging once in a while. Staying out of town at this Summer School allowed me to do that. I know how to make time for myself—not three weeks, certainly, but time—my wife knows I need it, we’re both fine when I take it. And when I do, it’s just for me all day. No school in the mean time.

3)      Friendship. The staff at this school have all been involved for a long time. They’re some of my best, most respected friends. The junior staff are every one of them former students of mine. I always marvel at how respected I am there, how much authority my word carries, how much people internalize my words and ideas and advice. I don’t know anywhere that I am that unquestioningly loved. For the longest time this was the one I worried I could never replace. Then I got to think about my full-time best friends. They do love me, but they also question me. And this grows me. Friendship means you can be yourself, but if it’s only a sycophantic relationship for your own ego, it doesn’t grow you. Friendship should grow you as a person, evolve you, challenge you. And as much as I love these former people, because the friendships were such short bursts of our lives, it could only be ratifying. Another sort of return to the well.

4)      Jesus. I am not a Christian, and this is a Christian school. Part of it is supporting a Passion Play. The majority of the students are from actively Christian families, and many of those from wide-eyed fundamentalists. Many of the students are regularly homeschooled, a form of education I’ve always been very against. Very little of what I’m doing at this school—other than the art itself—lines up with my views of education. I am happy to leave that aspect behind, of biting my tongue and pretending to be—or maybe better put, of allowing myself to be thought without disagreeing openly—something I’m not. I’ve gained a lot of tolerance for religious diversity over the years, but haven’t gained any for those who are not. I remain the Good Samaritan amongst Philistines.

Thirteen summers is a third of my life. It’s a pretty big deal for me to finally be walking away. But it’s time, long since. I’m better for having it, and better for leaving when I’m on top.