Note from Louisa

A funny thing seems to happen to me pretty regularly when I find myself working on a creative project. It occurs often enough that you’d think I would be prepared for it by now – but it always seems to catch me a bit off guard. 
 
There is always this weird moment when I utterly doubt that it will come together. 
 
At all. Ever.  
 
This is generally followed by host of predictable thoughts: “I need more time” or “why did I ever think this was a good idea?” or “this time, it’s just not going to work”.
 
When I was working in theatre, this was such a common occurrence in the mounting of a production that it was an expected part of the process. Usually, the weekend before opening, right around the time of tech, which is the big push to bring all the elements of a show together before previews, it seems downright impossible that the magic will happen on opening night.
 
The costumes need adjustment, the set isn’t finished, the sound cues are wrong, the blocking doesn’t work with the lighting plot, the tempo of the music is off, or the actors keep blowing their lines – there is just no way it’s going to work. We all collectively teeter on the brink of what surely feels like disaster.
 
But that is the very purpose of a technical rehearsal. Not only to focus the lights, work out the cues, or figure out where the scene changes are taking too long – but also to have it all feel a bit like it’s going to hell. That’s when the alchemy happens.
 
After all, this is when the many parts come together and coalesce into a whole - and that synthesis will always require a bit of chaos.
 
Wouldn’t this whole process be easier if we didn’t fear chaos so much? If we could recognize its value as the predictable and welcomed “moment before” the magic? Understand it as a necessary experience needed to allow the clouds part, the lightbulb to go off, and something much better than we expected or planned on to emerge? 
 
After all, before every moment of certainty is a moment of confusion, of not knowing, which we undervalue or label as failure. We don’t recognize that chaos and messiness are essential ingredients in the process of alchemy. 
 
How lovely would it be to have the predictable frustration of a production tech and its organized disorganization in all the other parts of our lives! “Don’t fear the chaos, move toward it – somewhere in there is the answer!”
 
For me now, these moments happen when I’m up against a creative deadline and I just can’t find it… whatever “it” is. The whole of it, the through line, the way to the teaching just doesn’t quite fall together or feels obscured in a deep cloud of confusion. I just have no idea how to bring it all together.
 
But I don’t have to know. I have to trust. This isn’t something you can think your way through. You have to give up control and trust the material, trust the process, trust yourself, and, most importantly, trust the chaos.
 
That’s what brings the magic.
  
Blessings on your journey, 
Louisa