April 7, 2015 – Twenty seconds of insane courage

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Yesterday morning, on the way to my in-laws to take them some Easter dinner leftovers, I was listening to KQED, San Francisco’s NPR radio station.  Weekday mornings they broadcast Forum, a locally produced interview/call-in show. The guests are always interesting, which keeps my curious brain engaged, so I often listen when I’m driving between 9 and 11am.  Yesterday they had Bay Area-based poet Jane Hirshfield on talking about her two new books.  Just as I was getting off the freeway, the host, Michael Krasney, invited callers to share poems that have been transformational to them. One came right to mind and I had this crazy impulse to call in.  At a stop light I quickly tapped in the number in my cell phone (I know, I know… but once talking I am hands-free). It rang and was answered! I told the screener the poem I wanted to talk about. He said, great, that I’d be on very soon.  Yikes!

Sitting in my car outside my in-law’s house, with my heart pounding, on live radio I shared how Galway Kinnell’s “Saint Francis and the Sow” (above over a piece of my painting “Moonstone Rose”) had transformed my perspective on being in a body, especially a female body.  Part way through the short interchange I stumbled looking for the right words and wasn’t as articulate as I wanted to be, especially as I was being broadcast to millions of listeners!  When I got off the phone, I had this awful feeling, a self-expression hangover. Oh, God, what did I just do?!

Last night I made myself listen to the recording on the Forum website (if you want to hear, start a bit before halfway – I’m the first caller.) Yes, I stumbled, but I wasn’t as terrible as I’d remembered. I don’t think I made a complete fool of myself.  And I’m very grateful to Jane Hirshfield. She knew the poem, related to what I was saying and used beautiful words to describe just why the poem is so powerful.

This is actually the third time I’ve called into this radio program in the past several years. Once I called in when Anne Lamott was on and another time when they were talking to a pastor who was part of a group updating the Bible.  I don’t know what gets into me!

This is so not me – at least not historically.  I have a history of crippling stage fright.  For at least the first 35 years of my life, I made decisions based upon how to minimize my visibility, sometimes with consequences – like taking a lower grade. I’d do all I could to avoid the pain of the spotlight.  This fear carried into my first career in the tech world. I remember one time giving a presentation to a group of customers.   My face turned deep red, was even swollen, I sweated from every pore in my body and the inside of my business suit was soaked.  What’s worse is that I went blank – I know well the feeling of “deer in the headlights!”  My boss, Jim Chen, was in the back of the room watching me flounder. It was just excruciating – and embarrassing to have such a visible reaction to being visible.  It seemed completely uncontrollable. I certainly wasn’t choosing to have all these awful symptoms!

But there was something in me that sought help with this fear.   I went to Speaking Circles in my late thirties, early forties. Here I experienced the safety that can be found, in – of all places – intimacy, in connecting, in making eye contact for a few seconds with one human being at a time. This allowed my nervous system to start calming down.  Around the same time I became a very active member of the Fairfax Community Church, when my beloved Sara Vurek was the pastor. The tradition at the time encouraged lots of participation from the congregation in Sunday services.  I started by doing readings and then one Memorial Day weekend when Sara was away, I lead a contemplative service to just eight sweet souls.  I was so nervous I hardly remembered it afterwards, but was told I did ok.  The community was such a safe place for me to stretch and grow; I ended up leading and co-leading services a dozen or more times over the years.  The safety provided by Sara and this community was the perfect place to heal my fears of being the center of attention.

I’ve come a long, long way. I am here today in a place that I never dreamed possible from that consuming fear and its so-obvious manifestations!   Last year at Open Studios, I was asked talk about marketing to a meeting of participating artists.  The professional PR person who spoke before me so totally covered the tactical part of marketing, I had the thought, oh, crap, now what do I say?  I got up, looked into a few people’s eyes and what came to me was to speak about the deeper experience of marketing our art.  I was completely unprepared – and it was fine.  And I’m guessing what I said was lot more helpful than if I’d talked about postcards and email lists.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, I could hardly have said my own name without feeling like I wanted to find a hole to hide in.

Someone in my life – and I can’t remember who, I’m so sorry I can’t give you credit – told me about the line from the movie “We Bought a Zoo” when Matt Damon’s character tells his son, in talking about a girl, that sometimes all we need is twenty seconds of insane courage and something good will happen.  The thing is, maybe something bad will happen- that’s the nature of risk.  But something will happen.

Courage is a muscle and for whatever reason, some people are called to flex it more than others. I wonder what makes this so.  Is it environment?  Is it motivation?  Seems like it could be related to both.  It is astonishing to me that I’ve ended up in a life where I find myself flexing my courage muscle.  This seemed like the last thing I’d expect of myself in the days when I was so paralyzed by my fears.

Yesterday, I had no conscious motive in calling in to share a piece of myself on live radio. I didn’t even really think about it. I just did it.  And by doing so, I scared myself, I felt vulnerable in the aftermath – and I felt alive.  A well-known poet engaged with me on a poem that meant something to both of us.

I’ve heard it said that everything we really want is just outside our comfort zone.  I’m glad it’s just outside, not way outside – this way, all we have to think about is those first 20 seconds.

Love,

Cara