Living the Questions

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything.

From Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Patience has never been one of my strong points. It seems I was born in a hurry and haven’t stopped racing since that day over a half century ago. I have lived my life with a sense of urgency and intensity. Lately though, something has been happening slowly from within. My full throttled outward productivity level is downshifting. I am learning about containment. I am learning about restraint. I am learning about silence. I am learning about listening. I am learning about selectivity. I am learning about patience. I have spent twenty-six years - over 40% of my life, focused on producing and directing other artist’s work. My contribution to the artistic world has amounted to interpretation, analysis, and attempts at communication of a playwright’s intent. The stage, my canvas, the materials borrowed. The required energy is focused outward, driven by the demands of production. The ephemeral nature of theatre leaves but a memory, an imprint of an experience. A moment here or there. Transcendent moments perhaps – even transformative experiences - but lasting only in the minds of an audience.

Recently, I walked the festival grounds in Laguna Beach, taking in the artwork created by local painters, photographers and sculptors. I read the artists’ statements next to their work. Their work. Physically present for me to look at. I was struck by the uniqueness and individuality of each artist’s style and their attempt at saying something through their art. Only patience could create such art. I found myself genuinely inspired. And I began to ask myself what it is that I have to say? What is it that is uniquely my own? What do I need to do in what Sara Lawrence- Lightfoot calls, “The third chapter?” It is not an answer I seek. It is a new question. In her essay, Coming to Writing, Helen Cixous says, “what misfortune if the question should happen to meet its answer. It’s the end!”

With each answer, a little death - stagnation. With each question, a new birth - vision. Is this what Rilke means by “ripening?”

I believe one of the most important gifts a theatre educator can give one's students is to continue to live the questions. Staying open to what inspires. Listening deeply to the stirrings of the creative orphans inside. 

Ask a different question. It is the only path to relevance.

Copyright Amy Luskey-Barth 2014