The Making of a Faery . . .

I am slowly becoming a faery.

When this whole process started back in January, there were a lot of phone calls going back and forth between myself and my best friend B; tearful phone calls where I expressed my fears that I wouldn't be able to do this. I was too fat, too graceless and clumsy, not pretty enough, you name it. See, I have wanted to be part of this cast, the Fantastickals at the Bristol Renaissance Faire, ever since the troupe was created, but I never thought I had a chance in hell. They were these lithe, beautiful, ethereal things, and I have always seen myself as clumsy and ungainly, huge and unappealing. I felt very blessed to get the chance to do their makeup for the past two years, but it felt a little bit like answering phones at the Steppenwolf: close, but so far. As I started to work on my choreography for the audition in March, I criticized my every step, my every movement, taping myself, wincing at how stiff and ridiculous I thought I looked. I had a knot in my stomach the day of auditions, but I went in with the biggest smile and pretended a confidence I didn't feel; I ended up having a lot of fun, but was convinced by the end that, though I had given it my best, I would spend another two seasons in the street cast. I just wasn't like them, and I never would be.

Then, the phone call on Monday, that I had made it.

Suddenly, my inner landscape began to shift, and I started to look in the mirror and search for the inner stillness; I began to try to believe what it was I must have had to have gotten cast as one of these creatures. The rock in my stomach began to soften, and I started to let myself belong, quieting the inner voices that were always ready to jump in with the critiques and the put-downs. I started to tell myself: "Yes, I have a right to be here, to be part of this."

And, slowly, it became true.

As I reached inside, I found her, the faery that was waiting within, patiently, in stillness. She is always sure-footed; she is infallibly serene. She has the confidence I have been lacking, and as I find her, gracefully everywhere descending, I feel my spine straighten and my chin lift. She is me. I am this creature, the little girl who was too grown-up to fit in, the young woman who always felt she wasn't enough . . . in becoming something so other, so apart, I feel myself belonging in a way I never expected. My feet are rooted in the earth with each step, and my face turns towards the sun. Gradually, gracefully, I am becoming a faery.