Home is Where the Silence and Noise Are

I feel that I have two sacred spaces. The first is my bedroom, which is an emotional safe space in which I feel protected and free. The other is the theatre, during the time of transition between rehearsals and performances. Here, I feel energized and creative and supported by the people in my cast and crew. I am unwilling to choose a single sacred space, because I don't feel that that would represent me accurately as a person. As someone who is always exactly halfway between "introverted" and "extroverted" on the Myers-Briggs personality test, I definitely have a divide between my social self and my individual self. I also have a divide between my emotional need for a "home" feeling and my intellectual-creative need for constant stimulation. 

My bedroom is always very clean and organized. It has a turntable and a crate of records, a piano, three guitars, my desk, my bed, and a lot of various small objects that hold meaning to me. Mostly, however, there are books. I have two bookshelves and three other surfaces that are lined with books. My parents also collect books, and I have always felt most safe when the walls of a room are lined with bookshelves. It's a childhood thing. So in my room, I feel safe but also creative. It is a place for me to recharge, but also to explore myself through music and writing and thought. I write songs and poems and essays and stories in my room, and I feel very close to myself.

The theatre is a completely different experience. It's loud and bustling and stressful and colorful; there is always something happening onstage before rehearsal or the show, there are people crammed into the dressing rooms trying to wrestle themselves into corsets or to wrestle their hair under a wig, and there is constant noise. Contrasting all of this is the enormous expanse of nothingness that is the house, or the place where the audience sits. When I stand on the edge of the stage, I always feel like I could touch the ceiling if I wanted to, even though it's hundreds of feet above me. Whether we're still in rehearsals or if we've started our run of the show, there is perpetual motion. I feel like I am always engaged and always ready to start a task. On top of all this, the theatre is the place where I get to perform. No matter what other art forms I work with, the theatre is where I feel as if I have a purpose, and I'm fulfilling it.

Like myself, my sacred spaces are divided between introversion and extroversion. To be a full version of myself, I have to have both. I can't constantly feel the heightened level of awareness and the ridiculous drama of the theatre, but I also can't stay in my room all the time without feeling stuck and frustrated. Having a balance of both places helps me to balance myself and my contradicting needs, and it makes me feel happy and fulfilled and safe.