Pledging My Time

How "A Complete Unknown" Revived My Inner Artist and Reminded Me Of My Own Story

As sunlight came gently through the windows of 515 East 82nd St, past the maroon curtains, across the pre war wooden floors, and onto the bed where I lay my head I awoke ready for another day. I was 22, in my final year of college in New York City, working as a barback for a hip NY coffee chain, and a few years in on my career as a songwriter. I’d roll out of bed, throw on a flannel, my beloved thrifted Levi’s jean jacket, and my trusty boots before filling my bag with my camera & rolls of film, journals, pens, classwork, and my wallet - which consisted of just my drivers license, school ID, small change, and my Metrocard. I would traipse down the stairs and run to catch the cross town bus. As I made my way to the stop I’d put my headphones on, turn on my iPod and hit play on “Song to Woody”.

Self portrait at home on film, 2011

By this point in my life, I had been a student of music for nearly 20 years (but hadn’t thought about it that way yet). Through my career as a ballerina, then musical theatre/classical singer, and finally as a folk singer, I had amassed a knowledge of music - its myriad rhythms, styles, eras, and histories - without really appreciating my dedication to the arts. I felt for most of my young adulthood that I was seeking. Ballet was a career that gave me discipline, superior counting, and internal rhythm. Musical theatre brought me fun, and freedom. But still, I was seeking, ruminating on the desire to be a performer, artiste, and creative in a way that was most authentic to me.

I had played guitar from the age of 16 but never my own songs. After walking away from my projected BFA in Musical Theatre I began writing poems and exploring what else there could be for me out of the spotlight. I was deeply moved by the strange and wonderful city around me and recall feeling the great possibility in the unknowns of my life, only paused temporarily by a youthful romance and its subsequent breakup. After my tears dried and I realized I was so much better alone - living for myself and that my great love was still ahead of me - I began writing again, fervently, words pouring out. Stories came to me, meditations arose from the misted wonderment of my youth. I devoured records, books, plays; anything that would fill my well. I had a great shedding of old skin around this time. I remember changing the way I dressed; swapping skirts and nicer things for hiking boots, a denim shirt, an army green cargo jacket, no makeup. I didn’t have time for those, I was opening myself up to the muse and searching searching searching for inspiration everywhere. Suddenly my mundane job, my education, and my lackluster lovelife became fuel for my art. Everything was beautiful to me, even, at times, my own suffering. I’d sit on my firescape smoking cigarettes (never inhaling because I didn’t want to get addicted) and coming up with song melodies, or I’d stare off at the people on the street wondering about them until a poem came. This made existing so much easier for me. It turned everyday anxieties and feelings into something. Everything that frightened me or made me sad suddenly had a purpose. I remember feeling that I would never love anything more than I loved music and words. They gave me life.