when the world sees me, who does the world see?

i feel as though i am pretending, playing the part of an almost-adult...but in my mind, in my heart, i still feel like an inexperienced child. What if the world can see through me?

i am afraid that someone will expose my charade for the fraud that it is. And yet, each day, the mask i wear fits a little better, melds a little closer to my own skin...and i worry that soon, i will be unable to remove the mask.

"be yourself," they say, but who is that? if i grow into my mask, is the mask no longer a mask? if i become it, has it become who i am? and there are so many masks...i could play an endless parade of people. but when the curtain falls, and the makeup is scrubbed away, what is left? what remains?

An actor must become the character she plays. No other artist must become the art on such a fundamental level: the painter can step away from the canvas; the composer can return the instrument to its case. But the actor is the part. To step out of character is to step outside oneself, which is tricky at best and downright impossible at worst.

But the show must end, and the audience must leave -- and after all, what is an actor without an audience? When the character's run is ended, what then becomes of the actor? and what becomes of the actor when the character lives?

i know not who i am...

i am a drifter, searching endlessly.

i am an actor, trying to craft the perfect role.

i am an artist, reaching for the answers that elude my grasp.

i am a writer, hoping desperately to continue my parallels, to inspire a reader, to capture experience and emotion for a moment, to write.

i am i. not Don Quixote, but i, myself.


summer 1997