June 17

On Friday, June 14 two events happened at nearly the exact same time.  First, I was on a plane to the Marshall Islands, returning for the almost 28^th year in a row.  Second, at the Springfield High School Alumni dinner in Springfield, VT, I was being inducted into the school’s Alumni Hall of Fame.  While the one certainly contributed to the other, a more resonant truth strikes me, having to do with what connects those two events across time and place.

Each day since I have returned to the Marshall Islands, I have encountered someone I know from past experiences: One good friend I’ve known from the very beginning, a one-time student who called to me from across the road whom I haven’t seen in 17 years, a past staff member of an organization I’ve long been affiliated with and a more recent student.  The joy at each reunion reminds me of the deeply felt connections made through drama-based experiences.  I write this at the end of the first day of a brand-new program, during which I conducted just one simple creative activity with the participants, but everyone talked about how such a small, interactive experience significantly changed the tenor of the room and helped bring the participants together in a socially-binding way.

Which takes me back to my high school.  It was in theater that I found myself and I think it was in high school where I truly understood that.  This shy, naïve boy discovered an electrifying experience that laid out a pathway for his life.  I did not play lead characters nor was the most celebrated person on that high school stage, but the creative experience helped me better understand who I was and could be and that was what most mattered.

And here, exactly 40 years later, I see that truth played out in young people in a country I didn’t even know existed when I was a high schooler.  I cannot state that this understanding is a universal truth (as I haven’t yet traveled the entire universe!), but I can say that 40 years on it is still a truth.  Discovering our creative selves is a creative act in and of itself, and one that I forefront in all programs I conduct as best as I am able.  I hope to be called across the road many more times in my life, not because of who I am but because of who they learned to become through the creative experiences.

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