Letting Go

Thoughts on releasing my baby (my writing!)

Seattle Rep approached one of my writing groups - Omoide. (Omoide was started thirty years ago to collect stories of the Japanese American experience.) In November, the theater told us they wanted stories for actors read in front of a live audience in February! We weren’t polished writers for the stage. With Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years upon us, there was no time for critiquing or rehearsals. Suddenly, something I wrote was going to be thrust onto the stage.

It’s one thing to write with only the echos inside my skull. Writing is solitary work. But it’s a completely different experience to watch strangers read and react to what I wrote. The Seattle Rep experience felt like my writing was suddenly taken out of its cradle and thrust out into the cold harsh world.

Is my baby going to survive? Will she get shot down? Worst of all, will no one understand what she’s trying to say?

Tim Takechi was the actor who read my 500 word essay. He looks about the age of my own kids. My essay was about my conversation with my immigrant mother. Mom came to America in 1955 as a young woman to join my father, a Japanese physicist. There is a huge difference between my immigrant parents’ experience and that of Tim’s generation. Would Tim be able to capture the essence of my essay?

The Omoide coordinators - Dee Goto and Karen Yoshitomi did an amazing job of pulling together the fourteen disparate essays and poems. The short intros before each piece prepared the audience. The music clips between each essay provided entertainment and set the mood.

Four actors with a Japanese American connection bravely agreed to read the Omoide pieces with only one zoom rehearsal! Sarah Baker, Tim Takechi, Joy Misako St. Germain and Arlene Thomas. (I empathized with them since I’m also an audiobook narrator. ) At first, I wondered why Tim read my essay but I saw how good he was at handling the heavy subject. I was amazed and pleased at how he infused my essay with his interpretation. Although I had sprinkled in a lot of unfamiliar Japanese words, Tim managed to plow through them. (I made a mental note of how difficult Japanese words are for actors to pronounce.)

The audience didn’t kill my baby! They followed Tim. Laughed at the right spots. Sighed at the right spots. Clapped at the right spots. Magic happened. Somehow the words I wrote transformed into a meaningful story.

It takes a village to raise a baby. It’s the same for writing. Any piece of writing has to have a lot of support to make it in the world. My ideas gestated for years in my mind. Fellow writers offered honest feedback. I wrote and rewrote the essay. (I read an early version of the essay out loud at Chuck Palahniuk’s salon in Portland a few years ago. I wrote a post about that scary experience. ) Omoide and the Seattle REP offered another opportunity. Actors interpreted the essay. Others directed, coordinated, and polished my piece. And people listened and reacted. Thanks to A LOT of people, my baby is thriving. My baby is growing up now and I hope her next appearance will be on an even bigger stage.