In life, I’d always felt vaguely disconnected from other people. I say vaguely, because even though I’ve always had lots of friends and immediate family around, always stayed in the social mix of things, and stayed busy with extra-curricular activities; at the end of the day, I never missed anyone once they were gone. Never felt lonely.

I was perfectly content in solitude, and actually preferred it that way. My feelings always stayed very surface, and “out of sight, out of mind” couldn’t have been a truer description of life for me. I was connected, but disconnected – if that makes any sense.

As a matter of fact, when some of my own extended family members would tell me that they loved me, I would internally wonder, “Really? How, when we hardly ever see one another?”  How do you find things to love about someone that you hardly ever talk to? Like, maybe. But love?

What exactly is this “default love” and connectivity that everyone else feels? Are they just faking it? Or am I just immune? Up until recently, I still pondered these basic human questions. Come to find out, I would uncover the answers in the most unlikely of places - at my performing arts studio, while rehearsing for an upcoming showcase. Let me explain…

I’ve done lots of film and television, but for the very first time in my adult life, I am part of a stage ensemble – a wonderfully energetic mixture of song and dance and drama; Hip-Hop and soul; a journey from my freedom fighting roots, to the freedom of throwing my hands up in the club. And even though I am one in a mix of about 20, what I do individually on that stage profoundly affects my fellow performers.

Likewise, what they do profoundly affects me. If they’re off-beat, it throws me off. If I misstep, I may hit someone else. If their energy is high, it ignites the person next to them, and the person next to that person, sending an inferno racing through the room.  If their energy is low, they muffle the beat of the next man’s drum.

We all matter to each other, whether we like it or not. And we may not even know one another all that well, might have just recently met, but in this exchange of living creativity, we all have to fall in line with one another as if we have been connected for years. We must believe in the connectivity ourselves, or in short, our existence on that stage will be a disaster waiting to happen. We belong to one another, and it’s not an option.  So as I stood there in rehearsal on that Monday night, I had a light bulb moment that sent my heart racing. This is kind of like… life!

It also occurred to me that actors and performers, on a fundamental level, especially those that start from a very young age, constantly must make physical connections in order to achieve their creative goal as a group. And it’s just natural law that when your body repetitiously does something, your mind follows suit, then your heart, and finally your soul.

On a basic level, creative people (actors, dancers, and singers, etc.)  are thrown into the midst of humanity each and every time they perform with others, forcing them to connect, which in my opinion naturally makes them more open, receptive, feeling, and sensitive people; hence, my biggest emotional puzzles being unlocked in the midst of performances and rehearsals. As someone who had my “emotional faucet” turned down to a trickle at a young age, it felt absolutely explosive standing there when I finally understood. So believe me, it was no coincidence when I received a life-altering phone call just days after that very same rehearsal.

Ever since I could remember, I struggled to understand the place that my paternal grandmother (may she rest in peace) had in my life. I honestly felt no connection to her, and the outpouring of love she displayed when she occasionally saw me actually made me feel uncomfortable and distant, because I just didn’t understand where she was coming from. Again, I would have those same questions: How can you love someone so deeply that you hardly ever see? Was she just saying all of that? What exactly was her place in my life? Does she really even know me?

Then, sometime last week, my maternal grandmother gave me a call. Before we got off the phone, she asked me what I was working on, and I told her all about my upcoming stage performance. Then something in her voice changed. She said, “You know, your other grandmother used to do this speech that mesmerized a whole room!”

I, of course, had no idea, since I had rarely spoken to her when she was alive. She continued on, “Yeah! And she would be so into it! She used to do this thing where she would slide down on the floor, and I can’t remember the name of it, but the whole room would just burst into a standing ovation…. You know, that’s where you get it from!”

Those last words from her caught me by the throat and sent a shockwave of revelation through my body. Literally, driving on Interstate 285, it seemed like my 80-mile-per-hour world came to a screeching halt.

“That’s where you get it from.”

Wow.

That’s where I get it from?

 Yes!

That’s where I get it from!

That was the very first time I was able to place my father’s mother in my life so personally. It was the very first time I felt a connection to her. Years after her passing, the first time that I truly felt all the love she extended to me, and could allow myself feel it 100 times over in return.

All this time, she and I were a part of an ensemble, and she had passed on a gift to me that I had never allowed myself to see or receive, until that very moment. I felt human. I felt love. I felt a connectivity to this ancestor that had tried so hard to reach me in life; and not only did I now understand her meaning to me, but it truly opened up the floodgates to the realization that everyone else I’d ever known is an integral part of this ensemble as well.

I’ve finally found true love, and it has revealed itself to me through acting.  

Love, Hip-Hop and Thespian Discovery,

Noree Victoria

Hit Noree up at myspace.com/noreevictoria