Monthly Archives: February 2018

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Tired … On Purpose

This post will probably be more useful to me than it is to you.

Roughly ten years ago, when I was taking dance classes regularly, I had a brief meetup with a dancer friend of mine inside of DLM Studio on Bloor St West. He told me about how tired he was because of all the dancing he’d been doing (both that day and in general). I remember telling myself “Don’t do this. Don’t get to the point where you complain about doing so much singing, or acting, or whatever.” What I think I said out loud was something to the effect of, “Hey, everybody’s tired, but at least you’re tired from doing a lot of something you love.” And I’ve been reminded of that conversation numerous times.

Like yesterday, for example.  My Saturday, February 17th was awesome.

Tiring?

Yes.

Hectic?

Yep, even more so than an average weekend for me.

Worthwhile?

Well, let’s see.

Although I went to bed too late on Friday (my day job is an evening one), I woke up on time Saturday to arrive at the location for a music video shoot at 9:45am. I was one of the production assistants, helping to organize various things so that my friends and their dancers/models could focus on giving the best performances possible. It was so good to support folks I really care about who are working to make their dreams come true, while meeting some new ones and having the fun of being part of a creative project without any of the stress of the project being mine. Although the shoot was an all-day affair, I left at 1pm after a partial outfit change to get to the Art Gallery of Ontario before 2 (eating snacks en route on the 505 Dundas streetcar). At the AGO I had time to apply lipstick, mingle a bit, and settle in for a tribute to and Q&A session with acclaimed casting director Robi Reed, who bestowed some nuggets of useful knowledge as part of the 6th annual Toronto Black Film Festival. Two of my favourites were “Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready,” and “There are two kinds of people: the people who want it and the people who can’t live without it.” That ended a bit before 4, so my friend and I were able to mingle a bit more and then hustle to catch the 4:15 showing of the Black Panther movie with my dad and my boyfriend. All I will say about that at this moment is that Black Panther is one of the best movies I’ve seen, I fervently hope to play a role like Shuri’s one day (yessss Letitia Wright!), and this film will go down in history as a memorable one for so many of the right reasons – I’m so happy I was able to see it on its opening weekend. The last event of the day was a live comedy show starring Toronto comedian Trixx, who’s absolutely blown up online since the first time – years ago – I saw him onstage in person. While Trixx and the other comedians were all very funny, one of my favourite parts of the night was probably his serious show ending, where he talked about the support he receives from Torontonians despite our reputation as the Screwface Capital. It was especially cool that when I made my way up to Trixx to congratulate him afterward, he greeted me as “Ms Director” (a bit preliminary, but I’ll take it!), which just seemed to confirm to me that while you’re watching someone else rise and shine, they may also be aware of you doing the same thing. And then, on the way home, I realized that I’d received an email during the show confirming my participation in a Master Class with a Gemini-award-winning screenwriter and director at the upcoming ACTRA conference; essentially, my first audition of the year, and one with maybe 200 people watching it. Live.

I was very tired by the time I got to bed, and it was the kind of tiredness that inspires and even demands gratitude. Even better: although yesterday was particularly careerful (haha), it wasn’t an anomaly for 2018 Chattrisse Dolabaille. Today I took an acting class which involved a true performance breakthrough for me; on Monday I’ll be getting new headshots done and writing; Tuesday will involve prep for the ACTRA conference which is on Wednesday and Thursday; the next screening of my short film CHECK is on Friday. And et cetera.

I wanted to publish this so that I’ll have something tangible to point to when future successes seem to some as though they materialized from nothing. I actually keep a little notebook where I write down every career-related task that I do each day, to make sure I don’t let any days go by without adding to the pile; and even though I still have *so* much more building to do, I know that I’ve been putting in work that I can be proud of. Since I’m learning and growing, my goals are within my reach; since my goals are within my reach, I have more learning and growing to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’ve “made it” and the bulk of the work is behind me; I do know that every time I yawned today, somewhere deep down inside my soul, I gave myself a high-five.

So at the risk of repeating myself, let’s promise that since we spend so much of our adult lives being tired anyway, we’ll make sure that at least some of that tiredness is the result of chasing our dreams. Not so that we can complain about the effort, but so that we can develop those dream-chasing habits and muscles.

Now if you’ll excuse me . . . bedtime. And not just because I don’t want bags under my eyes for tomorrow’s shoot =)