With all the time I have in the car lately, I have really been giving space in my brain to the exploration of my love of midwifery and theatre and how to connect the two. I miss the stage profoundly. I never did anything spectacular. I did a lot of community theatre as a teenager. I studied theatre in college and got some relatively decent roles. I surrounded myself with artists and actors and I couldn’t imagine life without acting (pretentious and dramatic enunciation on the word acting).

But, something was missing. I knew I was called to do birth work, but it wasn’t just that. There was something missing from the process—from the experiences I was given on stage and by instructors. It was hollow. What really drew me to the stage was this primal wanting—this desire for self exploration—a need to go on a voyage, a vision quest—creation--and I wasn’t given that. I didn’t even know how to ask for it. I couldn’t have articulated that need back then anyway; it just lived somewhere deep in my subconscious. I wanted to let go of my ego, my sense of rightness, any moral trappings, the fear of risk…I wanted to be guided on how to surrender all of that bullshit and ride a wave to somewhere else…to someone else…I wanted all of us, on the stage, to be transported to another fucking planet.

There were glimpses of it here and there. Moments of wicked inspiration, when I would come off the stage knowing that I was truly someone else out there and that everything I had felt and every action I made was sincere and authentic. But, for the most part, my stage experiences left me with a profound longing for something I couldn’t even verbalize or fully know then.
That is where the midwifery comes in. Each and every mama and family I work with—in every bedroom or kitchen or living room or field—every single birth is a transformative quest. It is the ultimate in the creative. In order to hold that space for that mama’s work I have to let go of all pretention and ego and all the trappings of righteousness. I have to ride with that mama to another world. I have to trust. I have to get fucking down and dirty with another human—not be afraid to go to a place where I think I am on the edge but I know I have to push further and so I do and I realize that there really is no edge only a boundless creative well and it is from this place that I can help a mama come there too and we are both artists at that moment—in that space—she the ultimate creator—and me, humbled and transformed.

This is where I am really learning about the art and craft of midwifery. I knew it intellectually, but now I am experiencing it. I feel like more of an artist at every single birth than I ever, ever did on the stage.

I am anxious to get back to acting soon. I am hopeful that the right opportunity will come to me. I am giddy at the prospect of applying what I have learned through midwifery to the stage. For the first time in my life though, I feel like I am answering a true calling. I know I will never entirely give up acting or writing, but right now the call of the birth work is strong and I am honored to submit to it.