Audre Lorde
I almost started this post with “I believe in risk-taking” but that sounded so ridiculous and preachy I changed my mind.
My relationship with risk-taking is at times like concrete is to Los Angeles. At other times, my risk-taking is like a tidal wave in the desert. What I consistently find is my risk-taking is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes or more like the ubiquitous Los Angeles pavement when I take the time to practice and even seek out risk.
I’m going to share very brief summaries of two risk-taking adventures that paid off, one creatively and one in advocacy.
My son’s earliest education had thorns on its branches, put there, sadly enough, by inept educators. Once I stumbled into the realization my son was on the autism spectrum after some severe kindergarten behavioral episodes and then a flat out refusal to be confined in his first grade classroom, I went into full force risk-taking on behalf of my son.
I am the typical Mama-Warrior, waging full battle with anyone who has hurt or may hurt my child in any possible way. It caused me pain to see an institution I have admired my entire life – the educational system – become a cast of villains right before my eyes. I fought to get him his free appropriate public education, took a breath, and then joined committees to be a presence and actually align myself with the very people I had been at battle with previously. What happened? My son is treated with deep respect by every educator he encounters. They each know me, not as a “wacked out, irrational Mama” but as an eloquent, passionate, knowledgeable mother who “calls them like she sees them.”
Earlier this year Samuel experienced some severe bullying from his general education classmates. I was called immediately by the principal. The boys who bullied were suspended and expelled less than a week after they returned to school.
My risk, with my knees knocking together, tears in my eyes and a battle cry in my body, has definitely paid off. Staring at Junior High, though, I am more than a little afraid and planning my strategies now.
My creative risk-taking adventure started with me deciding to take a voice class followed by an acting class when the voice classes were over. I didn’t want to take the acting class, but I figured it was like throwing a bone at a dog and it was better than nothing. It was only two weeks into the acting class I had a transcendent experience, reminding me acting was something I loved until I was eleven years old when I abandoned it. I had buried the love, passion and talent for thirty years.
While still taking the ten week course, I auditioned for A Christmas Story and was cast as Miss Shields, Ralphie’s teacher. It was an awesome jump into theater. Since then I have done many, many plays – mostly good experiences. I have also done some films, some music videos and a commercial or two. I have also combined activism with my art, which has become my favorite creative outreach and I have made some tremendous friends.
It was another risk that definitely paid off.
Even writing about these two risks I took and the ways they served me makes me feel more confident and courageous.
I feel more powerful. I feel more like I can take more risks and as I sometimes do, make a goal of risk-taking as a daily event. They are out there, large and small, each and every day. The more you practice taking risks, the better you get at them especially when you don’t have attachment to how everything ends up. Sometimes risk-taking and risk-failing offers even better lessons than when you are immediately successful.
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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott