masks

In the culture of my home, it is said that every person has two faces. One is the face that they show to the world, and the other is the one that they wear just underneath. Their true face.

The faces I show to the world are many, entire wardrobes of masks grinning and glaring from every angle. Outfit after outfit hung in neat rows, ready to be tossed on backstage. Every show I'm someone different. Male, female, falsetto or natural tone, my voice carries, reaching into the hearts of the audience with song or speech. My masks pull them in, center their eyes on me. I always draw applause. They love me.

Or, rather, they love the character.

It's not that it's an empty life. My heart races. I drink in the adoration, the knowledge that I've made them happy, made them feel something. I wasn't thrust into this life. I chose it.

But what is the other face I wear?

Honestly, sometimes I don't know. It's retreated so far behind the masks that I only get small glimpses of it. It is soft and malleable and timid as a deer, so afraid of having its little throat ripped out that it hides behind the larger-than-life. Characters on the stage are absolute. Their beings are written on the page and on the stage, safe from the hands of others. Living narratives are more fragile. People love to see the mould broken in fiction, but they so rarely tolerate deviance in their real lives. My fellow actors are not so different from myself, and I've heard their stories, as well as lived my own experiences.

Make no mistake, however. My life is no surrender. My masks give my true face freedom. I know it is meek and quiet, and the personas give it a quiet glade to sleep in peace while storms rage around it. I can tap into their strength when I need to, and from that silence I've pieced together, slowly, who I really am.

I just have to step lightly, lest I lose sight of it entirely.