A Creative Process...

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, and in honor of this day, I was planning on writing this awesome, knock-your-socks off post about women and awesomeness and fighting the good fight and...

yea well I'm sick ....I've been sick since Friday and these coughing fits just won't quit.

So you have this post instead. This past weekend was the culmination of an absolutely amazing and inspiring experience for me. It was my first time performing at Yoni Ki Baat, which is the South Asian Vagina Monologues. After practicing for two months, I got on stage, along with a bevy of diverse, creative and wonderful women to express our unique monologues and poems to our audience in the Mission District of San Francisco.

There are so many emotions involved in this for me. For one, I remember coming to San Francisco as a tourist almost two years ago,

(Me being a tourist in San Francisco)

running around the Mission Dolores and the Castro clicking away with my camera since I pretty much figured I wouldn't be coming back to the Bay Area anytime soon, if ever. And now here I was performing IN the Mission. Funny where life takes you, from tourist to local performer, I definitely didn't see THAT coming.

Back to the show though. When I first submitted my poem "Mother May I" to Yoni Ki Baat, I had no idea what to expect. I was stoked to get picked, but I still had no idea what I was getting into. As I came to the first rehearsal, I felt sorta weird. I vaguely knew one person, and I had no idea if I would be totally out of place here. Although I'm loud and extroverted, I'm not a seasoned stage performer by any means, and yea I was very nervous.

From that first nervous day, so many things have changed. The women I met became my friends and my teachers, as they gave me tips on how to improve my performance, use my stage space and SLOW DOWN (which I still can't say has quite happened). There were times when I felt totally lost, thinking "wow I can't do this, many of these woman just GET it". Yet the comfort came came, as the pieces were memorized, and there were times when I saw some of the vulnerabilities and strengths of my fellow performers. I think that helped, and it also made me feel closer to them and to the pieces we were putting out there for the world to see.

The amazing thing is, each and every one of the pieces in the show was special to me. It was exciting to see words on paper transform into an actual performance, with feeling and expression. It was a pretty cool process to see how each woman made their piece their own, whether they had written them or not. Every performance was a journey, and I was glad to have been a witness to that journey.

Most of the YKB women are not professional performers. Roberto mentioned how so many of the performers looked completely at home on stage. I told him it was because of practice, practice, practice. The truth is, these women came from very diverse backgrounds. From a Harvard trained doctor who works at a community health center using her experience working with families to inspire a piece on delivering babies, to a high school teacher, a lawyer, an environmental activist, a recording artist/electronic musician, a scientist and so much more. All of these women came together to become fast friends, performers and yes, sisters to put on Yoni Ki Baat.

This experience has certainly made me follow through with my own creative process. Following through with a performance in front of 200+ crowds was quite an undertaking. I even cried after my performance, when all of us took the stage after the final show. It was all such a rush, and it was overwhelming to just give your all to a performance and have it be over. Roberto held me as I blubbered like a baby, they were tears of joy to be sure, and grateful tears to have have the opportunity to be a part of this.

This blog is also part of my creative process, which is continuing, changing, evolving (I hope). I just started another project, which is sort of my baby right now, it's a new photo essay blog called (Extra)Ordinary People at usordinarypeople.blogspot.com. I have also joined a sort of "women's circle" of writers, to inspire each other and push each other to continue the creative process even when we don't feel like it (writing is truly a discipline that needs to be cultivated and tended to!)

So I am still in this process, Yoni Ki Baat was a fantastic part of it, and I can only hope for more amazing ventures and experiences in my future.

Love you ladies, Yonis forever!