Acting by Donny Kaye

Acting.  Actors.  Acting out.  Acting up.  Acting weird.  Strange acting.  Not acting right.  Was that just an act?  Act your age.  Is this the final act?  Acts of the apostles. An act of Congress. A heroic act.  Caught in the act.

When does the actor put away the act and become real? 

When do I finally become real, and begin to act?

What an interesting word.  It is only three letters in length excluding a different suffix.  It seems that the use of the word would result in clarity and yet, it like most of our language is not as precise as it is assumed.  The user as well as the one to whom the word is being directed can exist with very different interpretations of the intended meaning and consequently great disparity regarding the meaning of what it is that is actually being talked about. 

Saturday morning a small group of friends gathered on my balcony for early morning coffee.  We talked about love.  We talked about relationships.  We talked about sexuality and its relationship to spirituality.  The conversation was rich and filled with energy that stretched the coffee hour to nearly four, yet we grew increasingly aware of the differences in how we each language our thoughts and how both speaker and the listener often do not exist with shared mind around the intended meaning even though we used similar language to express our thoughts and ideas.

As a child I don’t remember when I didn’t notice men.  Their bodies were exciting for me to gaze upon.  There were teachers at school.  There were young men and boys in the neighborhood.  I especially remember Mr. Harrington, my accordion teacher who also owned a bright red ’56 Mercury convertible who had captured my attention by the age of 10, well beyond cording and bellow-shakes.  In elementary school we got to attend a ballet at the Denver Auditorium Theatre and my interest in that ballet was in the costuming, especially the men’s tights which seemed ever so-o revealing. Any interest I’ve ever had in football was focused on the tight fitting player’s jersey, pants and their muscular torsos. 

Along with the awareness was a cultured learning to act as if I didn’t notice other males.  My actions were about acting right and not acting interested or acting badly as a result of my interests in other males.  My actions were intended to help me deny my very own orientation.  I needed to act like my culture and what my parents, family and religion expected.  There was no room for acting out my sexual interests.  I became a skilled actor in maintaining a secret that resulted in any number of undesirable actions on my part resulting from my denial, frustration and anger and not experiencing the spaciousness to be who I am. 

When I would take action on my sexual orientation, my performance expectations as an actor merely had to increase to act as if nothing was going on in my life that could be associated with the actions of a queer. In many realms of my life, I acted as a seasoned breeder, winning many accolades for my convincing performances. 

Today I am no longer acting as a result of my shame for my sexual orientation.  I am taking action to live in integrity with my very Being.  My acts now are more complete, grounded in compassion and an increasing sense of self worth.  My actions are expressions of my awareness of wholeness as a gay man. I ‘act’ out with a deepening sense of pride in who it is that I Am.  In most realms of my life the actions have not changed, however; the actions are expressions not of an actor, playing a prescribed part but instead as, Donny the one taking action for living this life.

Acting.  Actors.  Acting out.  Acting up.  Acting weird.  Strange acting.  Not acting right.  Was that just an act?  Act your age.  Is this the final act?

Possibly!

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