Exit Stage Right

"Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived."

Anyone who has ever met me, known me for longer than 8 minutes, or followed me on Facebook knows that I have two Hollywood heroes (so to speak). The first is Winnie the Pooh. I've loved Pooh ever since I was a child. I loved the movies, his sweet voice, his animal friends, and his gentle nature. When I was taking a basic psych course in college, part of the curriculum was to read, "The Tao of Pooh." It was my first introduction to Eastern philosophy and in one book, took Pooh from the childhood Disney(ized) two dimensional character, to a wise shaman guiding my journey through life. The ultimate goal, according to Pooh, is to live life on a daily basis without concerning yourself with the past or living for the future. Live for today and all your worries will take care of themselves. Pooh also believed in friendship. He valued the trust that comes with friendship. He knew that there is no life without the friends around you to build you up and help you out. It seems silly, but the symbol of Pooh means more to me than a yellow stuffed animal with a red shirt. 

My second Hollywood hero is Jean Luc Picard from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," who is probably one of the wisest, most complex, and well acted characters in television history. Right about the time Pooh became my guiding spirit, Jean Luc Picard entered our lives with the return of Star Trek. Anyone who is considered a Trekkie will tell you that Star Trek is based on Eastern philosophy. The series is an embodiment of a world where people seek nothing in life, but to better themselves through the foundation of knowledge and to live for the betterment of society.  It was inevitable that I would eventually start to see life that way. With Pooh guiding the present and Jean Luc guiding a future utopia, I transitioned from child to grown up. 

Last year I attended my 25th high school reunion. As everyone else does who participates in this middle aged rite of passage, I did a little soul searching. On the drive from Florida to Tennessee, I thought about my 25 years since high school. I thought about a hard earned career that was starting to finally take off. I thought of the people that had come into my life. The friends. The lifelong soul mates. I thought about the adversaries and unintended enemies. I thought about adventures. I thought about the people I had lost and mistakes I had made. Mostly though, I thought about the pageantry arts. A career that started when I was 14 and took me on a journey few would understand or even believe. 

When I look back on 30 years spanning hot days on a football field and long nights in a gym, I can't help but think that our activity as sprinkled with a hint of Pooh and a twist of Picard. People living for the day, striving for perfection, seeking to find answers in music and dance, and friendships born from struggle and defeat. It is a life I have wanted to live ever since the first day I stepped on a practice field with flute in hand. 

To me, life is meant to be lived. It is meant to be explored. Humans should be challenged and pushed beyond their comfort zones. It was the world that made sense to me when I would be confused about what "normal" people did on the weekends. While standing around on Monday morning at the water cooler, my co-workers would regale me in their weekend tales of dinners at Cracker Barrel, the pride in the work they did around the house, or the family staycation. They would then turn to me standing silent and ask, "So Shelba, what did you do this weekend," all while I was still wondering how in the world a person lives a "normal life. 

"Ummmm...well...I did that guard thing I do." Not disclosing that I flew to some exotic location such as Springfield, Mo on Friday night, to judge a show all day Saturday, to fly back ass early Sunday morning, just to get into my car and drive to rehearsal in Orlando. To me, as crazy as it sounds, with the exhaustion, stress, and guilt...THAT is living. 

In my time in the activity, I have met some of the most interesting, creative, and intelligent people on earth. For a while, I believed that no one would ever replace that level of three dimensional interaction. These people are brilliant artists. Sometimes confused. Frequently broke and oftentimes tortured. There are many people in the activity who, just like all other forms of art, repair their souls and find their voice in a medium not understood by many. The torture at times plays out on the football fields and in the gyms around the country. I have seen arguments, fights, interventions, drug addiction, sexual promiscuity, marital affairs and other insecurities take the stage in the form of pageantry with flag in hand and music as the backdrop.

This is not an activity for the faint of heart. It is a watered down version of the Hollywood tales that play in an A&E Biography. I have seen "isms" that I'm not happy about. Jealousy and envy rears its head more than it should, but those emotions are real, and as much as we would like to pretend that we are "above" the actions of mainstream society, we are not. We have biases that stay hidden under the table, that are only talked about late at night over a glass of wine with our closest friends. 

With all of are faults and all of our craziness however, we are what we are and what we are is still a group of people living for the day, striving for a better world. A more colorful world. The pageantry arts is life. It is the embodiment of what life should be. Life should be a rainbow of emotions without fear of expression and fear of mistakes. It is the very essence of competition and the arts. 

It is time though, for me to live up to the bargain I made with my soul when I entered into this world. Life is meant to change and there are many of us in this activity who hide in it and for me, the comfort zone has become too comfortable. As Captain Picard once said, "Buried deep within you, beneath all the years of pain and anger, there is something that has never been nurtured: the potential to make yourself a better man. ant that is what it is to be human. To make yourself more than you are. Oh yes, I know you. There was a time you looked at the stars and dreamed of what might be." 

In the thirty years of doing this activity, I have been a performer, instructor, director, board member, and judge. I've done it. I've seen it. I've lived it. It's time however, to see what the next 30 years can bring. How can I take all that I learned in this activity and use it for a life I can barely imagine right now?  I realized recently that I have a voice and am not afraid to use it for the causes I hold dear. I realized that I'm stronger than I could have ever hoped to be and I know I'll need that in the fight for a peaceful world. I realized that fear is not something that haunts me, but pushes me. I realized that the good I can do in the world can extend beyond the confines of a gym and a flag. I can be anything I want to be and you know what...It was the pageantry arts that taught all of this to me. That is its greatest gift.  So I say goodbye to the guards I taught and I say goodbye to a past that taught me what passion really means. I thank every single person who sat in a gym with me and the late nights of laughing over ridiculous show ideas that would never come to fruition. I thank you all for the cocktails and conversation. I thank you for the life lessons! I say goodbye to listening to music for the sake of an idea, but say hello to music that doesn't necessarily have to be spun to. I leave on the table show ideas that I will never see come to life and counts for others to clean. I take one last look around, turn out the lights, close the door, and hopefully I leave it a little better than when I entered. 

Oh I'll still be around. I'll still find my way to a tape recorder now and then. I'll enjoy a cocktail or five while sitting in the bar waiting for my friends to finish up with retreat. I'll still board the plane to Dayton and when it's over, will leave hungover with bloodshot eyes. It's time however, for the gym door to close and the counts to cease. I wouldn't underestimate me, though. You never know where I'll pop up. If this activity taught me one thing, it was that you never quit and you keep striving to be the best you, you can be and that my friend will happen until the day I die. 

To close, I would like to draw from and out right steal the words of Captain Picard:

"So, five-card stud, nothing wild. And the sky's the limit."