When Something is Exactly Right

This year, I turn 49.

Everyone loves to remind me that I’m almost 50.

And oh my, isn’t that soooo old?

Sure. It’s old. I guess. Age is just a number.

Am I right?

I’m not bitter.

Speaking of bitter, let’s take a little detour and talk about food for a minute. (I LOVE talking about food!)

Do you remember learning about the four core flavors our tongues can detect: salty, sweet, sour, and yes, that bitter one? If my memory serves me correctly, we had a ditto printout of a tongue and it was mapped to show where all those taste receptors reside.

Taste Map of the Tongue

That was 1987.

That taste map has since been debunked, and in recent years, there’s been talk of a fifth flavor.

You may have heard of it.

It’s called UMAMI.

Brief history.

In 1908, a scientist by the name of Kikunae Ikeda discovered a peculiar, but subtle taste present in foods such as tomatoes, asparagus, meat, and cheese. He recognized this additional taste quality as something quite different from the usual salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. I’ll spare you the boring details, but after a long chemical process, Ikedo isolated and identified glutamic acid as that fifth unique taste. And he named it UMAMI.

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Umami provides balance, increases cravings, elevates the other flavors present in a dish, and in the right proportion, provides great pleasure.

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Ruth Reichl (the food critic for the New York Times from 1993-1999), once described umami as “what something is when it is exactly right for the moment.”

What Something Is When It Is Exactly Right for the Moment

Believe it or not, the International Symposium on Glutamate didn’t recognize umami as a distinct fifth taste until 1990, nearly 100 years after it was first discovered.

Coincidentally, 1990 was the year I met my now-husband. Exactly right? You bet!

And I’ll tell you, it’s taken me a long time to get here, but finally I can say that where I am right now is also exactly right for this moment.

In fact, all the moments I’ve experienced up until right now have been exactly right.

Even when those moments didn’t seem like they were exactly right.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
UMAMI in LIFE

Life is full of flavor.

Years before I got pregnant with our first daughter, Gavin and I talked about having kids…someday. But we kept waiting for the right time.

“Everything must be exactly right,” we told ourselves.

“We have to finish graduate school. “

“We need to get out of this apartment. “

“Raising a family costs money.”

Then when we unexpectedly found out that we were pregnant, none of those things had yet come true.

And guess what?

That little baby was exactly right for that exact moment in time.

Of course, back then no one would have described what was happening in our lives as umami.

That’s because the word umami is used almost exclusively to describe food. In Japanese, umami literally means “essence of deliciousness.”

But just for fun, let’s keep the metaphor going.

A “delicious“ turn of events had just taken place in our young lives!

Something unique was happening. We loved being parents. Our new daughter brought out the best in us. Because of her, we added three more children to the mix. And all of them provide us with great pleasure.

Maybe umami isn’t a flavor at all, but a state of being.
Of being exactly right for the moment we’re in.
Exactly right, right where we are.

I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older I want to savor more of every moment. And yes, that includes even the hard ones.

We talk about the “sweet” seasons of our lives, seasons filled with first the joy of first love. We lament the “bitterness” of disappointment—an unbearable diagnosis or the heartbreaking loss of a loved one. Everyone knows what it means to feel “soured” by circumstances that don’t work out quite the way we want. And who hasn’t been miffed by a “salty” comment directed our way?

But in every season and every circumstance, a layer of complexity resides. No wonder it took decades to locate the taste buds that detect umami (the year 2006 to be exact). Things don’t always feel exactly right, right when we’re experiencing them.

Time is a thief. And time is our friend.
In time, our lives are softened by memories, shaped by perspective, and forged by wisdom.

I bet you, too, have a story of something that turned out to be exactly right for the moment, even though it probably didn’t seem that way at the time. These “umami” moments are the spice of life.

The right spice in the right amount leaves us feeling satisfied and full.

That’s umami.

Take that, 49!

And I am grateful.

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Playing Small is not an Option

Many of us remember high school as a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog marathon popularity contest and rejection fest. That was never more apparent than in my 5th and 6th period acting class. Improvisation. Monologues. Role playing games. Voice calisthenics. And then the dreaded auditions. Talk about rejection! But casting was never just about talent. How do I know this? Because our instructor loved to repeat this well known theatre adage:

“There are no small parts, only small actors.”

I used to think she only said that to make us feel better about ourselves when we didn’t see our names on the cast list. As our teacher, she needed to cut off jealousy, hurt feelings, and petty grievances at the source.

But Ms. Bishop wasn’t the first teacher to admonish her students with these words. For theatre kids like me and professional actors all over the world, it was Konstantin Stanislavski, the father of modern acting, who coined the phrase: “There are no small parts, only small actors.”

Prior to Stanislavski, actors with smaller roles often gave “smaller” performances. They moved with no sense of purpose. They performed their characters with no depth; no commitment. In effect, they were spectators more than they were actors.

Stanislavski found this unacceptable. He required actors who performed in his theatre productions to engage their roles with equal commitment, whether they were lead actors with large roles or supporting actors with few lines or no lines at all.

——-Acting Magazine, July 2018

Three centuries earlier, Shakespeare, the father of English literature, likened the whole human experience to one big theatre production:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

There are no small parts, only small actors.

If I’m being honest, I haven’t always taken the high road. I’ve played it small, looking around and seeing people with opportunity and success looming large right in front of them and thinking: “Why not me? Why don’t I have their talent? Money? Connections? Education? Luck?”

As a young mom, I sometimes complained about the time I spent nursing, changing diapers, and doing laundry. Under the burden of all the things I had to do, I felt like my own raw talent would shrivel up and disappear for good. But these were lies. Those “small” parts weren’t small at all. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were flexing and growing.

Stanislavski believed that every role, regardless of size, mattered. In order for the audience to embrace the story, he emphasized that every single person who worked on the production had to deliver exacting authenticity. (We’ll come back to this later.)

Let’s be real: Even being a part of the ensemble is awesome. How many of us have seen Hamilton, only to be mesmerized by the seamless choreography of the supporting cast? How many of us found ourselves awestruck by the pageantry of a show like Phantom of the Opera, gasping at the drama of a “shattered” chandelier, but never asking “how”? How many of us felt our hearts swell as the ensemble in Les Mis sang “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

Not every actor can or even should be a lead. Some actors need more experience behind the scenes before they’re ready for a bigger role in front of an audience. Acting, like life, is extremely subjective. It takes years of practice, and even the best ones don’t always get a chance at the big-time. To be sure, things like connections and luck do contribute to success.

One of the best parts about being a part of that high school cast was that I got asked to do a bunch of things I didn’t even know I was auditioning for. Actors, by themselves, aren’t all that special. They need the support of those who understand costuming and sound effects, marketing and light design. I learned how to do all those things. And for one special production, our entire class collaborated to write an original play (and we won first place in the state competition!). Behind the scenes and in front of an audience, I saw first-hand how integral every single person was to the success of the entire show.

In college, I thought I was preparing for the role of a lifetime—medical school. I could practically taste the credibility and respect. I could count the money and influence. But instead of getting the role of “student,” I landed the part of “mother,” and my life has never been the same.

Am I going to complain that I didn’t get the role that came with a spotlight? (Is that even something I want now?) Or am I going to accept what I’ve been given with the grace and tenacity of a girl who is out to prove that she can be trusted with small roles, too?

Stanislavski suggests that there are seven questions that actor should ask herself in order to fully understand her character:

• Who am I?

• Where am I?

• What time is it?

• What do I want?

• Why do I want it?

• How will I get what I want?

• What must I overcome to get what I want?

Understanding ourselves and the world we live in is the first step in creating a life of value. Time and place matter because these things are fluid. Just because you are deep in the throes of mothering or school or work right now doesn’t mean you always will be. In fact, one of the best things that could happen to you might be not getting what you want. And as painful as that truth feels right now, you might be surprised at what you uncover when you ask yourself why you want it in the first place.

I realized there were a thousand other ways I could create the life I wanted without being a doctor.

There’s actually two parts to the Stanislavski Method of acting, and it’s this second part that might be the most important of all. It’s called The Magic If:

Utilizing the magic if, you can place yourself in any given scenario and imagine exactly what your character should and would do. In life, that character is YOU. When you understand who you are at your core, you get to make decisions that are congruent with both your values and desires. This is true authenticity!

• How would you respond if …?

• How would you behave if….?

• What thoughts would go through your mind if…?

• How would you feel if….?

• How would your life change if…?

Embracing Empathy

The biggest thing I learned from being an actor? Empathy. According to author Josh Linker of Big Little Breakthroughs, “the empathetic process actually leads to more creativity.” First introduced to the concept of empathy as a young acting student, I’ve since discovered that it’s given me not only a love for other people, but grace for myself. Empathy has shown me not only how to identify problems around me but also how to use both my experience and imagination to solve them.

Playing it small is thinking there’s only one way to be successful, happy, influential, or even helpful. Like Shakespeare said, we are all actors with our entrances and exits, and one man (or woman) in her time “plays many parts.”

All the parts I played have made me a better mom, sister, wife, friend, and ultimately a better human. After all, every role is important. I’m embarrassed I ever thought some of them were small. Indeed, the things I originally perceived as “small” turned out to be the biggest opportunities to shape not only my own generation, but the generation to come.

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I hope you’ve found this post helpful. My prayer is that the next time you find yourself face-to-face with an open casting call for a role you didn’t necessarily choose, you too will be ready to take the stage.

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