As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

If my mother was to say I was born in the dirt, my father might be likely to say I was born on the stage. I’ve performed in Shakespeare and Brecht, Wilder and Moliere, Jones and Inge.

My dad, who’s been teaching theatre at the same university for almost as long as I am old, first started including me in his productions when I was barely five. I went on to perform in my high school productions and a little in college, but outside of “the platform,” as they say in the professional speaking world, my last curtain call occurred three years ago when my dad needed a pinch hitter for Tartuffe and I was available.

(In Godspell when I was 16.)

Theatre is easy to celebrate because it’s almost always centered around some kind of story and humans love story. More to the point, I love story. It’s also easy to celebrate because it’s like music and painting – it’s art and everyone loves art in some form or another.

I’m celebrating my own history of theatre these first 30 years, however, because it has helped me understand my own identity and my own story. For example, I vividly remember the day a college director pushed me and pushed me in a role to get angry. I’d never allowed myself to feel so angry or express it so openly. Suffice it to say I never had trouble after that; the experience of playing someone else opened me up to a whole new part of myself.

Theatre has done something else important in my life. It has helped me understand the maleability of my own identity and my own story. In other words, through acting I began to see that how I show up in the world is, to some degree, no different than trying on different characters. Jung called it “persona” and it comes in pretty handy when embarking on new adventures in life.

So today I bow down to Dionysus for the joy and revelry and truth-telling that occurs on a stage. And I give thanks to all the muses who have helped me identify, create and re-create the person I am and the life I live.

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

It will likely come as no surprise (after yesterday’s ode to my mother) that today I celebrate my father and his role in my life for the last 29 years and 336 days!

There’s the sense of humor. A command of language. Intellectual curiosity. A love of all things woodsy (including daddy long leg spiders!). A willingness to wear tie-dye.

(In 1997, prior to my Junior prom)

Today, however, when I look at who I’ve become I recognize that my dad has given me a particularly tremendous gift in the realm of story that has shaped my very being. He infused my childhood with story – from creating winding bedtime tales until I drifted off to sleep in a land of adventure, to exposing me to Shakespeare and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

But there’s another kind of story that has become dear to me that I’ve gotten to explore with my dad – the personal story. His kitchen table will always feel like home to me because it is there that I learned the art of crafting a personal tale. And the art of challenging it. Be it the story of the amazing day, the story of girl-meets-boy, the story of the crappy job…

Thanks, dad, for sharing with me your love of a good story, for that has powerfully transformed my life over and over and over.