FInding Me
By Viola Davis
The question still echoes, how did I claw my way out? There is no out. Every painful memory, every mentor, every friend and foe served as a chisel, a leap pad that has shaped “ME!” The imperfect but blessed sculpture that is Viola is still growing and still being chiseled. My elixir? I’m no longer ashamed of me. I own everything that has ever happened to me. The parts that were a source of shame are actually my warrior fuel. I see people…in a way that is hyperfocused because of my past. I’m an artist because there’s no separation from me and every human being that has passed through the world including my mom.
Actor Viola Davis’ life is like a magnifying glass, that brought into focus and enlarged a story that resonates with every person who has suffered. I admit I can’t compare my suffering to hers. I want to say, oh her experiences were wayyyyy worse than mine. Viola grew up poor. I grew up in a stable middle class family. Viola grew up black. I grew up white. Viola grew up witnisseing and experiencing abuses that made her fear for her life and the safety of her loved ones. The source of my childhood fears was much more tame in comparison. But by showing me an experience of enlarged and magnified suffering in her own life, Viola helped me resonate with the reverberations of my own struggles, my own shame, and my growing ownership and appreciation for all that has made me who I am today.
As an artist, that’s what she brought to the stage, screen, and now to this book.
She used Joseph Campbell’s mono-myth of the Hero’s journey to make sense of her life, which also reminded me of my own view of my journey through that lense. Viola Davis has known more success in her acting career than 99% of the actors out there. But the point of her book is that this success is not what defines her. That what defines her is the journey that allowed her to find a career where she could take every scrap of suffering, see it, accept it, find forgiveness, and redemption and use it for good. And that’s healing.
To me, Viola is a super woman figure to have not only survived her childhood, but also to have integrated it into her adult life. I won’t use the word “overcome” as I don’t think she would describe it that way. She is also everywoman. Because reading her book makes me feel akin to her. That she knows my suffering because she, too has suffered. That she knows my struggle toward growth and healing, and finding myself, because she, too, understands that it’s an everyday project, not a destination.
Along with harrowing memories, and joyfull successes, Davis describes the real life experience of being an actor. She showed that the glamour we see on award shows is the very tip of a deep iceberg of sacrifice, hustle, hard work, and luck. Show shows the full reality of the experience, not just the dressed up, cleaned up media version.
It’s a hard, painful read. But it’s also an incredible inspiration. I found that when I could hang in there with Viola to read about her sufferings, I could also engage with the joy that she emanates like light shining in the darknes.