I Will Fear No Evil
There has been so much loss over the last year for me and my loved ones. My divorce, for starters, was devastating for everyone involved. I remain confident that it was the right thing for all of us in the long run, but there is a reason that in a Tarot deck “Death” stands for change. Any major life change is like a death in the family. It’s something you have to grieve for, even if it is the best thing for everyone all around.
Then of course Death has literally darkened the door of everyone I love. My sister was murdered last summer – just as I was beginning to get over the loss of my marriage and to be optimistic about moving on to my new life with a new love, we found her lifeless body in the woods. I don’t need to rehash for any of you what a profound loss that was, and has continued to be. I don’t expect any of us will ever truly get over it, but the key is learning to incorporate it into our lives.
You hear the word “Evil” pretty early and often in life, but for most of us, we never actually have to face it. Star Wars introduced us to The Dark Side of the Force; Cinderella had a Wicked Stepmother who delighted in her torment; Superman and his friends fought for Justice against the Forces of Evil. In real life, most of us are never faced with such clear examples of Evil as Lex Luthor or Darth Vader. Life doesn’t have a soundtrack, and when you meet a would-be bad guy, there is no foreboding music to let you know that you should beware.
My existence is not like most. I have stared into the face of Evil. Evil feels nothing but hatred and anger, often thinly disguised as humor or righteous indignation. Evil delights in the torment of its opposition, and desires control above all else. One thing I have discovered along this path is that Evil’s power resides in fear and the willingness to escalate conflict beyond the point of no return. I have heard so many say “if anyone did that to my sister, I would kill him.” It’s easy to say that when you haven’t walked a mile in those shoes. Would you really?
“Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?” – Gandalf the Grey; Lord of the Rings.
Taking the life of one that serves Evil does not right the wrong. Nothing can do that, because Evil has taken it so far that it cannot be taken back. My sister is dead. Neither does it make a hero. A hero is one that saves lives. Destroying an agent of Evil does not necessarily do that. Evil always has more agents, because there is always another victim.
Aha! That’s the secret. Evil is defeated by removing the source of its power. At the end of the day, an agent of Evil is nothing more than a human being that bleeds and bruises like the rest of us. The power of Evil resides in the fear it strikes in the hearts of its victims. Why then must we fear? Victims give power to Evil by fearing it. Instead, we must educate ourselves, and be willing to stare into the face of Evil and say “No More.”
“The only thing we have to fear is Fear itself.” – FDR
Evil does not protect its agents with some kind of invincible barrier; it gives them the power to strike fear by being willing to inflict pain of all sorts. Therefore, the way to defeat it is to be aware of it, and not to fear it. We must arm ourselves with inner strength and confidence, heightening our awareness, minding our surroundings.
The following is an excerpt from my Rokyu (Green Belt) Board of Review, back in 2001:
“My sister’s husband, who is a rather blunt instrument, enjoys jumping out to frighten people. When I was living in the house with them, I came out of the hall bathroom once, and he jumped out and shouted loudly to try to startle me. Instead, I instinctively dropped into a stance and threw a strike to the side that the sound came from. I looked, and there he was, covered in a Big Gulp sized amount of orange juice, holding a broken plastic cup.”
I will never forget the look on his face: deflated, defeated, disgusted. How dare I refuse to play the part of his victim anymore? Didn’t I know that I was supposed to shriek in terror for his amusement? He never tried to do that again. Instead, years later, he picked on my daughter. He delighted in making her cry when she was 3 years old by stomping around loudly like an ogre, and stealing her coat. Then when she would sob and run to me in fear, he would cackle and then offer her candy, as if to say, “Good little girl. You have reacted appropriately to my reign of terror. Have a treat.” Conversely, my niece, Alex, never reacted fearfully to him. She rolled her eyes at his ridiculous shenanigans and bullying.
“I fucking hate the girl. I have since the day I met her.” – Matthew Leili when asked about Alex
Greeting fear with a display of strength is the best way to defeat Evil. That doesn’t mean we should be stupid, and go looking for trouble, or be oblivious to that which should be feared. It simply means that succumbing to the fear and cowering from Evil only gives it more power. Evil hates that which it cannot control or make to be subservient. It hates it, because it fears it. As I have already demonstrated above, at the heart of power lies fear.
“You have no power over me.” – Sarah in Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth”
Last weekend I traveled to Connecticut to pay my respects to Baird Robinson, my sweetheart’s father, and by all accounts a kind, gentle man who lived a great- if a bit shorter than some of us would like- life. It was a lovely service in an Episcopal church. I had never attended an Episcopal service before, and I find that the description that I had heard before, “Catholic Lite,” was fairly accurate. There was Communion, which I of course abstained from completely. (There is the option of kneeling at the altar and crossing your arms to indicate you don’t wish to partake, but I’m Jewish. We don’t do kneeling.) There was also a very beautiful choir selection, and many scriptures read.
In many ways it reminded me of my Grandmother’s Funeral service: a church worship service with an underlying theme of remembrance for the honored dead that we had gathered to celebrate. Included of course were The Lord’s Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm. The Episcopal service is very responsive. The priest reads a line and the congregation responds.
Priest: The Lord is with you.
Cong: And also with you.
As the service’s only Jewish attendee, I abstained from the readings, except for one line of the 23rd Psalm:
“I will fear no Evil.”
Getting Back on the Horse
Alright. Enough is enough already. I still want to be a Voice Actress. I still want to work in animation. Enough of my blog and my site being about my sister’s death.
I will still talk about it from time to time as it is a big part of who I am, but if you want to read about that, head on over to my other blog, JusticeForNique.blogspot.com.
Now, my plan is to get back on the horse. I have been auditioning all along, and have done a few gigs here and there, mostly for repeat clients (YAY! Love those!) but I haven’t booked any new work in a while, and it’s time to dust things off and get this train a’movin’ again! Here’s my plan: 1) Start recording DFOD episodes again. I love my show, and I’ve missed it. I want to post at least one show per week.
If you have requests for show topics, or if you’d like me to do a strictly Q&A show, send me an email (amyelk3 at gmail dot com) or a tweet @AmyElkVO.
Also, the next phase of my plan includes MORE AUDITIONING! I have just fallen right off the face of the earth with Voice123, and I need to get back into that. I am going to carve out several minutes per day for submitting auditions and stick to it!
Another part of my plan seems unrelated, but I assure you, it isn’t. I’m going to get my big butt back to the gym! I have already made appointments with a personal trainer for this week, and I plan to use them. Working out and being healthy just overall makes me feel better – makes me feel more like I can accomplish what I set my mind to. So with that in mind, I am hitting the gym!
On Vox is coming back soon, Bigger (hee hee) and better!
I also plan to make more updates to this site, and include a list of VO studios in the Atlanta area that are excellent, as well as some other advice for the newcomers to the biz.
Take care, everyone! You’ll be seeing more of me VERY soon!
Joy and Sadness
I’m switching formats to a written blog for now. The podcast will return at some point…I just don’t trust myself not to say something I shouldn’t in the podcast, and I don’t have time to sit and edit.
So as most of you know by now, my sister was found murdered on July 16 of this year. She was by far my best and oldest friend. Every day when something cool or funny happens, I feel a hole because I cannot call to tell her about it. Even stuff that wasn’t necessarily her thing.
Case in point, this weekend was Dragon*Con. My sister was a math nerd, but not nearly as big a geek as I am. She never got into gaming or general geekery as much as I did, but I would call and tell her about it anyway. Jonathan Coulton was performing at the Variety Playhouse on Friday night, so Chuck and I went to the show, just expecting to have a good time. As I mentioned, geek stuff – not Nique’s thing, so I wasn’t expecting anything at all to back up on me that evening. It’s not like I was going to see an 80′s cover band or anything. (She was a huge 80′s fan having gone through HS in the 80′s.)
Paul and Storm came out to do their “Opening Band” shtick, and I of course squeed and jumped around like an idiot singing along and laughing at lines like “We’re gonna drink all their beer!” Before I knew it, I was sobbing. It was like I was being hit in the head with something that brought me great joy – now that Nique’ is gone, I will never be able to share it with her. She would have laughed unabashedly at Paul and Storm, ’cause let’s be honest – they are frikkin’ hilarious.
It only got worse when JoCo came out. He opened with “The Future Soon” which is probably the song of his that is most important to me. I know the lyrics are silly & about cyborgs and spacelabs, but essentially the song is about a kid that doesn’t fit in, and he is looking forward to the day when he doesn’t feel that way anymore. May as well have been written about my HS experience. I had sent Nique’ a JoCo song at one point – “Code Monkey” – and she loved it. She cracked up at it & said to me “You know, not only is it funny. It’s a really good song!!” like she was surprised that it would be. When he went from “The Future Soon” to “Shop Vac” I just sat there weeping openly in the middle of the concert.
I don’t think anyone noticed. We were off to the side at a table, so we weren’t really sitting that near to the closest people to us. At a glance I appeared to just be singing along with everyone else. It was a bizarre experience – like the things that brought me the greatest joy had become the things that would break me. I knew this already about some things. My kids, for example, but you expect to get emotional over your kids. The fact that now whenever one of them says something ridiculously snarky and cute, I can’t call her to tell her about it, is heartbreaking. Worse, the fact that my daughter most likely won’t remember her at all, or if she does, it will be a vague, hazy recollection with no real feeling attached to it. But again, these are the things I expect to back up on me, so typically they don’t, or at least not as badly. When you steel yourself, things make a loud noise when they bounce off, but they don’t tend to penetrate.
I never expected that geeking out over something my sister and I shared only minimally- which is to say I made her laugh with it once, and she associated it with me- would make me fall apart the way it did.
We stayed after the concert where Paul, Storm and JoCo were all signing autographs. We waited to be the last people in line so that I wouldn’t feel rushed to tell him about it. There is a little more to the story, but in the interest of not inviting douchebaggery towards Jonathan, I won’t go into the details. Suffice to say, he was previously aware of me and my sister, and was unbelievably gracious. He got up & asked if he could give me a hug. (Um, YES?!) I told him how she had loved “Code Monkey”. How if I sent her an IM bitching about having a bad day she’d tell me to go listen to it & chair dance it away. How she was a huge math nerd & that should would have dug “Mandlebrot Set”, and how every bit of joy I derive from his music is now something I won’t be able to share with her. Mostly how important his music was to me, and I thanked him for writing and playing it.
I left in a little puddle of mushy emotional goo and hoped that I hadn’t freaked him out too much. Sunday at Dragon*Con I made sure to find his merch booth to just go and say hi again, and buy his new CD. He told me how it was really moving that I shared that story with him and wouldn’t let me pay for the CD. He signed it, posed for a photo, and gave me another hug.
That was, by far, the coolest thing that happened to me at the con. And folks, I got to meet Wil Wheaton* at this con, so that is saying something. It is so amazing to me to see how kind people truly can be, even when they aren’t asked. I know that one day I will be able to bounce around like a dork at a JoCo show again without it enducing as many tears.
It’s gonna be the future soon. I won’t always be this way.
*Wil was awesome & gracious, and in fact remembered the bumper I had sent him for RFB. However, there was a huge line of people waiting to see him and pay for his autograph, so that meeting was very quick and sadly somewhat superficial. Next time, Wheaton. Next time!
