Hero's Journey

In my memoir, a focus and structure has been emerging, forcing me to sit still until it comes clear. The insights came in interesting little messages, as they always do. The first was the impulse to open up the material I sent to the Banff Centre when I applied for the residency. In there, under the dry title of Project Description was a crystal-clear summation of what this book is all about.

"The memoir is about coming-of-age as an artist. It’s about living one’s dreams. And it’s about getting to know a cast of characters through the process of creating them. My characters came alive as breathing, desire-filled beings struggling to make their way out of my brain and onto the page. We frustrated each other. Fought. Fell in love. I’d beg them to reveal themselves and they’d become reticent and refuse to speak.

As my month-long writing sojourn progressed, it occurred to me that a meta-narrative was emerging. Not a story within a story, but a story above, around and through a story. What also became clear was that the process of accepting, allowing and coaxing a lifelong dream into reality runs parallel to the process of opening up to the creative forces that make character and narrative a reality. Part manifestation, part serendipity. Part writing, part listening."

Aside from my thoroughly irritating use of the word 'meta-narrative' – you are welcome to slap me next time you see me – this resonated. And I wondered what I've been writing for the past three weeks. I got to work, poring through my journal and my blog, marking down timelines and insights. My various fights with Charlie. The ridiculous joy at discovering The Undertaker. The days when I wanted to jump out of the window. The point at which I went all Henry-Miller-In-Paris and wrote: I am an artist.

It occurred to me that if my screenplay's characters were characters in the memoir, and people like Dana the Artist were characters in the memoir, then I am a character, too. I am the protagonist. I am, in other words, the hero.

I started to wonder about the archetypal hero's journey. I looked it up. Bizarrely, my journey to come of age as an artist followed the hero's journey almost exactly. The departure, the mentor, the road of trials, apotheosis, the return.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a grand and glorious hero. I'm more Frodo Baggins than Leonidas of the Brave 300.

But, the hero isn't out for glory or fame, he is on a path from the ego to a new, higher self. The journey separates him from his comfortable world and thrusts him (yeah, we'll go with 'thrusts') into an unfamiliar world, where he is put to the test for the sake of his goal. The hero doesn't begin his journey capable of completing it, he has to learn and grow along the way. He doesn't start out a hero in a grand sense of the word, he starts out weak and unsure. He becomes something else entirely along the way.

This morning, I pulled out Martha Graham's autobiography. Hers was most definitely a hero's journey. I started to think about all artists and their paths. And now I'm thinking about Athena. About anyone who has received the call, packed their things and ventured forth into the unknown.

It's one thing to feel like you're walking in the dark on your own. It's another to know that there are other people out there, somewhere, fumbling along too. And it's something else entirely to know that you are treading an ancient path, a well-trodden path, and that great warriors have walked this ground before you. They had trials. They were weak. They were tempted to turn back. But they kept going, and ultimately they succeeded. Because in the face of doubt and struggle, they stayed true to themselves and their quest. They were – and I think we all could be – what Martha Graham called "athletes of God."