Meet Marta: The Gray

During this round of Fear Experiment, where strangers who met early September confront various fears as they learn a capella, stepping, and storytelling in preparation for a one-night only performance in front of hundreds at the Park West at the end of November, I’ll be spotlighting some of the participants through Guest Posts as we lead up to to the show. Come cheer on the nervous fear-facers! Show info and tickets here. To see other Guest Posts, head here.

Guest Post | Marta Wilmes, Owner and Teacher, Soul Food Productions | soulfoodproductionschicago@gmail.com

The Gray

You’d think I’d be good at this by now. The unknown, that is. I am not. I still hate it;

I still fight it; I still convince myself that if I think

move

write

run

meditate

talk

read,

I will be able to outsmart it. Or at the very least, speed up the process.

Bring on the moment of clarity, already! Who’s asleep at the wheel up there? Surely I’m the next in line to realize what the hell I’m supposed to do here.

But no. Here I sit, enveloped in confusion, wrapped in frustration, fog , dissatisfaction, anxiety. I’m in the gray. The dreaded, dreaded gray.

Once upon a magical time, I soaked, leisurely, in the gray. It was such a profound gray that I had no business fighting it – so I didn’t. I accepted that my life had been shaken in such a way that nothing was familiar, and I was to navigate this thicket of gray in the only way possible – slowly, carefully, feeling my way through. I had faith; I had such faith that it was a purposeful gray – a glorious gray meant to change me in ways unimaginable. Everything I did, saw, felt – everyone I met – seemed destined. The crumbling of my life grounded an unshakeable faith in the universe deep within my soul.

I have forgotten this faith, or over looked it; I’ve lost touch with it. I have forgotten that it is the key to the glory within the gray. I have forgotten that it is this faith that lifts me from the weeds and into the treetops, lifts me from the barrage of anxious thoughts to the comfortable birds-eye view of the hilarity and absurdity that shapes my life. It is this faith that in the midst of chaos allows me to think, How remarkable to imagine the myriad of ways this could go. How startling to think how different my life is from one year ago, a few months ago, a week ago. More than anything, it is this faith that exhales, What a blessing this gray will be.