A Tale of Synchronicities

Alice in Wonderland by Brandon Christopher Warren

Four years ago, this week, I got a callback for an audition. I had been telling my friends and my parents that all I wanted after college was to get a job as a professional actor, so, to that end, I participated in the Theater Bay Area General Auditions. I did a monologue and a song in front of 200 or so casting directors, directors and other representatives of the theaters around the Bay Area, thinking that it might lead to some familiarity when I came in to audition for other shows at these theaters throughout the year.

Even though I had my wisdom teeth taken out 8 days before the audition, I got a callback! I was asked to come read for a part at a professional Shakespeare company. At the time, I lived in Berkeley, and the callback was in San Francisco (for those of you unfamiliar, about an hour's drive). BUT, the first day of a class I needed to finish my minor started ONE HOUR after the callback. At UC Berkeley, if you don't show up for the first day of a class, you are automatically dropped, and since it was my last semester I couldn't take it another time. So, with all of these things stacked against me, I decided to go.

"Wait, go?" you say. Yes.

Why? Synchronicity. 

The first time I started working through The Artist's Way was a few days after I got my wisdom teeth out, those same four years ago. In it, Julia Cameron talks about synchronicity - when you put a wish, a dream, a hope out into the universe, and something just happens to fall into your lap that fulfills it.

Hadn't I been telling everyone how I wanted to work professionally after college? Hadn't I gone to the general auditions just to meet that end? And yet, there was that part of me that wanted to look this glorious gift horse in the mouth and say "I can't go to this callback because I can't get dropped from my class."

But, something in me started to open up, even with only a few weeks of Artist's Way work under my belt, and I went anyway. (No one's going to die if I don't finish my minor, I finally let myself realize.)

And you know what? It went swimmingly. It was like the part was waiting for me. I had to be able to do Shakespeare, I had to be able to play fast Irish music on an instrument, and I had to be able to sing folk songs. Oh, and dance. Sure, I've only been training my whole life to do exactly all of those things.

So I got the part.

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by 85mm.ch

I thought of this story recently because it was the biggest example of "yes, this book is helping me change my life" that I could think of as a reason to do start working through it again.

Keep an eye out for when the universe answers the questions you're asking. But you have to ask the questions. Put shit out there. What do you want to accomplish? Just open the door, and watch for when the answers ask to come in. They may not always happen in the ways you thought you wanted, but trust that they will be just what you need.