I side-shuffled my way to G7 and took a seat. The murmur of families’ quiet conversations filled the theater around me. I sat alone. I was there to watch the second of Iva Mae's three ballet performances. Being solo in a crowd has always made me go internal. 

I found myself fully immersed in contemplating the new work I’ve been creating—the work I have labeled ‘Fresh Beginnings.’

The new work kept reminding me of a collection I did about four or five years ago that was full of broken brushstrokes that made up large abstracted florals, generally circular in motion and composition. There are a few pieces in this new collection that mirror those pieces and are quite similar to them. I thought about the passage of time and what brought me back to those brush strokes, those ideas. 

Those pieces and the process behind them were deeply personal to me. I felt the brokenness of myself and the world so deeply. Something in me clung to the idea that there is still beauty despite it all. There is a pattern in my life of needing to see the shadows but also needing to find the redeeming light. Rebirth from them. 

Back then I saw myself and so many women around me creating masks for ourselves to conceal the shadows. Not N 95s, but the invisible ones. The ones that kept the painful stories, the ‘me too’s,’ all under cover. The motions of the day became masking agents.  Smiles and foundation, mascara and PTA meetings, Tory Burch sandals and leading women’s ministries. Packed lunches and prayer, yoga and dinner tables set, happy hours and bottles of wine. They filled our lives and let us gloss over, and not show the pain underneath. I saw it everywhere. 

All I could think was, how could we ever let light in if we didn’t take these proverbial masks off? If we couldn’t vulnerably show our faces, pain and all. 

So much of my own pain was hidden and only shared with a select few. I was sexually abused as a kid and teenager. I was made to keep it quiet. Handed a thick, dark mask and told to go on and live a life. I was a garbled bunch of broken pieces, broken watery brush strokes under that cover. 

The act of taking off those masks, whatever they may be, is one of saying, I matter and I’m going to let myself be seen. It’s a fundamental shift in healing. And so the Unmasked Collection came about.

I marinated in those thoughts while I sat in the theater that day, waiting on the curtain and lights to be drawn and dimmed. 

I thought about how it was such a healthy shift for me to take off the mask and let my pain and trauma be seen. 

And then I thought about this new Fresh Beginnings collection and how it is rooted in letting go of the story of my pain. In not being identified by it, not using it to stay stagnant. Not using it to gauge how much people love and accept me. 

Healing is like a staircase. The unmasked step in my journey was a big one and I hung out there for a long time. It was beautiful and necessary and where so many of my closest heart friendships deepened, because vulnerability builds beautiful relationships. Using my voice healed the shame of silence; it was a massive shift for me. It was the first time I let myself be seen. However, it was as if showing the pain, as essential as it was and is, became a mask of its own after years of easing into it. 

There are times where we are invited to take all that goodness and growth and move onto the next landing, the next step. A leveling up. 

I’ve felt it for a while now, the invitation to the next step. But I won’t lie… the thought made me sick to my stomach with anxiety. Who am I if I am not afraid? Who am I if I’m not easily triggered into a trauma response? Who am I if I can easily go to the movies or sleep in a hotel by myself? If I don’t need to drum up the stories and fears of what could happen? If I don't need to call Sean crying, afraid or overwhelmed? Who am I without being emotionally needy? What if that all goes away and I’m just a small insignificant girl? Like the one that all this happened to in the first place? And heaven forbid… What if I'm boring? 

It sounds crazy even now, writing these things out. It sounds absurd. Of course I have significance. But trauma, abuse, chronic fear really F’s with our heads. Makes us not see or think straight. And they want to keep us in our patterns. 

I feel more than ready to break these patterns and have been working really hard on it. I want to step into myself. To know who I am without the curtain of that story in front of me. A fresh beginning. 

The theater lights dimmed, the music started, and the curtains opened on stage. I sat through an endearing performance of Carnival of the Animals complete with adorable tiny elephant dancers, my own girl killing it on stage with the turtles, and of course, the swan.

I’ve had this thing with swans this year. I’ve wondered if I could hold my neck strong and poised. Confidently taking up space. Gracious and self possessed. I’ve got a gorgeous painting by a dear friend of a fierce swan hanging in my room and swan-printed wallpaper behind our bed. Channeling that energy. Wanting to be it, though feeling so far from it.

The swan danced beautifully en pointe, poetic and fluid in movement. The COVID restrictions still had all of these dancers literally masked in face coverings. As she moved, I noticed the ear loop of her mask slip. It kind of stayed in place, mostly covering her face for a bit. I began to get so nervous for her. My body stiffened and I was on edge. I was sure that if the mask fell away, we would all see that she was scared and unsure of what to do, embarrassed even, that her face was seen when it wasn’t supposed to be. How was she resisting the urge to just tuck it back behind her ear?! I was worried for her emotional state about this mask coming off. 

And you know what? It DID come off. And she had perfect ruby lips spread in a gorgeous confident smile. She beamed. Like she was made to be that swan. My relief for her was accompanied by this feeling of, “I’m so glad it came off!” It was seriously an honor to see her joy spread out on her face. Just doing what she loves. So confident, so poised. 

Guysssss. I mean… goodness, what a thing to be thinking all those things in that seat and to see this play out. It’s life and it’s art and I love it so much.

Unmaksed and fresh beginnings and swans. All tidied up in a very moving hour for me. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to have such an experience at a small town ballet performance. But art will move you when it wants to, and in my experience, especially when you are getting curious about yourself. 

That swan, I didn’t even catch her name in the playbill. I wish I did; I’ll remember her and her gleaming face for a long time. 

My dear Megs, who was a ballerina herself, and my longest lifetime friend, asked me an important question. It was while we talked about letting go of being identified by our stories. She simply asked me what I want to be. What could be something that feels like purpose for me? I think she wanted me to investigate what I could swap the identity of pain out for. 

I thought about it and what kept coming to my mind is what I want for my girl, Mae. I have told her her whole life that she is a sunshine girl. I tell her how much we, and the whole world, love to see her sun and feel her shine. I think something in me all along has wanted her to have and be what I thought I didn’t and wasn’t. 

I'm starting to see that I have some sunshine of my own. And I want to spread it and share it and be it. This Fresh Beginnings collection is an outworking  of that. I hope that it just simply feels like sunshine on your skin. 

And I truly hope with all my heart, that you, wherever you are on your journey, can see your own warmth and light and that you know you deserve to fully own it, live in it, and share it.

The mask mandate has been lifted. ;)

Kate