MODERN MENTORSHIP: Reflecting on Mentorship as a Twenty Something Year Old with No Answers

PREFACE

“I hope someone takes a chance on you.”

Carole G. Dodson called out to us by way of virtual graduation commencement. Her story stirred me and invoked in me a gratitude for every person who had taken that chance on me.

I have had my fair share of networking events, informational interviews, and email chains. Undoubtedly, I have made several connections - some meaningful, some not - but that is simply how relationships of any kind work. For example, there are people from class we will never know past that moment. There are friends we meet in class that we will only be friends within the class environment. There are friends we meet in class that will continue on a much deeper journey with us, know us, support us, call us out, criticize us, celebrate with us.

It is the same way with mentorship.

HONOR YOURSELF

It is when we are fully and completely ourselves that we meet those who are meant to guide us on our journeys, those who are meant to undertake that journey with us. Despite the rigorous effort put into the gesture of networking and making hundreds of first impressions, it is the former circumstance of knowing oneself that is the most difficult to obtain.

Perhaps it is not even the finite endpoint of knowing oneself that catalyzes deep mentorship, perhaps it is the curiosity that exists in the interim that inherently attracts the people who are meant to imprint, commingle, and redirect our lives, work ethics, and aspirations.

Honor your confusion, honor the unknown, honor that you don’t have to have anything figured out just yet. Honor that when you are 19 years old, you will not have all the answers. Honor that not even the person you identify as your mentor will have all or any of the answers either.

THERE IS NO IDEAL

I had to shed the idea that mentorship meant finding someone on the exact same pathway as my ideal self. In my brain, I had to find someone with a title or job that I strived to have or be and then become them in some way. I had to shed the notion of an ideal in the first place. All people – even those we look up to – are imperfect, messy, complex, and beautiful. It is important to know that a mentor is not infallible.

There is no ideal mentor. Only people with stories to tell and unwavering generosity. 

EXPRESSING GRATITUDE

It is in this moment that I thank the quadrumvirate of women in my life whom I identify as my mentors. They are women of all different fields, roles, walks of life, and ambitions. They take on many roles and titles ranging from dean to doula.

Each of their paths were winding and extemporaneous – even if they do not appear to have been at first glance. They continue to provide me with vastly different methods of guidance, some are frank with me, some are gentle, some ground me, and some flip my worldview upside down.

When I think of what all of my mentors share, I note one thing in particular: 

They were/are artists.

Their connections to artmaking allowed for a deep, trusting relationship to be formed where both parties could be vulnerable, curious, and unapologetically present. They recognized the importance of giving me agency. They made me strive for excellence by forging circumstances where I was so genuinely passionate and invested that I wanted to show up and do my best work. I chose to do so.

They focused on the process of growth over everything. They did not force completion. They did not force discovery. They created organic environments to foster authentic expansion of skills, techniques, and perspectives. I was challenged as much as I was nurtured.

Their artmaking practices supported an ethos of generous collaboration. They saw me as an equal and valid counterpart in their work, whether that involved theatre, research, or education. In my particular experiences with mentorship, the “project” we were always collaborating on was life.

As creatives who could see the statue in the marble, they retained their uninhibited curiosity and play – even as well-respected adult professionals. They never lost their identity as artists. Even if they had to trade in their practice, their studios, or their stages for offices or classrooms, there always seems to be a well of creativity within them that floods every aspect of their lives – it is electric and inspiring.

To Martha, Martha, Adrienne, and Jen – thank you for taking a chance on me.