In one exercise we drink an imaginary cup of coffee for months.

I feel the shape of the mug in my hands, the weight of it.

I grasp the handle and ah, there's the heat.

I can feel the heat.

They smell the rich, smokey aroma of the coffee,

tasted on my lips.

I spend hours doing this.

My Latin is pretty good, but this is all Greek to me.

Acting forces me to use all of myself, not just my mind,

my body, my heart.

And I love it like I love basketball and baseball.

It's not caring cancer, but it feels important.

It feels good to me.

I start to realize how much energy I spend keeping busy,

trying to move faster than my feelings,

but here they want me to slow down to feel everything.

They demand it.

And I can see now how my previous academic success was also

somehow performative, posturing.

But now I'm inhabiting a different, more primal, maybe even

more authentic part of myself.

And so I make the call kind of, I subtly abandon

...