What is something others do that sparks your admiration?
I’ve spent enough years teaching performing artists to know that they move through the world differently. They don’t just perform something—they become it. And that has always sparked my admiration.
Music was my first window into this. I’ve watched musicians touch the human soul with a few well-placed notes, carrying people into joy or grief or wonder with their artistry. I’ve often wished for that gift—the ability to draw out beauty that reaches inside another person.
Drama students showed me something even more astonishing: the sheer power of embodiment. The way a person can incarnate emotion, story, or even creatureliness through movement, voice, and presence. I once watched a performance of the Book of Job that left the room silent and breathless. It wasn’t just skill; it was transformation. The actors didn’t act—they lived the anguish, the wrestling, the fragile hope. You could feel the text coming alive in front of you.
And then there was the Komodo Dragon.
Each year, first-year drama students visited the zoo to study animals—not to sketch them or write about them, but to personify them. One afternoon, a gentle, soft-spoken eighteen-year-old girl stepped onto the rehearsal floor. And then she wasn’t a girl anymore. She became a Komodo Dragon. The shift was astonishing: the slow, weighted movement; the low, predatory sway; the deliberate drag of her limbs across the floor; the unblinking gaze that seemed to measure the room. You could feel the danger. You could feel the creature’s ancient patience. For a moment, we all forgot we were watching a student. The Komodo Dragon filled the room.
I think that’s why artists inspire me so deeply. Not because of raw talent—though that is remarkable—but because of their ability to transform, to cross the boundary between the ordinary self and the world they are creating. They remind me that human beings are capable of taking on shape and story in ways that illuminate the world for the rest of us.
And I admire that more than I can say.
The Afterword 
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