The Only White Girl

It's True. I am.

In my Silent Praise group that is. A couple weeks ago I saw a flyer advertising auditions for a silent praise group. I was really interested because I love sign language and I was even in a beginners ASL class; plus I wanted to do some extracurricular activity.

So I went, I had nothing prepared, no song (in sign) or drama piece (in sign). Just myself, a blank slate, trying to see what it was all about. When I got there I was, to put it bluntly, afraid. I was the only white person in the whole group, even the one indian girl who tried out had friends who were there. I didn't know anyone. I had never even see these girls (and the one guys) faces before.

So I texted my big sister april and complained. I wish she had let me off the hook and said, "Hey just leave then, who cares! It's no big deal." But she didn't, she stated "At least try, you don't have to do it but at least try and see what the group is all about" I grumbled to myself and learned the few motions that they were teaching us.

We went outside to practice as they called us in individually. The song they taught us is called "Praise Anthem" by Richard Smallwood. It's a pretty legit song and I enjoyed learning it, even though I kept hitting myself in the face on accident.

When they finally called my name, and I got the usual mentions of how unique my name is for a girl, which I laughed and shrugged my shoulders at. Because, seriously, after 18 years what else is there to say? They called me in and asked me what I had prepared. I remember looking at the leader confidently(Though I didn't feel so inside) and said, "Sorry, I didn't prepare anything, I just wanted to see what it was all about and I only found out about 2 days ago."

Now, If I had been the leader of the group I would have kicked myself out right there. It wasn't even the first rehearsal and I was already making excuses. I thought I was off to a bad start, but she just looked at me and smiled, said, "Ok just show us Praise Anthem then!"

So I signed the two minutes of song they had taught us, and I did all right, I messed up but I kept beat and hadn't look like too much of an idiot. She smiled at me again and held out a pencil. I took it and she said, "Ok, now you love this pencil, you REALLY Love it. But You guys just broke up. Go."

I felt like I had been thrown into a Miss. Ayotte "Freeze game", where she had just called "FREEZE" and you had to be still as a statue until someone else came up and started another scene.

I looked at the director, I looked at the pencil, then to the director again, and once back to the pencil. I noticed that the pencil was mechanical and #7 lead, it also had a red clip that was breaking and it looked as if someone had had a chewing contest on the eraser, and the eraser lost.

So I did what every sane person would do in my situation, I cried.

I whipped out tears in a matter of seconds and next thing I knew, the pencil was on the ground and I was yelling at it. Still bawling. I was almost positive that the tears came from my altogether superb acting skills and my ability to control my emotions(Insert sarcastic roll of the eyes). But I was also pretty sure that those tears were half filled with fear.

I must have blacked out for the rest of it because I have no recollection of what happened after that, or how I managed to stumble back to my dorm room. All I know is a week and a half later I had an e-mail asking me to be part of the group.

Now, I love it. It still scares me every once in a while, but thats mostly because I have no sense of rhythm so I takes me a longer time to get the flow of the signs. But it is fun being a part of something, being a unique asset of a group. Our first performance is Nov 19th, and I'm scared out of my wits, and excited at the same time.

I have more courage now I suppose, but I'm really just grateful for the support from my older sister, and strength from my God. He gave me my ability to bluff my way through acting and make people laugh. Which let me tell you, I would not be the person I am (whether that's good or bad) if not for those things.

And that's something I can be Silent about.

(Sorry for the really cheesy last line. It just was such a perfect pun I couldn't pass it up!)