BWW Blog: Emma Mueller - Imagine

I was never one to sit still. I always tap a foot in the air while I'm sitting cross-legged. I twirl my pen while taking notes in a lecture and make typing motions with my fingers while trying to figure out what to write. But I surprised myself. I have done more sitting still in the last week than I have in my entire life, and it was nothing less than enlightening.

It wasn't sitting still in the traditional sense. My classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting are not traditional, either. My homework is often to stretch and breathe. In voice and speech last week, we did a lot of laying down and breathing. In movement, we got full-body massages. When I told my roommate who is assigned pages and pages of reading every night, she said sassily but with a smile, "Go stretch or something."

When I was first introduced to the idea of sitting in the same spot for about an hour, listening to the sound of my teacher Alice's voice and my own breathing, I was worried I wouldn't do it right, and nervous that I would be too fidgety. But I surprised myself, and so did the exercise.

It's scene study class, and we're getting a crash course in techniques before we start rehearsing our scenes. I never know what lesson we're learning until class is over. All of the exercises we've done over those three hours suddenly come together, giving me a new level of understanding. This time, we were meditating.

I sat cross-legged on a block in the middle of the classroom, eyes closed. Alice guided us through the exercise: breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Listen to the sounds of your breathing. Listen to your classmates. What noises do you hear right here, in Studio B? Can you smell anything? What are you taking in this very moment? Can you hear Manhattan outside these walls? Can you hear the city?

It was incredible to stay sitting on that light grey block, grounded all the way to the subway below us and more. I listened to the sounds of my peers breathing, subtle coughs and the slight scuff of sneakers on the floor as people shifted. I smelled the room, and the studio, slightly of cleaning solution and paint. I heard laughter and footsteps from the floor above. I heard the loud horns and the rumbling car engines of Manhattan.

Breathe in, breathe out. Clear your mind. When you breathe in, feel yourself grounded to whatever surface you're sitting on, whether it be a chair, a block, or the ground. Then when you breathe in, imagine yourself lifting up out of your body. Look down from above, or stand up in front of yourself. Imagine watching your body sitting, breathing, and imagining.

Now imagine a younger version of yourself next to you. What memory did they come out of? What did they just do? What is their life like? What do they want to do in the future?

It was incredible. It took some insane meditation to get there, but I saw myself when I was seven years old, in an oversized, light blue soccer t-shirt. I had my oval blue wire glasses on, and I was at the Cornerstone Cafe in Freehold, NJ. My character in our little original play was a soccer player who wanted all of her friends to come to her soccer game. She sung There Are Worse Things I Could Do with a different set of lyrics more applicable to the story. She had just finished her show, and she was in a state of bliss, innocence, youth, and freedom. She sat down on the floor of Studio B next to me, looking up at me, smiling.

What would you say to them?

"It's possible," I said, wanting to give her a hug. "That dream you've always had of standing on a stage in blinding lights, indistinguishable faces looking at you, breathing with you, sharing something with you, it's coming. It's going to happen. It won't be easy, but you're going to do it." Seven-year-old Emma smiled, and nodded, and held my hand, telling me I was going to be okay as a tear slid silently down my face.

Imagine yourself as A VERY OLD person. What would they say about the life you're living? What do you wish to take with you over the next 60 years? What advice would you give yourself about your present? What would you say to yourself about this moment right now?

I saw my grandmother standing on my other side. She stood tall and strong and independent and compassionate, and everything I wanted to be. She had a young heart, always. I want to be just like her. "My darling Emma," she said, "This is a good life. Enjoy it."

The three of us stood in tandem. Seven-year-old Emma and my grandmother stood there, smiling at each other, and at me. The span of a lifetime.

Breathe in, breathe out. Come back to your body. Open your eyes.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was in the same place that I was in when we started. I was sitting on the same light grey block in the middle of Studio B, surrounded by my classmates. I quickly wiped my eyes, hoping that nobody would see that I had been crying a little bit. But I looked around and saw that I wasn't the only one.

After we came back to reality, we sat in silence and wrote about what was going on in our minds. I wrote so urgently you'd think it was an essay for a final exam. It was a strangely cathartic, mind-boggling experience.

Stella Adler's teachings and philosophies all revolve around humanity. "Growth as an actor and as a human being are synonymous," is a quote that floats around the studio often. We have an entire class dedicated to finding our humanity. One upperclassman told me that we won't understand the things we do and why we do them, but that we should trust and do it anyway because we would get it eventually. This was one of the moments where I got it. The experience seemed so out of context, but shaped up to be an unconventional lesson in Stella Adler's teachings. I had never been more in touch with my own humanity, and myself.

In today's world, it's hard to find a moment to rest. A moment to sit and listen to yourself breathe. Especially in the fast-paced life of a college student in New York City, we never sit still for longer than a moment, and even then our minds are still racing with the dozens of things we need to do in a day. A moment is certainly not long enough to be alone with ourselves, but even a moment without foot tapping or pen twirling is good enough to hold us over until the next moment that we get.

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