Soon after this autobiography was published in 1959, Alva bought the book in hardback. It was the first book he had ever purchased. Four years later, I bought ACT ONE in paperback. Years and many miles apart, we both devoured this delicious book. When you're born to live your life as theater and the theater is your life, hearing the tales of another similarly afflicted/blessed person is See's chocolates for the soul. Especially when you know you're an oddball. You've been called "over-sensitive" and "over-dramatic" all your life. And then a real hero of the American stage tells you his story and you resonate with every word ... it's big. I've heard similar stories from my dancer friends, telling about seeing and bonding with the film, The Red Shoes.
How much our identities are inherent in our unique DNA combinations, and how much they are formed in early childhood (as Alva and I are both third-born children, thus presumably inclined to learn to entertain others to gain attention), I will leave for my friends the scientists to determine.
My experience tells me that when a child is seen and made to feel appreciated in his or her uniqueness, even when family needs time to learn how to love and accept the child's true nature, that child has a much better chance of growing up feeling worthwhile. And those who have learned self-respect are so much more likely to embrace diversity in those they in turn will interact with.
When the subtext of your learning as you grow up and in your first love relationships is stuck in "If only you..." and "You're too this..." and "We wish you'd be more that..." .... well, you grow more inclined to see others' expressed identities as fodder for your turn on the Judge's platform.
We discern that we may enjoy food and avoid poison. We judge that we may feel better than, safer from, further evolved than "the other" --thereby keeping the world at arm's distance and steering clear of intimacy.
Moms trying to grocery shop with small children in tow, and teachers trying to get certain behavior from their students tend to use phrases these days like "You need to...." It's clear and it probably works. But what happened to, "Lucy, please put that back on the shelf," or "Children, it's story time. Please all come sit on the carpet."?? Kids are sensible enough to know that they need to pee, but don't need to put back the sugary cereal or sit on the carpet.
When I see children painting pictures, making up stories, and playing pretend with their friends, I see nascent identities being explored, tried on for size, put on backwards just for fun, traded with another, flexing in the expanding and contracting of the human heart. Listen to their growing nomenclature. Hear the ever-changing music of their imaginations. Nurture your own rare sense of timelessness. Both our children and our childhoods are ever ready to call out appealingly, "Jump in! The water's just fine!"