Northland Gob

A long time ago I went to an overnight camp in Minnesota called Northland. In addition to not having PLUMBING (you cannot IMAGINE!), every morning we gathered in this big cabin to decide which activities we were gonna participate in that day. It could be a bit of a nightmare because there was only a certain amount of space in each activity, and some activities, of course, were more popular than others. There was swimming (in the freezing cold Minnesota Lake!) and water skiing (I lack anything resembling balance), and horseback riding (I had a posting problem – stabbing abdominal pain); there was riflery (gun control maybe?), trampoline (I need no help with the bouncing, people), plus sailing, drama, arts & crafts – the whole shebang. In order to motivate us to improve, each activity had like eight levels through which we aspired to ascend. In sailing, for example, the lowest level was that of “Gob.” The highest, of course, was “Skipper.” And in between there were others like “Swabber,” “Sailor,” and “Mascot,” etc.

My second favorite activity was sailing. (Guess what my favorite activity was.) I just loved being OUT there – especially when it was gonna unexpectedly storm – with the waves and the purple sky and the wind and everybody freaking out. I thought it was so cool.

Naturally, everyone ELSE in my cabin loved sailing too. And we were ALL OBSESSED with getting our “Gob.” OhmyGod, did we compete . . . shoving and pushing each other to get picked each day to crew a boat. It was a freakin’ massacre every morning. And then, once we were on the boat (there were four – red boat, blue boat, red boat, and white boat), we’d steal each other’s lines (ropes), try to outdo each other’s knots, come about just for the hell of it, unexpectedly jibe to bang a competitor in the head with the mainsail. It was a nightmare.

One morning when it was time to sign up for activities, the sailing counselor got up and announced the names of ALL of the girls in my cabin, one right after the other! She asked us all come up to stand in front of the Big Board of Activities. OhmyGod. We were all sooooooooooo excited. We were TOTALLY sure this meant we were gonna get our Gob!

She talked about sailing. She said sailing was about being out there on the water, watching the clouds, feeling the boat as an extension of our limbs. She said it was about tasting the wind, feeling it change, watching the patterns it made on the water, looking for squalls. It was NOT, however, about infighting. It was NOT, she said, about getting our Gob.It was NOT, she said, about the RESULT. Sailing, she said, was about . . . sailing. She then turned to us and said that NONE of us had demonstrated a love for sailing itself. And therefore, she said, NONE of us would receive our Gob that summer. No matter what.

We. Were. DEVASTATED.

You can IMAGINE the hysteria, right?  The screaming, the crying, the complaining. I think one girl even called her mother to bitch about it, and hello, this was WAY before cell-phones. We were in the freakin’ North Woods of Minnesota. I’m not even sure they HAD long distance up there in those days).

But it was all to no avail. Apparently we had proven to her that we had no desire to actually SAIL. We just wanted to WIN – to SUCCEED — to BEAT each other. And, she said, she wasn’t in the business of teaching us how to do that. She loved sailing, she said. She had hoped she’d been imparting that love upon us. But apparently, she said, she’d failed. Not only did we not LOVE sailing, we weren’t even very GOOD at it.

Jeez.

In retrospect, I think what she meant was that if we had appreciated the water and the wind and the sky, if we had learned our knots and about the lines and the sails, if we had just actually SAILED because it was wonderful and fun, we would have attained our “Gob” level as a simple matter of course. And the next level and then the next. But we were sailing for the wrong reasons. We weren’t doing it for the love of the craft. (Pardon the pun.)  And it was ugly.

I don’t want you to do what I did. I want you to just love acting.

Of course, I ALSO want you to win but I can’t MAKE you win. I can’t MAKE you BEAT OUT all the other actors. I CAN, however, help you LOVE acting. By getting y’all to REHEARSE. DAILY. And I think if you really really love it – love it so much that you ALWAYS HAVE A BLAST DOING IT – then there is a CHANCE that we might love WATCHING YOU. And then? You might just WIN.