Tallie Mara Medel is a whopping 13 years old. She was born on May 10, 1986, and in a month will be 14 big ones.
She resides in a two-story beige house with windows in Ketchikan, Alaska. She still lives with her parents, Susan Newburn Medel, Ronald Medel, and 16-year old Chad, where she enjoys dance and does cartwheels on their moldy lawn. She will continue doing so until she goes to college or is married off.
Thank you for reading this book, and please read Ms. Medel’s other books as well.
How nice to look back at this version of myself! minus pronouns I don’t fully resonate with these days (gender can be Letter #5 or something meaningful in numerology, I’ll figure that out later. “Be not afraid”)
I wanted to be a writer when I was young, that was my whole deal. Thanks for watching me practice.
Meredith Goldstein at the Boston Globe interviewed me last summer about clown. It’s behind a paywall, but maybe you’re a Globe-head. If not, here’s a taste.
Medel, who’s originally from Ketchikan, Alaska, found clown during a semester abroad, at Emerson’s castle in the Netherlands. At the time, Medel was questioning acting as a discipline. “I was really struggling with my choice to study it. I was thinking, this is a selfish practice.”
But one part of acting that felt genuine to Medel is when a performer becomes “a vessel for communication.” That’s why the art of clown was so intriguing, they said; it felt like a rawest part of performing. Medel said instructors at Emerson introduced
students to clown and brought in performers. It became clear that clown was a way get to the heart of who you are.
“You are unfolding all of yourself to the room and everybody is able to see,” Medel said. “You are revealing yourself to be the fool that you are; in doing that, you set everybody else free.”
Photo: OLIVIA FALCIGNO for the Boston Globe
Dude if I didn’t start clowning again I don’t know what the hell I’d be doing right now. My whole life flipped upside down. I’m gonna write about that more later.
THANK YOU for following me off of Insta and over here instead. I’m glad to be here. “We’re all just walking each other home.” -Ram Dass
Dig that,
t