“Just keep your head above,” I say to myself every time I feel nervous about something. It seemed like every day my French theatre director yelled at me for messing up my lines. He had the ability to make a beautiful language like French sound more like nails on a chalkboard. Usually, I am quick to memorize my lines, but this time the words aren’t in English. I could only understand every other word of what I was mechanically reciting to my scene partner. The director kept saying “Merde! Merde! Merde!” while kicking a trash can in frustration. I never knew what that meant, but I had a feeling it didn’t mean fantastic.
There are times when I wanted to quit and offer to work behind the scenes while my friends shined on stage. Then I remembered my favorite song, Swim by Jack’s Mannequin, and I knew that I shouldn’t give up without a fight. The lyric that resonates with me the most is “You gotta swim and swim when it hurts. The whole world is watching. You haven't come this far to fall off the earth.” I worked very hard to get accepted into the Experiment in International Living and I wasn’t going to let anyone, not even the director, stop me from giving it my all onstage. Besides, I came this far to study theatre so failure was not an option.
This song always reminds me to keep going. Even when all hope is lost and the situation looks grim, just keep swimming. If I “keep my head above” the problem, then sooner or later I will succeed. I love how the song shifts to a more urgent tone towards the end: “There's no shame in drifting. Feel the tide shifting and wait for the spark,” as if the writer of the song, Andrew McMahon, is telling listeners that it’s okay to wait for the right moment to strike and swim again. He wrote this song about his battle with leukemia and how he defied the odds and survived by never giving up. I know that if he could find the horizon despite all hardships, I can do the same. So I’ll always keep my head above and swim.
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