Digging Up Old Roots

Not everyone knows what they are meant to do or what they are passionate about. Some stumble upon it in high school or college, while others never even think to look. Anna Lummus was always on the lookout and less than a year ago, she found comedy. She was already a million things before that: southerner, techie, Christian, matchmaker, yoga instructor (and I’m sure many other things she forgot to mention). But it wasn’t until signing up for a comedy class that she was able to piece all of those identities together. To see the real value in her roots. “I knew I wanted to be around more like-minded people…I think I was ready. I knew there was more, and I was tired of feeling so different.”

From what I could gather, this wasn’t something a person expressed in the small South Carolinian town she grew up in. The most refreshing artists are the ones that were not saturated in the arts as a kid. Art came into Anna’s life not as an identity, but as a discovery. Excitement and positivity like that is infectious. But it wasn’t always easy for Anna, especially when wanting to leave old identities back home. “It wasn’t a cool thing to be the funny girl. It’s not like a cool compliment,” she tells me. But, after some trial and error, she discovered that that past, those things she tried to escape, was the exact thing that she needed to talk about on stage. “I kind of forgot about how silly this was. Started tapping into it, started writing about it, and was like, ‘Oh my god, I have so much to talk about.’ Maybe that’s why I feel like standup opened something in me—because it was almost connecting back to this part of me that I feel like I’ve tried to bury for so long…it’s just so new to me, that even when I fail, I’m so happy I have a chance to do that.”

As I write these blogs and talk to these artists, I think this taps into the core of what I’m striving to explore. The relationship of art to artist is not to identify with the act of creation, but to be molded by it. There’s a joy in growing through a dialogue with yourself and your past. “I feel like I’ve never been this open to learning and open to understanding that I am right now. And it’s a really good place to be…You can live different lives, jobs, but I don’t have to do it in a segmented way. I’m still all myself.”

Anna wanted to end by quoting Taylor Swift, but for this talk, I think she put it better in her own words. “It’s cool to try. Not everyone’s going to be a natural at everything.” And typically the people that are a natural at everything are the ones who miss out on the journey of trying.