Monologue:
Ismael
Cruz
Cordova

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The Lord of the Rings • The Undoing • Berlin Station • Mary Queen of Scots • Ray Donovan

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Photography: Val Vega

I have been in survival mode for what seems to be most of my life

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I grew up in a place with very little, if nothing

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Not fitting anywhere because of my class, my race, my physique

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My interests, the way I moved, the way I talked

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I've always had to fight and survive — and I set a goal and

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From one thing to the other, to the other, to the other again

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I reached for the stars

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And I landed in New York

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And there, from couch to couch, from home to home - not mine - homeless,

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Still reaching for the stars, still surviving, still reaching inside my deepest self, mining for energy

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And always finding somehow, always finding a magical source that kept moving me forward

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Despite all of the odds

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Forward, forward, forward, surviving, forward, moving, forward, unflinchingly

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Almost stranger than fiction

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My own superhero, to myself

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And as mathematical as life can be, I put in a lot into life

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And slowly it's been giving me back

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But I've never stopped surviving somehow

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Society, this business, being an actor, trying to make it in this world

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Trying, you know, for a latino man

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Still so many elements to myself having to make me survive in this world

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Never stopped

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And then corona hit

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I never knew how profound that would be

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I didn't know by this point that I was just jetting forward consistently

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Now with this stop, I found myself again

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Perhaps not completely  

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I become enlightened and I will be floating, like one of those monks in the park

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But somehow I didn't realise that under the survival my voice had been buried

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Under all the of the tactics and waves and tricks and tips

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Strategies to be able to breath and survive and provide for myself

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My voice, my magic, my colours

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Were buried

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And this isolation, this silence, this distance from everyone

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At first drove me insane

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But as it went, it introduced me to me again

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I was able to connect to the oldest memories

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I was able to journey back to the source of it all

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To this magical moment of ignorance, in which I knew what I wanted clearly

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I did not know how to get there, but boy I knew

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And I had an unending source of strength, through sheer belief and imagination

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I was stronger than I had ever been and I was maybe three years old, four years old, five years old

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So I found this time around has been the incredible opportunity to connect

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The most simple essence of myself

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And through that, I feel empowered like no other time in my life

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Or maybe like then

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And I feel like I'm starting to feel magical again within myself

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I'm starting to feel like I can hug myself from inside

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Like I can soothe myself

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I've shown up again for myself in ways that I had abandoned because I had to survive

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That's the most special thing that has happened

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I've connected back with my life force

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Now I don't have to survive in the same ways

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Now that I didn't have to move when I was forced to stop

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And this stillness - oh boy - what a fire has it ignited

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I don't know if so much ignited, but rekindled

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And I'm ready

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Ready for what's coming, and I know I'm not alone

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I know this time really opened a lot of entrances to caves

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A lot of wells a lot of minds and mines

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So here we come

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Here we come

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Not all is lost