Katie | Momentum Community

Katie Bates

Writer/Performer

"You Know What I Mean." This project is to reinvent my life both personally and professionally. Check back in regularly to read about my adventures and insights through this link to my blog: You Know What I Mean.

Over my short thirty-six years, I have been drawn to participate in many of the visual and performing arts: acting, photography, directing, play-writing, singing, comedy, dance, guitar, drawing, painting... and I plan to explore elements of many of these mediums alongside my fellow artists in this Momentum community. However, I feel called to focus on my truest artistic love: writing. I've been writing secretly but prolifically since I was a little girl, and in my braver moments, I've published poetry, written persuasive speeches, produced and directed original plays, written feature articles for newspapers, and even worked as an obituary writer for a time. These moments of artistic productivity have been tiny but sweet freckles on the face of a much more "responsible" resume that has included management positions, two advanced degrees, executive work in investment-banking, corporate advertising, and theatre producing. Most recently, I've been a public school teacher and as was the case in all of my other "responsible" careers, I have found myself deeply drained and in desperate need for this other part of me, this artist self, to be in balance with my right-angle, "responsible" self.

Hidden in the back of my mind -- and more literally, the back of my closet -- lies my “someday” project. I’ve somehow managed to keep and recently re-gather all of my journals from the time I was in the first grade up through today. It is, in more sense than one: my life’s work. During the course of this year, I will type them up, edit them and pour through them for ideas for speeches, poems, plays, songs, articles, research projects and my dream project: novel(s). Along side this process of running my life back through my fingers, I will be writing a blog: "You Know What I Mean." which you will be able to access through a link here on our Momentum website. The blog, for me, will be an exercise in bravery, an attempt to put my words on the wind and see where they lead us. All of this is part of a much larger project, a re-imagining of my life and lifestyle, one that makes room for the idea that the most "responsible" thing I can do is to listen to this calling --screaming! -- of my spirit. I trust that I will in fact still be contributing positively to society, (which I am also called to do) while at the same time nourishing myself by doing what I love. I hope to make you laugh, make you think and inspire you to do what your spirit is asking of you. We all need more of that. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.