In the days when I was writing columns in newspapers and I was very visible,
people used to ask me what I did.
Wickedly I would reply. "I'm a hooker and a safe cracker."
Their eyes would pop.
My cousin replied just as wickedly.
"So, how's business!"
Let me explain.
First the "Hooker"
In the "old days" - pre- internet days - I was delivering my weekly column, "Legal-Ease." personally to the Montreal Star.
Riding up the elevator, my attention was grabbed by this very tall man looking down talking to a young girl.
"That's got to be the editor-in-chief. Fits the description. Tall and snobby.
I sidled up to him and , without any introduction, said, "Hi Mr. H."
He looked down haughtily at me over his big snobby nose.
I introduced myself. "I'm Claire Bernstein."
All of a sudden his snobby veneer broke into a big broad smile.
And as the elevator doors opened, and we both strode through, he turned to me, and said, admiringly,
"How did you learn to write with a 'hook?'
I looked at him puzzled.
"What's a hook?"
And that's when I learnt:
Hooking the headspace is the first prerequisite in media.
But without putting a name on it, I had been "hooking" the "headspace" in everything I did...
and everything I do.
It's part of my DNA!
Now the "Safecracker"
Everyone who has ever tried their hand at something they've never done before - in public - has had the same experience:
You're experimenting. Trying one thing. Trying another.
And if you're doing this in public - like in court pleading a case when you haven't got the backdrop of experience to cushion you -
the terror overwhelms when you're experimenting in full public view.
You want to crawl into the floor and become invisible.....and you're trapped.
You can't escape.
I always think of Ed Catmul, president of Pixar and Disney, who wrote in his book, Creativity Inc.,
that it feels like you're in a tunnel, pummeling along at 90 miles an hour, holding on for dear life,
and praying...praying, that there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel.
Just think of it. Ed Catmul. `15 movies. 15 hits. And still the terror before each one.
Someone once said to me, "Claire, I couldn't do what you do. I would be too afraid."
I replied, "I'm just as afraid as you are when i start something new.
The difference between you and me is...
"I'm not afraid of being afraid!"
Today I am a "Streetwalker"
And life is an adventure.
With the camera slung around my neck, I see the world differently.
My eyes are always on the alert for that something special.
A person. A building. A situation.
I live the life of a tourist....in my own city.
Adventure...without the cost of an airline ticket, and without the discomfort of a strange bed.
A friend of mine, a "real" photographer, one told me enviously,
"you've got an advantage:
You're a female,
You're older.
No one is afraid if you approach them!"
But underlying the fun and the adventure, is a deep discovery.
People are starved to talk about themselves.
About who they really are ....
And no one asks them.
The Barbra Streisand song this feeling of people is captured so poignantly in one of her most famous songs:
"I'm the greatest star! I am by far!......but no one knows it!"
