Authored by an Author: Tzahalla Kessari of Project Girl on GWN

Tzahalla Kessari was a Community Partner Guest Speaker for the Mentee Mid-Year workshop, January 12 2012. Here Tzahalla writes about her own experiences at GWN!
“Leap empty handed into the void” – Frank Langella.
Funny thing. I had an allergic reaction to something right before I was meant to take the stage at Girls Write Now’s Mentee Mid-Year workshop, and I started getting dizzy and couldn’t control my own body. There were spasms and I couldn’t see in first one eye, then the other for a while. That terrified me. The Girls Write Now team asked me if I needed to go home, postpone, anything — yet I wanted to do this. In performance, the show must go on. And it wasn’t about me. I came here to talk to others, and encourage, and in leaving I would have disappointed myself.
That day, when you decide that despite the fear of the unknown, you will not only leap, you will fly. That’s when a journey truly begins, and coming to GWN on that Saturday was beyond sharing my poetry, or word — it was about sharing the experience, and that fear, which you never really overcome.

This was my first Q&A, so to speak, and it was an exhilarating, inspiring moment in my life. There was something so pure in simply listening and answering questions, which, hopefully, struck a chord with the girls.
I felt humbled, and there was comfort in the knowing I was sharing a personal truth: the realization of being afraid is an integral part of the process. I remember the day it hit me that I have to acknowledge the “terror” and walk with it, side by side, to a warmer place. Today I know that the beast is not so beastly.
Thank you for letting me inside your space.

• See what mentees Angelica and Bre’Ann thought of Tzahalla and their day without mentors!