The Art of Knowing

There’s a difference between trusting your gut and knowing. The gut can be noisy with its nerves and second-guessing. Knowing is quiet. It’s the kind of peace that settles in when you’ve stopped overthinking and finally let the universe get a word in edgewise.

I first learned this as a high school sophomore, standing at a crossroads that felt way bigger to me than it probably was. My choices were to help my track team go to state in the two-mile relay, or audition for the school musical, Fiddler on the Roof. 

When our music teacher announced the spring theatre ideas, something in me perked up. I met my response to the news with a confused, “Hmm?” and just went on about my day. But I kept going back to the unfamiliar thrill I felt when I heard what was being planned for our school play. For the first time, it seemed, I felt pulled in a direction that felt completely out of left field. 

To sixteen-year-old me, this wasn’t just a decision I had to make. It was a moral crisis, a potential identity split between being a state victory runner and standing in a spotlight I wasn’t even sure I had the talent to stand in. Besides, how could I ever disappoint Coach Bates and Coach Campbell, whose veins bled with sports pride and the thrill of victory with me as one of their superstars?

That night, I decided to hand my choices over—not so much in a “Thy will be done” way, but more in a “Listen up, God, I need an answer by morning” tone. I told God that when I woke up, I wanted to know (really know) what was meant for me.

And sure enough, the next morning, before my feet even touched the carpet, I said out loud, “I’m going to be the lead in the school play.”

It wasn’t wishful thinking or a pep talk. It was an absolute knowing—a full-body certainty that I couldn’t explain at the time if I tried.

When auditions for Fiddler on the Roof rolled around, I showed up slightly petrified and wondering for a brief moment what the hell I was doing. Running an 800-meter distance in a circle was something I could do well in my sleep, but would all of those hours in front of the hall bathroom mirror suffice as enough vocal training to get me the lead in the school musical?

My turn came. I sang. I acted.

Then I waited. 

When the cast list went up, there it was, Jenée - Tzeitel (eldest daughter). Huh. Sure. It was a solid and respectable role with plenty of lines and a song or two. Okay.

I was grateful. I smiled. I congratulated my classmates who were crying with joy, and consoled the ones who’d been relegated to the back line of the Russian dancers in the bar scene (even though they couldn’t dance to save their lives). But deep down, something inside me whispered, You’re not Tzeitel. You’re Golde.

That whisper didn’t come from a place of disappointment. It came from a place of conviction. But it made no logical sense. The cast had been set, the show was in motion, and I was a teenager with zero authority to make it look any different than what was listed on the cast listing. But a quiet knowing hummed beneath it all. You’re Golde.

Then fate intervened. 

One afternoon, Ms. Avery pulled me aside after rehearsal and said, “Jenée, I’ve been thinking” (a phrase that struck equal parts terror and hope into the solar plexus of a young me). She said my audition had stuck with her; my singing, the timing, the way I yelled at Tevye with the conviction of a woman who’d been married 25 years.

“I’m splitting the cast,” she said. “You’ll play Golde opening night and at Sunday matinee.”

I nodded as she spoke. I was calm on the outside, but inside, my neurons were performing If I Were a Rich Man on hyperdrive—even though I knew all along that this was the expected outcome.

Coach Bates was a whole other story. He looked at me when I gave him the news like I’d just announced I was leaving the track team to join a carnival. “You’re doing what instead of running track? Do you know what the girls’ team has on the line with that relay?” he asked with a tone that was equal parts disbelief and betrayal. I tried to explain the concept of my knowing, but it didn’t translate well to a man whose entire worldview is built on stopwatch precision. 

Coach Campbell didn’t say much when I disclosed the news. He just gave me that blank stare he reserved for badly timed twisted ankles and pathetic excuses, then turned on his heels and swaggered down the hall shaking his head and muttering, “Didn’t even know you sang,” like it was some personal double-cross.

Yet the moment I stepped onto that stage in my apron and headscarf, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Not just because I’d earned it, but because I’d trusted the nudge that told me I belonged there.

I’ve had multitudes of these knowings throughout my adult life. They all seem to come out of left field, but they are always perfectly aligned. Like the time I moved to Seattle, sight unseen, because my knowing told me it was the right next place for me to land. My family thought I was insane. Or the time I left a company (a company that would have easily set me up to walk into the sunset with millions of dollars at retirement) with absolutely no idea what I would do next. 

To people outside of me, some of my decisions seem impulsive, but they are really just me trusting—in real time—my knowing. 

I don’t think the universe/God works in lightning bolts or prophetic dreams as much as by gently prodding us toward things meant for us; many of which make no logical sense until they do.

This internal knowing isn’t exclusive to me. What if we all heeded these proddings when every once in a while, something drops into all of our lives out of left field—a nudge, an idea, a maybe—and for a split second, it feels meant for us. But then our logical brain kicks in and says, “Yeah, that’s cute, but let’s be realistic.” What if we stopped doing that? What if, just once, we trusted that jolt of excitement instead of strangling it with reason? What if we gave ourselves permission to follow what makes our whole being light up, even if the “how” doesn’t make sense yet?

That moment in high school taught me that trusting our knowing is about alignment. It’s about saying, If this is meant for me, let me recognize it when it arrives.

And when it does arrive, having the guts to say “Yes!” even when people (like your bewildered track coaches) think you’ve lost your mind.