The parking lot of a gas station becomes our stage.
We perform our warm-up routine under stars and to an audience of retired gas pumps.
The neon sign of the neighboring video store spotlights our tight circle, sharply illuminating our pre-show nerves escaping into visibility by fidgeting feet, a pacing dictated to the flutters of heartbeat, laughs that are quick and high-pitched, and wide-eyed expressions trained to absorb all the soothing medicines of our improv director.
She provides the remedies in a series of games designed to reunite us with our intrinsic creative knowing.
She projects over the rush of cars:
“Turnip. Three sentence scene. Go.”
Go. Move. Flow.
The snap-quick prompts pull us out of our heads, out of residing in our internal fearful frets of energy, and stretch us back into the entirety of our body. Reclaimed embodiment resettles us into the power of the body, the power of the breath, clearing the internal creative channels so we can receive and act on inspiration communicating through instinct, gut, feeling.
“If you find your feet tapping to move, then that’s the sign to GO.”
The feet know when to edit, exit, enter a scene.
Trust the feet.
In order to trust the feet, we must feel the feet, all ten toes, inside tennis shoes, sweaty socks, ankle boots, pounding onto the fluorescent lit cement.
Movement moves us to the present moment, where the scene always exists.
In order to improvise at our best, we must be restored in trusting and surrendering to the innate intelligence of a body wired for connection, collaboration, creative expression.
As the improv crew claps and sways in another warm-up game, I envision tunnels flowing with shimmering gold rivers of inspiration, excitement, radiant energy.
I want that flow of energy to race, rush, strongly rinse these channels of creativity, because I know, I intuitively sense, there’s damage needing healing.
Doubt constricts and narrows the channel. Fear of criticism slows the flow. Denial to act on inspired impulse stagnates and causes a collapse, a strangled shut down.
I am actively healing my relationship with my creativity, and this is a tedious and delicious practice of listening, learning, loving, leaping, crying, raging, forgiving, and committing, again and again, to only the nurturance and expansion of this powerful presence.
The desire to refresh and stimulate creative flow fueled my move to Austin, and manifests, so fantastically unexpectedly, in this improv circle.
This improv circle also manifests a secret wish: A community.
In improv, there’s no room for competition. Competition kills the scene. I have to stand tall in my knowledge that I am good, I am good enough, and there’s nothing to prove – to the audience, to me -- because I shimmer in natural joy when I am improvising and choose to utilize this energy to be my best for my team.
We rise and rally for one another by saying yes to the stage mate’s chosen reality, by gifting one another with character details and plot twists, and ending the scene when there’s a sizzling out of energy so there’s a high note informing the next.
Community and creativity. My two deepest longings that in their aching propelled me forward to start again, start anew, and stretch into new experiences.
And in the stretching, there’s a meeting and breathing into the knots of fear stalling the creative flow, the love flow.
The detox of fear, the continuing of healing, occurs here during this warm-up, and the test will be the within-the-hour approaching showcase.
We end the pre-show games with a voiced hope, an intention (the yogi in me omms in happiness).
I intend to trust my creative instinct.
The mantra repeats as I stand in the backstage wings, watching and listening to the unfolding scene, and feel my feet tap.
My body senses the idea before my mind fully processes the vision, and I act and my feet charge me forward back up into the stage lights that blur the full audience.
The scene organically blooms and my scene partner and I join wits to collaborate in the creation of whimsical, quirky conversation about ice cream and family dynamics, and there’s an aliveness, a naturalness to the sweet absurdity, and then, the scene dissolves into another, and again, I am backstage, watching and listening, and feeling, and there’s the foot tap.
There’s the foot tap. And this time…I do not act. I pause. I ponder. I wonder if I’m taking too much space, if I’d be interrupting.
The opportunity passes.
And there are others that I seize, but this missed mark haunts me, rattles in the back of my head as I stand in another circle; this time a circle of a merged Austin tribe reflecting the various chapters of my Texas and Kentucky hybrid life.
Burning twinkle lights weave above our heads. My various and separate lives overlap and smile at one another: friends from yoga, meditation, work, and my sister and her boyfriend symbolic of my life in Kentucky all merge into a tight oval.
I’m attempting to improvise here, too, on this stage of my life, because I feel overwhelmed with gratitude and love for this community. My words flutter and a few of my comments are nonsensical, and as the anxiety of wondering if I was good enough and why didn’t I act on my feet during that one scene, there’s the re-awakening of the love right here in front and around me.
Return to the flow. The flow of life around me, within me, guided by breath, heartbeat, a creative energy that is bouncy and applauding because it was good. It was enough. Just getting up on the stage was enough. I was enough. I am enough, here, with these loves.
This is all a practice. A failing and a rising and a failing and a rising. And let it all be good, because it all is good.
Then, there’s the celebratory call for ice cream. And the improv tribe is on the move. And to get to vanilla milkshakes and vegan whipped coffee scoops of true food purified delight, we pass through our former stage, the sleeping gas station lot at night.
My feet feel inspired to skip, and I trust to receive this joy and express it vibrantly. I choose to embrace this moment of creativity and community, and invite this flow of joy to ripple and replenish channels healing and expanding.
Creativity and Community. The two deepest wishes that I wanted when I moved are manifested, manifesting, and all I have to do is trust my flow, trust my feet, and skip in rejoicing praise, and receive.