Just show up

Here lies the opportunity

Intro

Welcome to the Act I of The Ecstatic Review—and welcome to August!

I’m reminded of that quote in Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt:

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.

That’s a fitting description of how I’ve felt about officially beginning this newsletter show—not planning it, setting it up, or even talking about it—but showing up and swinging at it: like I’m at the top of a paused Ferris wheel, my heart in my throat, motionless and hot. Sitting directly in front of the air conditioning has helped with the hot part, but the motionless part has been a whole other story.

Before I say more, let’s have some music. This is a show after all, and music is an important part of shows. Leading us in this week is the great Nina Simone with her cover of “Here Comes the Sun,” which I first heard in an Off-Broadway play when I was 23. One of the ways I see voice is like your own personal sun—illuminating all that you are and lighting the way on a path that is uniquely yours—and for me, this song always evokes that feeling of warm encouragement and glowing possibility:

With that warm musical encouragement, I’ll pick up where I left off on the motionless part.

There’s this humbling (OK, humiliating) thing that happens almost every time I sit down to talk about a particular challenge related to talking about yourself: I find myself living out some heightened version of that exact challenge.

For example: I’ll have an idea to write about what it feels like to have so much to say, and then write something that’s easily the length of five somethings.

Or I’ll think how I must talk about the complexity of voice, and all of a sudden I’m deep in some complex mathematical self-expression proof that no theorem or postulate can get me out of.

Or, in this specific case, I’ll say: “Oh, I know! Make Act I of this show about how challenging it can be to just show up!” and here I am on Tuesday evening—two days after I’d intended to publish this and many drafts later—still feeling (you guessed it!) challenged by how I want to just show up.

Do you ever feel like you’re the punch line of your own joke?

I always say that I’m in the work of expressing all that you are not because I think it’s easy, but because I continue to experience in my own way how hilariously and heartbreakingly hard it can be—especially, it seems, when I want to talk about it.

And does that turn me away? Au contraire, whoever is having a laugh at my expense up there! Every single time I experience a new challenge of voice, it only gives me more compassion for the courage it takes to have the conversation that is yours to have, and further confirms how essential it is to have this conversation about having that one.

That’s what this newsletter show is all about. And look: in the process of talking about beginning it, it’s already begun. So let’s keep going.

As always, snacks are encouraged. If you’re drinking coffee while reading and/or listening to this, here’s a fun game: take a swig every time I say “wig.” You’ll be buzzing by the end of Scene 2.

One

I felt the energy flow out of me for this work, like an aspiring actor who had been continually painting, not a character, but a portion of background scenery. I knew all at once, I couldn’t stay backstage anymore.
— David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

There’s a sign backstage at The Groundlings in Los Angeles, where I used to perfom a sketch comedy show every Sunday night. The sign is barely visible high above the entrance to stage right, which is the threshold you have to cross most often to step onstage. In small capital letters engraved in brass are four words:

“Here lies the opportunity.”

I hadn’t yet discovered the sign as I braced myself for a performance that was both the culmination of years of training and a make-or-break moment for what came next: after the curtain closed, I’d either be voted into the company or kindly asked to leave.

I had eight sketches in the show—five I’d written, all in Act I—and each one was entirely different, with specific jokes, cues, and blocking essential to its success. There had been no dress rehearsal, there would be no second chance, and everything was coming together at the last minute. An hour or so earlier, I’d run through my opening sketch with my writing partner and our director in a rehearsal room across the street, changing so many lines that it was basically brand new.

From the dressing room, I could hear the band playing loudly to kick off the show. I could sense the anticipation of a packed audience full of people whose opinions greatly mattered to me. I felt like I was going to faint.

I exhaled slowly and adjusted the safety pin that was holding up a pair of pants I’d bought at a thrift store that morning, then tugged at the sleeves of a shirt I’d just changed into. (After realizing that my original shirt was too close in color to the wardrobe choices in the sketch before mine, our director had run backstage right before the house lights went down to tell me to put on something else.) I stuck one more hairpin into the wig I was wearing and prayed that it would stay on my head.

My other costumes and wigs were meticulously laid out at my station for six quick changes. If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I’m somewhat of a quick change aficionado—but the ones in this show were putting my skills to the test. Some of the changes had to happen so quickly that they required underdressing, which means that you wear one costume under another in a sketch so that you can rip the top one off at the end, change wigs and shoes, then run through a tunnel to another entrance and jump into the next sketch before the band finishes playing, acting as though you just casually walked in.

Suddenly feeling dizzy, I sat down in a chair and put my head between my knees—a trick I’d learned as a kid with a history of fainting. I don’t remember what my thoughts were, but I know I had at least a million of them. I do remember a sensation of fear and desire crashing into each other so intensely inside of my body that I felt suspended in the air—kind of like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel, if it completely detached from the wheel and was drifting through outer space.

Which sounds hyperbolic until you read those studies about how a person’s nervous system and physical responses before going onstage resemble those of someone confronting a raging lion.

My scene partner came to get me.

“You ready?” he asked.

As is so often the case, it was time to show up whether or not I was.

Two

The natural voice is transparent; it reveals, not describes, inner impuses of emotion and thought, directly and spontaneously. The person is heard, not the person’s voice.
— Kristin Linklater, Freeing the Natural Voice

The word “show,” like all of my favorite words, has multiple meanings. More than multiple: Merriam-Webster lists 25. My Price Is Right guess is that the Oxford English Dictionary lists 50. If you have access to the OED, please let me know if I’ve won a bedroom set.

Here are three of my favorite meanings of show as a verb:

• to be or become visible (which is the first definition listed on Google)

• to publicly display one’s artistic work

• to finish at least third in a race

And here are a three of my favorites as a noun:

• an impressive display, like a show of strength (while, say, confronting a raging lion)

• something exhibited especially for wonder or ridicule—see: spectacle

• an opportunity for doing something; a chance

It’s telling to me that a word that’s all about being visible is also about all kinds of other things, from taking chances to inspiring wonder and ridicule (two very different words to exist in the same definition) to finishing at least third in a race (specific!). It’s also not surprising to me, given everything I do at Ecstatic Voice.

Voice and visibility go hand in hand. To share your voice is to show yourself: to take what is inside of you and express it outwardly. To choose work that is yours, to find the right words to define yourself, to speak out loud, to embody who you are—all of it is to essentially say: “This is me, at least right now. This what I’m thinking and feeling and wondering about and trying my best to figure out. This is what moves me, how I see things, why I believe what I believe.”

“Just show up” is one of those phrases that sounds so easy (see also: “Just be yourself”), and sometimes it can be. But it is more often quite challenging, as are most things that can take as much energy as confronting an actual lion. And, just like the wide variety of meanings of the word “show,” it can also feel quite complex—especially for those of us who identify as multifaceted and dynamic and might have a less straightforward experience of showing up than other people do.

Just showing up that night at The Groundlings meant lots of late nights of writing and re-writing, hundreds of voice notes to catch ideas, two large suitcases of costumes, props, and wigs, countless trips all over LA to gather them, many failures along the way, and all kinds of juggling to pull it off.

It also meant figuring out the logic of why I was even doing it in the first place, how it made sense in my life, and what to tell the people I worked with when they asked how my weekend was. (“Full of wigs,” seemed like a confusing choice.)

Just showing up to create this newsletter show has meant basically all of the above, expanded to include spreadsheets of costumes, props, and wigs, along with a full-time business to run.

Just showing up for you may mean less wigs, but no less mettle. Because it doesn’t matter if it looks like performing onstage, filling a blank canvas, asserting yourself, or changing the shape of your work: each and every instance of bravely showing up means boldly sharing who you are—with no way of knowing if you’ll inspire wonder or ridicule, tame the metaphorical lion, or finish at least third in the race.

Three

Just own it, Jennifer, whatever you are. You’re out of shape? You’re not prepared? Just own it. Show up anyway.
— Chase Winton, in a career-changing pep talk to Jennifer Coolidge

I followed my scene partner across the backstage threshold, underneath the hidden sign promising some mysterious opportunity, and onto the unlit stage, fumbling to find my place in the dark. With a sharp beat, the band stopped playing and the lights blazed on at nowhere-to-hide levels of brightness.

My first sketch was called “Lassens,” about a couple who lives in the hills of Los Feliz and together have such strong arguments against every grocery store in LA that they talk themselves out of going anywhere. My partner and I were sitting in a fake car onstage, looking out at the audience. On some level I knew that there were people out there, but all I could see was darkness. I still felt dizzy, and not being able to look at my scene partner or see anyone else, I also felt alone.

Nonetheless, I dove in (my first line was a loud expletive, so there wasn’t really any other choice). I remembered my next few lines after that and so did my scene partner, which was enough to keep us going one step at a time.

And then, something happened.

Intermission

Intermission is what’s happening here! I know, I know. But every good show cuts to intermission on a cliffhanger, and I’m committed to making this a really good show.

Check your inbox between Sunday (the goal) and Tuesday (the fallback) next week to find out answers to questions like:

• What happened?

• What was the mysterious opportunity?

• Was the metaphorical lion tamed?

• Is just showing up worth it?

• Will I continue to be the punch line of my own joke?

As you stretch your legs or stay right where you are, I invite you to take this audience poll inspired by some of the imagery in Act I, along with my love of personality quizzes and metaphor:

If your answer was “none of the above,” I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell me what you do feel like when you think about showing up. Either way, I warmly encourage you to leave a comment letting me know about anything else that came up: The Ecstatic Review is all about the one-and-only conversation of being you, and I’m so excited to hear what you have to say.

Alright, back to the music! Carrying us out is a double feature by Jungle, who provided 90% of the soundtrack to my copywriting career. “Good Times” is such an energizing song all about showing up, and I dare you to listen to it and watch the video without starting to dance.

See you after intermission (next week)!

P.S. If you know someone who would enjoy The Ecstatic Review, please pass it along! All are welcome, and every voice makes this show that much fuller.