Tell me that you'll open your eyes

There was this add that used to be on TV when I was younger that was on all the time. It ended up driving me nuts and it was probably the first commercial my sister ever memorized and wouldn't stop repeating (luckily she has now moved on to singing songs, and her musical taste is what I would call Good Top Forty, so that's better than singing the subway adds).

This add featured various children doing various activities. The commercial's line was "What's your thing?" There were male ballet dancers, kids with bugs, kids doing magic tricks and one kid who could make T-rex noises, which my eight-year-old self thought was pretty cool. It ended with the kids says "Nobody's good at everything, but everybody's good at something. What's your thing?" Watching this commercial, I'd mentally peruse the various classes and activities I was enrolled in (ballet, tap, gymnastics, art class, etc.) and wonder what my thing was. I liked doing all those things, but I didn't feel that any of them were my "thing". Years later, I have found my thing.

If you read my blog with any regularity, you are familiar with the concept of improv and its constant presence in my life, as well as my feeling of awe when I watch it. So this year, I tried out for the improv team, The Improv Team, Jimmy, of the Ligsar Improv Dynasty. I felt like the kid who's staying up to watch Grown-Up TV with her parents and is afraid she'll be asked to leave at any moment. A pretender, a poser. But I tried out anyway, because it made me feel so good to do improv. Last Thursday, the list went up... and I was on it. I jumped up and down, I screamed, I yelled I cried... I had to read the list a few times to be sure. But my name was really there.

Last night, we had our first team rehearsal. Both Jimmy and Jimbo, the B team, were there, and Ms K sent Jimbo out in to the other room accompanied by former team member Ben Farrow to work separately. When they left, suddenly the feeling in the room changed. The eight of us looked at one another, and there was in incredibly feeling of This is it. This is it. It's us. The group felt so small and so tight, and I just felt this incredible energy in the room. During the practice, Ms K told us "improvise", no prompt, no theme. And we did it. We just... did it. For an hour. No stress, no worrying about anything else, no thoughts of anything but that moment and those people and that feeling. It was easily the most amazing feeling of my life.

After the practice, I was left waiting for my ride and chatting with Ms K. "Did you feel it?" I asked her. "It was so amazing," was her reply. There's a word in french, s'extasier, which is basically complete ecstasy as a verb. To enter into ecstasy. That is how I feel about improv. Je m'extasie. I have found my thing.