Article voiceover
Dear Friend, I learned the first rule of improv when I took my first step. In a flash, my world expanded toward infinity. In another, it shrank into the ground. Yes, and, after each fall I built the strength to stand. By nine, I wanted to be a park ranger, spending my days protecting what is wild. At least this is what I told when asked the age-old question that, ironically, left no room for the wild: what do you want to be when you grow up? Yes, and, I learned that answers change as questions mature. What became who. Who do you want to be when you grow up? A kind man, loved by people and himself. Yes, and, I did learn about love. My first bought me a vintage vest and buttoned me up as if to say, "stay by my side forever." Yes, and, I did learn feelings come and go like visitors at the tea house. In high school, panic took shelter in my heart and I learned to call this trauma. Yes, and, the demons you most hate are the ones you must eventually invite to the table for a feast of gently poached sweet delicacies. When I got to college, the park ranger dream was in the rear view mirror but the windshield was still foggy. So many people I could become. So many dreams I could imagine. Yes, and, I would learn to make choices and seek guidance when I lost my way. Choices led me to friendships that blossomed in farm fields and I became a farmer who fell in love with the dream itself. There is romance and there is reality and they do at times harmonize at dawn in the milking parlor. But when the romance faded, reality asked me to let go of one dream for another to take root. Yes, and, I learned loving is a letting go. Twice, I learned this. The second time more painful, when I said goodbye to someone who was dear to me, and she said goodbye to me, and it was goodbye because I love you. Yes, and, even if two seedlings try their hardest to stay root bound together, there comes a time when they must be split so each has room to grow. And I found this to make sense with time. There were lonely times when I learned two ways to be alone. Being alone, holding your breath, waiting for companionship to find you. Yes, and, being alone, exchanging breath with everything green that surrounds you. There was always time to be busy but never enough of time itself. Yes, and, when you face your limits you find a certain freedom in the embrace of finitude and suddenly time shares itself generously with you. Many times, I was told I was kind, but I did not know I was angry. Yes, and, it is kind to let anger in, for every emotion has its place. I spent hours searching for the right pieces to complete my puzzle so I might feel whole. Yes, and, I learned one can be whole without all the pieces. I visited the same places in my dark hours over and over and learned to be patient and trust the pace I travel. Yes, and, surrender, it turns out, is a more direct route to becoming. "What will you become?" became "Who will you become?" became "How will you become what you already are?" I will be dancing where I once walked, stepping back, stepping forward, spinning around, following, leading. Each step a yes, and. Each step an embrace of where the previous had led so the next could be taken. Yes, and, creates space for yes, and, creates space for yes, and, this is how life really is. A grand improvisation where the instruction is to partner with the present and say yes, and, the first rule of improv was born of trust in life itself.
So true ad wonderfully written! Thank you
Beautiful