I have been using my new-found energy to partake in a new hobby. Improv comedy! It's the greatest thing. Unlike Margaret Mills, I've never been in an improv troupe until now. I've been attending some classes for the last six months or so. It's a great excuse to get out of the house and socialize with other fun-loving people. The only downside is the feelings that come up. Sometimes I can't sleep after a class because I'm replaying every single minute in my head. And even during class, my pesky contradictory feelings pop up. In the space of a single two-hour class, I repeatedly go through a cycle of thinking about quitting and never coming back, and then deciding it's the greatest thing ever that I'll keep doing forever.
Improvised theater is a challenging art form for any individual, and on top of that you're also dealing with other people and all their dreams and insecurities. The potential for miscommunication is high. That's where the comedy comes from! But it's also incredibly painful to be stuck in the middle of it while it's happening. I apologize for sounding like a Butthurt Complainy Complainer-pants, but I like to give full disclosure, since you're putting in the time to read this note and you deserve honesty: I leave about half of the sessions feeling lousy. Nobody's fault. Just how life is, and how I am, with my high sensitivity. I don't necessarily understand my feelings, but I have a lot of them. I can do a neat acting trick where I cry on command. Why? Because the tears are always there, right below the surface. Always there. Since forever.
One thing that's universal with us humans is the desire to be understood. That's why it's so painful to be misunderstood, to have people assume you have different motives than you do. Many moons ago, I was involved in a national public radio show. It was a hard job, and I had zero training, and yeah, I was on the air. Like a total small-town hick with no fancy ed-u-mucation busted into the soundproof studio and just started yacking with her slight lisp, mispronouncing “Bach” and the names of cities and sounding like a very good excuse for government to cut back arts funding. I had only a minor role in the show, but I was on the air nonetheless. Now, some teachers try to instill confidence above all else, but I firmly believe that no amount of confidence can make up for actual competence. I had no competence. So, I would finish each week's show buzzing with anxiety and exhaustion. Back at my apartment, alone, I had to dim the lights, put on a soothing TV show, and pile heavy blankets on top of myself to calm down. I tried so hard to do a good job, despite my lack of training.
Fast forward to fifteen years later. I was having dinner and a catch-up with the person whose show it was, and he paid me the “compliment” of saying I had “naturally” played such a good foil for him on air because I simply “didn't give a flip.” (He didn't use the word flip.) I was stunned. I had to laugh, because it was so absurd. Deep down, I liked his personal narrative of my experience better than my own. How cool and rock star would I be if I'd truly not given a flip?! Everyone loves the don't-give-a-flip character. We secretly want to be them. They don't have any of those gushy feelings that hold the rest of us back. So, I laughed and laughed, and for the rest of that evening, I told myself the story that I had once been the diva performer who waltzed in, stunk it up real bad on air, collected a paycheck, and didn't give a flip. Time passed. I never did set the record straight with the friend. I mean, I tried. He just wasn't listening. He preferred his own narrative about me and my motivations, perhaps because he was riddled with his own anxiety and liked the idea that there was an alternate way of being, and perhaps I could serve as some kind of stop-giving-a-flip role model for him. I don't know. See, there I go, guessing at another person's motivations and probably getting them wrong. And isn't that the worst?
I'm at this weird mid-point in my life where I don't know how to deal with frustrating things. When should a person keep going with something that doesn't make that person happy in the moment? When is it better to fold your cards and walk away—from a hobby, from a business, from a relationship, from another living, breathing person? Is quitting a sign of laziness, foolishness, selfishness, or a logical decision to pivot and be open to better opportunities? These are rhetorical questions. I could probably pay a lot of $$ to have a therapist or life coach or benevolent talking starfish untangle it for me, but I'm a writer, so I write. Here it is. There is no one-size-fits all decision guide. I'm more of a feeler than a thinker, so only time will tell me if I made the right choice. Still, I worry. I have an ambivalent attachment style, so it's entirely too easy for me to clean house, shut the door, and walk without looking back. (My friends like getting my help to declutter closets because I'm unsentimental and great at letting go.) But is this detached way of living serving me? Is it serving my community, or the people I care about? I do not want happiness at the cost of another person's happiness (except maybe sometimes if they were deeply, deeply wrong, ha ha). The other day I read that hell is meeting up with everything you could have been, on the final day of your life. As in, when it's too late to change course. That's a chilling thought.
Whenever I ponder quitting something, which is frequently, I picture myself in the future and try to feel around for any regrets. My heart usually has the answer, if I only stop to look inside and ask. I just wish life lessons could be a little more pleasurable. Ah, if only humans could learn from pleasure. From pleasure we tend to develop addiction (darn you again, dopamine and neural pathways!). And a lot of us have mixed up pleasure and happiness, which gets us in trouble. Pain, however, is even more challenging. Pain is where the real growth comes in, but who the heck wants it?
What I'm trying to do now is make myself comfortable on the razor's edge that is my ambivalence. I don't have to decide everything now. I balance on the edge, I move ahead, I keep an open mind, and I continue trying.
The struggle is the point.
The journey is the destination.
The obstacle is the way.
...and other new-agey sayings.
One might wonder, what point is there worrying about one person's sensitivity and feeeeeelings when the whole gosh-darned world is on fire and there's inhumanity and injustice everywhere? That's a good question. Sometimes I remind myself, mid-wallow, about the umpteen million things there are to be upset about. Funnily enough, it never cheers me up. But I know that feelings do matter, for all of us. Every one of us needs to keep something bright burning inside, or else when some new horror pops up, there'll be nothing good worth fighting for. It matters that people can gather with each other and be open and authentic. It matters that people have enough love and forgiveness inside that they can afford to give some away freely, even to people who don't necessarily “deserve it,” according to society's current values. I heard someone wise say that those who need our compassion the most are not the poster-perfect subjects who naturally tug at the heart strings. This is precisely why they've fallen to such a state already. The concept stuck with me.
As for improv, I would recommend improv or acting classes to every author or writer, and to anyone else who thinks it might be fun. If you're more extroverted than I am, you might not have to replay every minute in your head for hours afterward! It's definitely made me a better listener and a more mindfully present person. Another unexpected benefit I've gotten from improv is the miming aspect. Pretending to use imaginary objects isn't that hard to pull off. Even an amateur can do it well enough to get across the idea. And it brings so much joy to people! It's pure playfulness. If my husband and I are at a restaurant and the food's taking a while, I will mime pulling out an old-timey lunchbox (like the one in this book), pretend to unbuckle it, take out the thermos, unscrew the lid, and sip some soup. My husband cracks up. Yes, the world is on fire, but I'm pretending to sip imaginary soup, so it can't all be so bad, right? I should tell you—full disclosure again—that I don't always use my mime abilities for good. I will sometimes pretend to take out a mime pack of cigarettes and smoke one. It drives my husband nuts. He grabs the imaginary cigarette and angrily stomps it out on the ground. Talk about an excellent way to defuse any situation! I'm
sure there are huge volumes of work about the value of play, for all ages. It's one thing to know this, intellectually, and it's another thing to actually learn how to play, how to work things out in a safe testing environment the way children do. We can't make the right choices if we don't know how it feels to make the wrong ones.
Speaking of playfulness...
I've considered writing some short stories set in the world of Wisteria, but I try not to bite off too much. Getting the main books done is pretty challenging. I hope I'm not spoiling the magic for you. It's fun to play, but it's also very hard work. Believe me? No? Okay. Let's just pretend I waltz into my office and the words pour onto the page faster than I can type. Please don't picture me talking to myself like a madwoman, drinking imaginary cups of coffee, losing all sense of time and reality outside of the book, and asking my husband to smell-check me before we go out because I'm not sure what day I last showered. Hahah! And on that note...
Until the next time.
Xoxo, Angela
Series Reading Order
Wisteria Witches:
Angela Pepper's Wisteria Witches series features a wise-cracking mother and daughter witch duo, Zara and Zoey Riddle, and their aunt, Zinnia. This urban fantasy series has plenty of magic and supernatural elements.
New to Wisteria? You can start reading with any book 1, but you may enjoy them best in the order they were released. Some of the books are written from Zara Riddle's point of view and some are from Aunt Zinnia's.
This is the publication date and suggested reading order:
Wisteria Witches Mysteries (Zara Riddle)
#1 - Wisteria Witches
#2 - Wicked Wisteria
#3 - Wisteria Wonders
#4 - Watchful Wisteria
#5 - Wisteria Wyverns
Wisteria Witches Mysteries - City Hall (Zinnia Riddle)
#1 - Wolves of Wisteria
#2 - Wisteria Wrinkle
Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak (Zara Riddle)
#1 - Wardens of Wisteria - Fall 2018
... & other titles to be announced!
Completed Series:
Stormy Day Mysteries - available in ebook and audiobook!
#1 - Death of a Dapper Snowman
#2 - Death of a Crafty Knitter
#3 - Death of a Batty Genius
#4 - Death of a Modern King
#5 - Death of a Double Dipper
Restless Spirits of the Southwest - available in ebook and audiobook!
#1 - Date with a Ghost
#2 - Interview with a Ghost
#3 - Dancing with a Ghost
Eli Carter & the Ghost Hackers - available in ebook and audiobook!
#1 - The Cat Who Went Bump in the Night
#2 - The Ghost Who Wasn't There
#3 - The Dog Who Barked Fire
For Angela's news, visit www.angelapepper.com
Follow Angela Pepper on Facebook for sneak peeks, wacky humor, and updates: www.facebook.com/angelapepperauthor/
Wisteria Wrinkle Page 32