Day 516: Welcome

Loving the dark-eyed, quite nice looking and enticingly accented man who’s doing silly voices and having a proper conversation with the little boy sitting next to him on the train (who’s nothing to do with him). He’s really getting in there. Both of them are cackling. The man is pulling big-eyed faces, sending the little boy into glee fits. The couple opposite are looking on. The woman is pregnant. The man’s face is all lit up.

Dare to say you're smart? Wear this hat.

The little boy has just announced that he’s very smart, sending a whole surrounding cluster of people into giggles. He said it so knowingly. Why is it so unreasonable to believe you’re smart? We’re all a little bit embarrassed for him because he’s been audacious enough to say that, but he’s right. He is smart, and even if he wasn’t outstandingly smart, it wouldn’t do him any good at all to believe that. Now he’s OMGing for Britain. OhMyGodding. He’s not using initials.

A Terribly British Thank You

What else, earlier? The girl on the phone, who said, sweetly ‘Okay, thanks, bye.’ Then the second she put the phone down, much deeper. ‘Stupid fucking bitch’. SO English. You couldn’t have known from her goodbye, not in the least. I laughed out loud.

Chatted up by a slightly drunken guy last night  in the co-op. He looked like he might be sleeping rough, or at least not living in luxury. He got talking to me. I sweetly offered my teetotalness as a reason not to go for a drink with him. I’d have been warmly firm in any case, if he’d insisted, but why bother when there’s no need? He told me his name and that he’d been to NA and AA, and that he was happy for me that it had worked for me (even though in fact, that’s not the way I went). No aggression in his approach, and lots of warmth. I liked him.

No. Just No.

I realise this one’s bitty – that’s what happens when daily posts become weekly – but there’s one thing I feel the need to say. It’s official: Laughter Yoga appalls me. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with laughter yoga. How could I? It’s not my place. What I can say, though, unequivocally, is that it does not sit well with me. Now, nobody could accuse me of not being willing to dick around. It’s what I do for a living, in some of my working life. It’s one of the things I love the most. I have no objection to pretending to be pretty much anything you ask me to pretend to be. Not that I’m not awkward or anxious sometimes – clowning scares the shit out of me and I love it just the same… but the point is (and the point is the point) that when ‘FUN’ or even, in itself, laughter, is The Point, it bypasses everything that gives me joy about the work I do.

It’s the loss of control that’s a thrill to me – seeing someone laugh because they can’t not; to see someone taken by surprise by their own body, their own consciousness, their own guffaw. To see that little moment of forgetting, where the consciousness of their own identity is engulfed by a contracting diaphragm and a rush of endorphins. I love to watch it because I need it so much myself. I love to witness that release. I love to be part of it.

Often, when I run a workshop in a corporate context, one of my secret intentions is to see every participant, however skeptical and however much they don’t want to be there, belly laugh, ideally thanks to someone else in the workshop. Do I tell them that? Fuck no! Do I set up exercises where the goal is to laugh? NOOOOOO. Again, not because it’s right or wrong, but because for me, being put in that situation feels like missing the point. If there’s a goal in an exercise, we’re trained to strain to reach it, to get it right, to do it… if the byproduct gives us joy, we’re not straining for joy, we’re straining for something else.

When I sing on Saturdays, I’m not straining for happiness, I’m striving to sing the part I’ve committed to and to let myself move, to let my voice grow into itself and to listen and join and complement the other voices. And although I know that I’m likely to have some joy or elation as a byproduct, that byproduct is also sometimes an opening, or tears, or a yearning. I’m doing something that takes focus and collaboration and listening and that’s a gift in itself.

When I dance, yes, I know that joy might come, and also anger and outstanding ungainliness and irritation. I often find myself in a situation where I need to set boundaries in those five rhythms sessions. That’s part of my practice. That’s part of my lesson. It is, in itself, a dance, finding out what feels healthily uncomfortable and what is an equally healthy boundary, which needs to be communicated. I can be grateful to the people involved for giving me the opportunity to practise, and at other times for letting me experiment with letting people in.

It’s not quite the same, I know, and if I voluntarily move my feet into a room where laughter yoga is taking place, and where I’ve committed (even if only to myself) to being supportive, then all I can do is hug my sides and do my best and vow, as I do now, and publicly, that I shall never put myself in that situation again. I absolutely promise. It's for the best. For everyone.

Loving that Rachel Blackman one right now. She’s a creature! She really knows how to bring out magic and demonstrate acceptance, curiosity, integrity and intelligence. Lucky me, to get to play in such an environment. I am full up.

Yesterday, I read this. It’s a Rumi translation. It pleased me and sung to me.

This being human is a guest house.

Ha. Not very Rumi, but this really made me laugh.
You're welcome

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

Who violently sweeps your house

Empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

Here’s to welcoming in whatever is, be it giddiness, dissatisfaction, anxiety, excitement, angular, elbowy discomfort, creative surge or stubborn stagnation. They’re all part of it. Ha... on that note, I'm speaking at the Catalyst Club on Thursday. All of the above sentiments are visiting all over the place. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Eeeeeee!