The Stool in the Middle of the Stage 

2019.

I try to do something every year that scares me. As I kid, I was afraid of absolutely everything and I learned that the only way for me to get over that is often to face fears head-on. I’m also a perfectionist. I don’t like doing things (imagine what it’s been like to write these stories) that I’m not already good at and for a lot of years, that meant I didn’t try anything new. A couple of years ago, I decided to take a stand-up comedy class. I have friends who are comedians and I watched them go through the process of being bad at it to becoming extraordinarily funny. By that point, I’d learned I was a performer and I knew the class would be a risk, but I thought I’d grown enough as a person to not let my perfectionism or fear of failure get in the way. Ha, I was wrong. The teacher sat in the middle of the room each week with a large plastic purple binder. For the first 30 minutes of class, he’d lecture us on the details of comedy writing. He expected us to take notes and I filled pages within the first 10 minutes. Then, he’d turn to us, set a 5-minute timer, and expect us to write a joke...and then perform it. I will never forget that first week. My hand was tired from writing vigorously, trying to keep up with the teacher as he shared his notes. He set the timer... I looked back at my notes...my mind was blank. Could I do this? Finally, within the last 20 seconds, I scribbled something down. And you know what? It wasn’t funny at all. It was terrible actually. For the next 8 weeks, I struggled to write something funny...anything funny. At one point, I struggled to write something at all...I skipped classes simply because I was too embarrassed. It seemed like everyone else was so good at this...and they could be funny on command. Reality? Most of them weren’t funny either. We were all learning, but it was difficult for me to give myself a break. The culmination of the class was a performance at a prestigious comedy club in Manhattan. Ha...great… just what I needed. I sent my hard-earned 5 minutes of material around to my comedian friends. I begged them for edits. I promised them whiskey. They helped...they could smell my fear and they didn’t want me to fail...though failure would probably not have been the worst thing. 

It was a week before the big show. At this point, no one in the class expected me to be funny. I didn’t expect me to be funny. We had a dress rehearsal in the space. I got there early. My palms had been sweating for the last 10 weeks and this day was no different. The stage was set. A stool in the middle, a mic on a stand...a spotlight. And somehow, that’s the moment I took a breath. I got up on the stage, took the mic, sweaty palms and all, and began to speak. The words just flowed and for the first time, I was funny. Why? I relaxed. Yep, that’s it. I was funny because I AM funny. My life is funny. Everyone’s life is funny. That’s the point of it. I’d been trying SO hard and that was precisely the problem. In comedy, every word is curated, but in life...it isn’t. A good comedian finds the balance. The perfect amount of words to tell a real story. There was a lesson in that for me. Turns out, stand-up comedy could be for me. I’m funny. If you get me to tell a story in person, you might just laugh. If you read it? Eh, I’ve probably used too many words. But, I’m learning. The best thing I can do for myself? Go back to the stool in the middle of the stage. And relax.