I thought I understood the concept of "being in the moment", although I found it pretty tricky to apply to my own life. So, when I enrolled for Vivian Gladwell's clowning workshop, I went there with the expectation to lighten up, to be less serious. To learn how to laugh again.
Everything was there: the red noses, the props, the fun and the laughter, and more, much more than I ever expected. I received precious gifts.
Through movement, illusion, play and the creation of, at times, bizarre metaphors, it is as if I had moved into Alice's Wonderland where the edges of reality became blurred and truth was found in the interaction with others connected in a world of illusion and fluidity.
I knew I would be stretched, my preconceived ideas challenged, but I never imagined how this experience would reconnect me with my own emotions - the ones I thought I had buried away deeply in a safe burrow where they could never haunt me again or ever erode my strength. Little did I know how wobbly my imagined strength was and how transparent my charade of independence was.
For the first time, I really understood how the barriers we build and the walls we put up around us to protect the soft core of our souls are as fragile as an egg shell. I came to understand how the essence and beauty of our lives can only emerge and grow if we allowed the shell to crack, just a little bit at a time. And that the fledgling that emerged would be scraggly, fragile and entirely vulnerable, but in time would grow wings to soar through the air, without shackles to tie it down.
It is not comfortable to see yourself vulnerable, letting strangers into the strongholds of your life, trusting them to respect your vulnerability and to allow you to find out your own truth in your own time. But I learnt how to acknowledge my discomfort and my fears and to trust my being in the moment. I saw the beauty created when people connected with their inner beings, in the fluidity of interrelationships, and when they simply embraced their moment of being.
Those are the gifts I received, which I would treasure for life. And for that I want to thank Vivian Gladwell and my fellow clowns.
