Following the Fear
Certain questions about the coming year can only be met with the evasive: “I’ll improvise,” which people laugh at to humor me, though I’m sure they’re also laughing at my willingness to indulge in such cheese. Though cheesy, this reply is undeniably handy; it gives me some space to process a few of the more daunting aspects of this year on my own time.
A doctor’s appointment yesterday confirmed a suspicion I had, which is that Kenneth has developed into an increasingly prominent presence in my life. Kenneth is the name I begrudgingly bestowed upon a painful hypertrophic callus that has been troubling my right femur for almost a year thanks to my Type V Ostegenesis Imperfecta (OI). He’s unpredictable, moody, demanding, and extremely irritating (sorry if you happen to be named Kenneth – I didn’t intend to name him after anyone I knew). He settled in as a response to a minor fracture I picked up last summer, probably punishment for pretending I was the sh*t during Cardio Kick class – and since the femur is the most weight-bearing of all bones, and also since I can be belligerently stubborn about staying off of it, Kenneth apparently doesn’t feel like he’s gotten enough of a chance to heal. After finally deciding to take care of business and use a wheelchair for much of the semester, I had been banking on Kenneth hitting the road well before I did for the Watson, but he seems intent on sticking around for now.
For all the talk I talk about having no expectations and taking things as they come and responding to the moment, I have to admit that I didn’t plan to be using a wheelchair on the Watson. To be honest, until this year I don’t know if I had ever really considered the reality that fractures will continue to be a part of my life and that I’ll have to grow up about take care of them and use a chair when I need one – that was mysteriously omitted from my life plan. It seems that the improv gods are finding a comedic moment in shoving the number one improv lesson in my face: you have to let go of your plans.
And oh hey what do you know, it’s hard! Herein lies the unexpected overlap in improv and disability, both of which require an uncomfortable amount of flexibility. Without even noticing, I’ve been subconsciously collecting images in my mind about what a Watson could be like for years, plans that I barely even noticed as plans because they seemed so whimsical and unspecific until something big challenged them. Rewiring my brain to alter all of those images in my mind is difficult, especially because there’s so much inevitable uncertainty in the picture. One of the thrills and also challenges of my experience with OI is that it’s been unpredictable – in early years I couldn’t catch a break from fracturing (pun intended) and I’ve also had years at a time that are relatively fracture-free, where I’ve worked on farms , hiked around and felt (in a hilariously small way) athletic. I suppose that there’s some chance that part of my time on the Watson could include that again, but as this year hurdles toward becoming REAL LIFE, I’m realizing that I can’t go forward on the assumption that that will be the case. Letting go of that assumption is admittedly frustrating and bewildering; there’s a lot of research I have to do and back-up plans for back-up plans for back-up plans I have to make and then let go of depending on how my body decides to respond to things in the moment. But it’s also no tragedy: this year is an enormous privilege, and I’m not going to lose track of that fact. Additionally, after a long process of fittings and waitings, I have just been united with my very own wheelchair that is lovely and lightweight and perfectly fitted to me – a resource that’s unfortunately not accessible to everyone and another privilege that I am tremendously grateful for. Keeping it in perspective – things are ambiguous, overwhelming, and uncomfortable, but also good.
Karen has gotten me on a naming-significant-inanimate-objects kick (she encouraged me to name Kenneth and is responsible for bringing the usage of his name to popularity last semester), so I will be naming her (the chair, not Karen, who is clearly not an object and who clearly already has a good name). Lilly abruptly named her “Longfellow” and I found that hilarious because I think she meant “Longbottom,” in homage to the trusty Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter and also as a nod to the comedically long and narrow seat. Longfellow is sure nice, but I think it’s more of a last name. Currently the top first-name contender is Stella, but suggestions are welcome.
I do have some anxiety about how the chair will impact my project. Wheelchair-users are heavily stereotyped, the improv scene can at times be a cruel place for stereotypes, and my internet searches for other wheelchair-using improvisers to be reassured by hasn’t been fruitful thus far. I’d be lying if I tried to say I was fearless about all of this. This brings me to another tenet of improv, one that I remember hearing a lot at the PIT in New York: follow the fear.
There is a saying in improvisation, attributed to the legendary improv teacher Del Close: Follow the fear. He didn’t just say this to neophyte improvisers afraid of performing without a script. Del taught the best there was. Bill Murray, John Belushi, Tina Fey, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers – his former students are the improv hall of fame. What he said is that you can use your fear as a kind of divining rod. Do what makes you uneasy, he taught. Do the thing that scares you most. There, Close told his students, you will discover new worlds. It is a reminder we all can use these days. Follow the fear. Out of it, we will grow.
Mike Bonifer
So, here’s to trying to respond to the moment as honestly and creatively as we can; here’s to following the fear. Obviously, I have no idea how any of this will work out, but I have to trust that it will be okay. I’ll have to improvise.
