entanglements

[ A photo I took while lying on my back at the park. The sun is bursting through the spindley silhouette of two entangled trees against a grey-blue sky].

Ohhh man. My heart feels so so so stretched. I often get these huge waves of feeling, longing, gratitude, guilt... so much emotion toward the many humans I've become entangled with this year.* I can't believe how many people – some of whom I've never even met in person yet – have reached out to me with kindness and generosity. So many people who are so willing to help and share and be; I had no idea this was even possible to this extent, no idea that the world could be like this. And honestly I don't even know how to process it a lot of the time. I am totally overwhelmed.

For so many reasons, my project has thrust me into immediate and intense intimacy with would-be strangers. Living with people in their homes – joining in on their daily schedule, often on family gatherings, work meetings, rehearsals and what-have-you – has put us instantly into a very specific and unusual relationship to each other. Which has been amazing. I have a strong streak of introversion and anxiety, and I think one reason I've been able to develop so many wonderful friendships in such a short timespan has been the unique honor of getting to connect with people in their own home-spaces (often literally, sometimes figuratively). Somehow people's home-selves are softer, more honest, more intense, more complicated, and more open than their public-selves. It is so rare and lucky and special to get to connect to that side of a person. I guess also, since I don't have a 'home' in the traditional sense this year, my home-self has had to learn to find comfort and belonging in the home of everywhere, anyplace. Which means that my home-self comes out more often.... scary and vulnerable (I've cried, swore, victory-danced, laughed, and napped in public on so many occasions), but also sometimes a very fulfilling way of engaging with the world.

Relatedly, an unexpected side-effect of being a new wheeler and just barely getting to understand myself / my body / the world with wheels when I started this project is that it has also pushed me into a very vulnerable place from which to encounter new people and places. So so so vulnerable! But what it's meant is that the conversations that took me almost a decade to negotiate with my home friends are at the forefront of my interactions with new friends, and furthermore, that we begin our friendship in the somewhat uncomfortable but also exhilarating open space of uncertainty. Because I am in a constant state of not-knowing (not knowing the environment for one, but also not totally knowing how to even wheel effectively or how my body responds to things or what will happen next or where I will even go in the next two weeks), and because that degree of not-knowing brings with it a lot of complexity, new friends have become anchors and support-systems right away. I never wanted to be so fiercely acquainted with my dependence on others – like most of us, I wanted to maintain the illusion of independence for as long as possible – and I often fear that I have inadvertently asked far too much from the people around me. It is terrifying. But it is real.

And then there's the obvious intimacy that comes from sharing a passion with people. Improv communities almost always have a wonderful surface-level camraderie that arises naturally from even the most basic 'rules' of mainstream improv: 'yes and,' 'support your partner,' 'anything goes,' etc. That often gets the good vibes going. And that's good. But more interestingly in my opinion is the entanglements that arise from people who are intensely passionate about improvised theatre trying to negotiate across wildly different visions for this art. People who love this art are often, deep down, constantly untangling a complicated and uncertain relationship to it, and cracking that open together with authenticity and compassion has been critical in so many connections I've enjoyed this year.

All of these connections have been extraordinary. I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. They constantly remind me how much humans need each other and also, how much humans are capable of. And yet, they also come with their own aching. There are so many people I adore who have opened their homes and hearts to me and shown me such incredible kindness, who I am ashamed to have fallen out of touch with (and it was totally my turn to write back!). I feel constant pullings and tuggings of guilt and sadness about failing to maintain meaningful contact with people I love. Everything I see reminds me of someone, everything I do is influenced by someone. My relationship with social media is not healthy right now because I get so overwhelmed by the amount of things I want to say and people I want to write to that I often do neither and instead get distracted by reading articles (which okay, sometimes I learn from) or random scrolling (which I hate). This has to change.

But how to hold all this love responsibly? How can I ensure that people know how much they meant and still mean to me? How to keep in touch??? How how how????

*I guess we are all always already entangled, but this year has exposed those entanglements to me in very visible ways.