Improvisation

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Despite my amazingly beautiful interlude to Lake Tahoe with aunt Eileen, uncle David and Samara, as well as Yael and her two girls Luli and Gaby, I am stretching out roots in the bay. Thursday night I attended a contact improv jam, where, apparently, my soul-siblings gather to connect with others and themselves. It was unlike any improv I’ve been to, probably because the ones I’ve attended to were mostly at Emory with student beginners. This was adults with a few mid-twenties mixed in, and exclusively characters. Upon entry, I stuck to my party rule – when I don’t know anyone, I just stand there and look around, giving off a friendly vibe. After 30 seconds a man came up and just started improv-ing – no introduction, no words at all – he just slid his hand down my arm and we started dancing.



It is amazing having your body manipulated, and moving another person, through improvisation. Although I do not hear this said, the closest thing to it is intercourse – a wordless dance, with little rules, trusting your body and your partner, feeling and focusing on what it means to be physically connected all while following your intuition. The rules of this improv, which happens every Thursday night at 7^th Heaven, are even more lax, or perhaps I should say, the expectations are lax. You can do tricks with your partner; you can ride him or her around; you can role on them, lay on them, move them around, massage them, groan on them, stretch on them. Through my 5 partners, I did it all, and only smacked my head against a wall once! It filled me up to be in sync with another, even a stranger.



At the end of the night, I had a long conversation with the DJ about weirdness, boundaries we create, and the Berkeley vibes. He told me a quote that fear is the membrane between the known and the unknown. I’ve often thought about how difficult it is for us to relinquish control over our interactions and lives - but unless we do, we cannot grow. And we miss opportunities. And we live limited days, that never change, that aren’t challenged, that bear the creative spirit to death. For me, it is relationships, especially with men, that challenge my comfort and my familiarity the most. Because each interaction produces great complication and subtleness, and to control that we must always know what we think, feel, and want, and what the other person wants, and that is impossible to be sure of.



On July 4^th a friend and I hiked to the top of one of the Berkeley hills and watched the fireworks over the bay. It was foggy (shocker) and freezing, but glimpsing the small, distant explosions of color through the passing clouds was magical and beautiful. I forget how special it is to be with trees and hills and dirt at night. The darkness turns nature into a different animal, a calm, quite one, but with a louder spirit voice, and a quicker rode to solace. And the thick clouds passing through reds and oranges at sunset are all the more spectacular when watching them from mountaintop. You join a sky-journey into the night.



It is hard for me to have late night ventures when I need to wake up early to help with the girls. Saturday morning, I was sitting in the kitchen at 7AM talking to Gabi while Luli played with her impressive amount of tiny toys. I forget what started the conversation, but I told her that I understood something because I am old and wise. Gabi replied, “but you’re not the wisest person in the house,” to which I said, “I know you’re right – your mom is.” I then asked Gabi who the wisest person she knows is, and she said that it is her 97-year-old great grandfather. I asked her what is it about him that makes him wise. Gabi told me, “whenever there is a fight, he knows how to fix it. He looks at all the experiences he has had and he sees the solution.”



I used to think that the wiser I got, the closer I would get to the solution. I would figure out how to solve the conflict in Israel; I would defeat world hunger; I would know how to create the perfect marriage, have the perfect children. Now I understand that finding the “right” solution is contextualized to each moment and world complication. Perhaps this 7 year old does not understand how difficult knowing the answer is.



Perhaps she sees something that I have lost.



-Ariel

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