In which Our Hero melts.
Today I finally heard it:
“You were sensitive.”
Not “You’re being a fascist.”
Not “You’re pushing again.”
But:
You were sensitive. You were open. You were beautiful.
This has been my quest for the last four or five days: trying to soften without collapsing, open without weighing down, give without pushing. So when the assistant teacher said she could tell I’d been trying to be sensitive, something in me loosened. Like the wall I’ve been kicking finally cracked.
They then called “Julian and four others” onto the stage. And somewhere in that transition, I started crying. I don’t remember the moment. The whole experience became one.
The exercise was “snow.”
The teacher gave a confusing description of snow. Something like: “It’s the kind of snow that shuts down a city.”
Which… is just a quantity of snow. That’s not an image; that’s an amount.
So I asked a question that she didn’t answer. And then I started being snow. I grabbed an image that moves me: Lorelai in the first season of Gilmore Girls, stepping outside as the first snow falls. That little gasp, the cup of coffee, the anticipatory thrill, the “I smell snow.”
That image speaks to me. So I used it.
They asked for lighter. I moved lighter.
They asked for less movement. I slowed down.
And then the crying came—like a release of walls I didn’t even know I was holding.
I felt open. Present. Immersed. And I tried to stay there as long as I could. Even after class, I tried to keep it alive. I wandered to a café because it felt like “the present thing to do.” Then I left, because that also felt present. Then I ran into classmates outside the café, so I went back in. Presence, it turns out, has a sense of humor.
Then, I called a friend.
That was hard.
It felt like I came home excited that I’d thrown a baseball for the first time—look, look, I did the thing!—and they said, “Careful not to break a window.”
Not malicious. Just… a mismatch. And when you’ve just cracked open a new emotional door, mismatches hurt more.
After class, one of the teachers said: “You were very sensitive, and very beautiful. You had an intensity—but it wasn’t bad.”
I laughed at that. I’m glad it isn’t bad, because my intensity ain’t going away.
Later, I asked the teacher, “Did I do it? Did I actually finally successfully give?”
She didn’t answer directly. She asked, “Were you sensitive? What did you feel?”
Here’s my experience:
On stage without my glasses, I am legally blind. I couldn’t see anyone.
I didn’t listen to them either. The audience was mere shapes. Just the snow and me. And once in a while, a teacher’s comment.
So if the question is “were you sensitive to the audience?”, the answer is no. I was literally senseless. Ah clown school: you ironic farce.
They don’t mean sensitive. They might mean gentle. One way to arrive at sensitive is to notice that you’re too much for the audience. Another, apparently, is to channel the perfect childhood you never had in idyllic smalltown America.
Sometimes total silence is a good sign, the teacher said. It means the audience is engaged. “A quiet room can be as good as a laughing one. No one doing this [shuffling around, moving in their seat]”.
Yaya, today, I was sensitive. I did it right, entirely without sight. Senseless, yet somehow more sensitive.
Clown school, you rascal.
Earlier in the day, I channeled a storm. They told me I looked “obsessed with the game.”
I laughed. “This was the least obsessed I’ve been in days. I literally set myself the gentle mantra, ‘This is for you[, audience]‘”. Light. Open. Giving.
The feedback wasn’t about my intention; it was about my appearance.
They saw obsessed. I must change that appearance.
Perhaps I need extra lightness to counterbalance my baseline intensity.
Some people need more power or voice. I might need 10x the gentleness.
After class, a fellow student said to me:
“Good on you for staying up there. You could have sat down.”
My brow furrowed.
Sat down?
Why would I sit down? That made zero sense.
This is bottom of the ninth and I’m pitching a no hitter.
I will remain here until you drag me off this mound.
It’s funny what other people reveal about themselves when they comment on you.
Somehow, after I left the stage, the right person knew I needed a hug. He gave me one. And, lo and behold, it was good.
All afternoon I kept trying to hold the feeling: café, walk home, phone calls. I wanted to stay cracked open. Even though it’s uncomfortable? Especially because it’s uncomfortable.
I did my first cartwheel today. I went up as the guinea pig because I wanted more than anything not to.
Somewhere in all of this, I realized:
This experience with snow is a metaphor of the friction I’ve been having with the social life of clown school.
Pushing instead of being sensitive.
Wanting to give but not meeting others where they are.
The effort to be open met with a congratulations about remaining on stage or a warning about windows.
What next?
Maybe the answer is simply: more on-stage openness.
Maybe I’ll find some new challenge.
But today, for a moment, I did it. I gave what they’ve been telling me to give.
I didn’t perform emotion.
Nor pretend.
Nor simulate.
Nor mimic.
I was open.
Light.
Warm.
Gentle.
Like the first snow
And it’s You.
Because this snow.
This tiny, infinitesimal flake of snow.
If you do it enough.
Could cover the world.
Julian Wise 