Clowns

By the end of the first class, the Master from Paris has decided that because I look Asian (my mother is Japanese), my clown needs to wear a schoolgirl outfit. I nod, defeated. I find a size twelve school jumper in the Salvation army store nearby. I search, unsuccessfully, for some funny bloomers.

I return to the workshop the next day and I put on my schoolgirl outfit, adding my red clown nose. I am despondent. I can’t believe my life has somehow come to this. We do the warmup exercises, and then put on a fake fashion show. Most of the clowns are shouted off the stage—for being neither funny nor sexy enough—myself included. I retreat to the bathroom where I put my head in my hands and weep. I give in to the feeling that my life is a complete tragedy. 

And then, something happens. Somewhere in the complete pits, I discover my clown. I decide that I have to go back to the workshop, come hell or high water. I will leave the bathroom and return to the stage. I will be a clown—no matter how sorry I feel for myself. I will rise to the occasion.

This desperate act of trying, of wanting so much to find joy, to insist on the ridiculous in the midst of anxiety and hopelessness and despair somehow unlocks the essence of clowning for me. A clown hopes against all hope. A clown pulls out just one more trick, one more stupid gag, in the hope that this time the audience will laugh. A clown lives in the present—undeterred by past failures.

I get up, I fail, and I fail again. I cry and then I laugh and then I cry some more. Being a clown somehow makes this all OK. And, of course, the more I cry, the more the audience laughs. I forget that I don’t like being yelled at, that I have paid good money to make a fool of myself, and that this is an insane way to behave at my age.