An-swer-ing Sys-tem has 2 New Mes-sa-ges:  Mes-sage One, 8:27 P-M, Sep-tem-ber Twen-ty Six:

[beep] Oh, hi Claudine! As you probably can…well of course you already know who this is…well, in any case… What time is it? I know you're not in bed…maybe you're out somewhere…having a good time, which I hope…

I had to go downtown and bring back all my checks… my new system or whatever, requires that in my case all of you children's names be on the check.  Which I took…heh heh heh…very badly!  I'm not against things that are practical, but I don't think I want to walk around in all directions writing checks that say in case of the above being dead, these have the authority, and so forth and so on.  It was just bad form. So I lambasted them for not telling me…

Mes-age Two, 8:30, P-M: [beep] Well this is…I'm just finishing my message to you which just preceded this…I don't think there's any point in calling you on your cell phone, I just needed to let you know that I cancelled all my checks…

 I think they were a little cool with me, you know, when I explained that people of certain age are sensitive when there is an expectation of their death to be seen by all the merchants they fool with.  Anyway, on and on I could go…I needed to let you know about that…Okay…so aside from that, this is my first day going back to rehab…I think you would be happy to know that…call me when you have a moment…Bye-bye!

The group was silent.

"Alright. Okay." Said our improve coach. "You definitely can do grief. You fill the room quite powerfully. I think you've got more.  I'd like to see something light…I think you've got that, too."

It's probably a good thing to explore your boundaries, see for yourself that, if you go & go & keep going out past the familiar, you won't snap like an atrophied rubber band. Your feet will touch bottom. You will survive. I had that express intent when I put myself into stretch improv with a group of strangers, giving the coach permission to send me on a voyage into the unknown zone, for as long as it took. As an actor it just took me longer to ratchet up to this commitment level.

I expect this coach has attuned himself to actors' wavelengths to the extent that casting for him is as easy as handing the chef keys to the kitchen. I thought I had a considerable bank of experience to draw upon, which might make me an interesting ingredient in the stew.  So he cooked up a darker dish when he saw me. Do seniors get priority? Instead here I am, a minute or two on the grill and then trotted out to the waiting guests. In other terms, had he been blind and set in an enclosed space full of specific ingredients, somehow he reached out unerringly for me.

Enough with the metaphors: what I'm trying to convey is rather painful, so it summons images as avoidance. Said straight out, I am an older woman, widowed at thirty, with three grown sons.  Coach didn't know me from Adam, but the first improv he set for me was…BANG: an older woman who is a widow with three sons.  The intention in this scene: to reconnect with the two older sons, now men, who have become estranged over the years, primarily over my drug & alcohol use.  Mentally, the youngest son has the age of a five year old, with no memory of his father or of the accident I caused that left him permanently disabled

What they don't know is that I'm leaving and can't take the youngest with me. Half-way through the improv, it is revealed that I have decided to commit suicide—that's the 'job in Texas'—massive guilt has made it impossible for me to continue. 

What the coach doesn't know: massive guilt over being the surviving parent, with no right to a happy life and a new relationship, has threatened to send me over the edge on numerous occasions.

It's been a while since I took this class, so the next twenty-five minutes or so are now almost a blank for me.  I  remember hurling words at the oldest "that's none of your GODDAMN business!" (and thinking shit…my mother's voice…) I found myself pressed against this big solid, bald young man, rocking him and weeping "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" 'til I was hiccupping. Opening myself to the battering voices of the two older sons, over my head, I couldn't remain upright—the floor was so welcoming…

However it ended, we remained there for notes, took some breaths, checked in.  My poor voice was shot to hell.  Coach said "how you feel?" I think I rasped back "felt good, it felt well rounded, everyone got a chance to contribute, moving things along" but inside I can't do this to my voice! What happened? I was in control the whole time, but it went so deep, I was in a fucking vortex…

There wasn't any chance to find out if the voice would hold out. Six weeks later, I was out.  Rain, freezing weather, dragging my ass to the City after work. Got sick and lost my spot.

The link with that class and the first improv, and my mom's Transfer On Death checks  didn't occur to me right away.  I have continual disputes with her, but I rarely just come right out and say "I don't give a rat's ass"—tried being that crudely honest once and it blew up in my face—and this time I actually thought she had a point, sort of, but it made me feel sick. That's the problem: thinking not feeling. The scene was set, I needed to go as far as I could, but it was not a scene—it was quite real to her. And I am summoning it to use for open analysis, like prep for improv.

Since it is my habit mentally to walk around the block after even seeing my mother's caller ID on my voicemail, when I finally called her back, I was completely cooled off.  We chatted about the baby and how were things with his Daddy, my youngest son, and then she asked my opinion of the checks.

"Oh…uh…"

"I mean, don't you see what I'm getting at?"

"Yeah, I see, but, uh…"

"I was so ANGRY!  I mean my plate is very full, there are so many details to take care of…"

"I can see that."

Long silence.

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here…[uncomfortable pause] "Well, you know I am always up for differing views on things, everybody gets to have his or her own feelings, but I have to say that for you, I see that you have a very strong opinion and that's great, but for me…I would have to say, strictly speaking, if it were me, you know, entirely up to me…as a priority, I really wouldn't give a fuck."

Long silence.

"Oh." [uncomfortable pause] "Well, you're not in a position to understand these things."

No way was I going to point out that today, September 26th, 29 years ago, I became a widow.

"It makes me so ANGRY!" she spits out the words. She's flat on her back on a gurney, monitors beeping and hospital personnel behind me whooshing past on their mysterious duties. She's a few feet  away from the Cath Lab.  In the next half hour she will code twice while they're working on her, but for the moment, what really pisses her off is that she finally found the exact color for the gimp on her couch re-upholstery project at home and her stupid body has betrayed her.