Spiraling Back to Me: Rediscovering Improv and the Lost Pieces of Myself
It surprises people. The ones who have known me for years, the ones who think they know who I am, what I do. “Improv?” they say, their heads tilting slightly, as if I’ve just announced I’ve taken up fire-eating or professional yodeling. “But… that’s so different from what you normally do.”
And I suppose, from the outside, it does look like a departure. I am the artist who stitches together dark fairy tales, who crafts strange and beautiful creatures from antique photographs. I am the storyteller, but the kind who works in still images and whispered myths. Performance, to them, seems like another world entirely.
But here’s the thing—they don’t know everything.
In high school, I loved theater. The stage was a kind of magic, a space where anything could happen. I spent hours in rehearsals, learning to move and speak in a way that made the imaginary real. But then college came, and the theater courses were full, and my name was lost on the long waiting lists. Life took me down other paths, and somehow, without meaning to, I let that love slip through my fingers.
And now, decades later, here I am, standing on a small stage in a dimly lit room, waiting for the next cue. There is no script, no set design, no carefully plotted arc. Just presence. Just the moment. Just me, and the others, and whatever strange magic we summon together.
Improv is not about control. That is the terrifying part, and the beautiful part. You don’t know what’s coming next. You listen, you react, you trust. The rules are simple: Say yes. Build on what is given. Be present. It is exhilarating. It is terrifying. It is a lesson in letting go.
And as I find myself here, laughing in a room full of strangers, playing a role I did not expect but have somehow always known, I realize that this isn’t a detour. This isn’t a reinvention.
This is a return.
I am not becoming someone new. I am rediscovering who I have always been.
We do that, sometimes. Lose pieces of ourselves along the way, tuck them into the quiet corners of our lives because we think we don’t have time, or space, or permission. But they wait. They wait for us to circle back, to remember.
So here I am, spiraling back to myself, with open hands and an open heart, stepping into the unknown, and saying yes.
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