The Postscript

The bad thing about living in a new place is that I don’t know anyone. The good thing about living in a new place is that I meet new people.

Jade is one of the new people I have met while spending time in Mexico. Jade used to be an eye doctor. But after retiring from medicine in her 60s, she decided to do something a little different. I’m pretty sure -- no matter how much time I gave you -- you would never guess how Jade now spends her time.

Stand-up comedy.

“But how? And why?” everyone wants to know.

To hear Jade tell it, it happened in a moment. Her grown son was watching a well-known comedian on TV. Jade knew almost nothing about comedy. She watched this comedy special and something clicked. A button Jade didn’t know she had was activated.

“I decided that was what I was going to do.”

Generally, when someone tells me they are going to try a new thing, I imagine it might be a hobby they would like to try once or twice. That would not be Jade. When she decided comedy was her next big thing, she dove in with both feet. She read books about comedy. She watched every working comedian, and some that were long dead. She read interviews and memoirs. She joined clubs and took classes.

But since it was hard to get a lot of time on stage, and getting it meant driving long distances, Jade took to heart the words of Shakespeare when he wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” Jade started doing her five-minute stand-up routine for total strangers in the park.

I have done some performing in my life, but I have never done anything as brave as that.

Jade calls it “stealth comedy,” and people are certainly surprised. No one expects an impromptu comedy set while strolling through the park. But Jade has now done well over 1,000 stealth comedy sets for unsuspecting visitors. I think that is astonishing.

For the last couple of days, I have been a little grumpy. I am living with some uncertainty about my book. Uncertainty comes with life -- and certainly with writing -- so it’s silly to get grumpy about the way things usually are. But I have been anyway.

Yesterday I went to meet with Jade because, in addition to doing stand-up in clubs and in the park, she is turning her material into a memoir, which is naturally very funny. I feel honored to work with her on it. I told my husband, Peter, it was good I was going to meet her. “It’s impossible to be grumpy around Jade.”

I told Jade I was grumpy because I didn’t know what was going to happen next with my book. “What’s the worst that can happen?” she asked, and I realized she was right. There was no real downside, just a lot of uncertainty.

Jade embraces uncertainty. She walks up to total strangers and says, “Would you like five minutes of comedy?”

I would be terrified that every one of them would say, “No!” And, the truth is, some of them do. But overwhelmingly, people say, “Sure, why not?” Jade proves, time after time, that the worst thing that can happen is really not that bad.

Jade and I spent almost two hours over a cup of coffee and ginger tea, laughing and talking. When I got home, I thought about how much I admire her humor and her audacious bravery and her solid advice.

Maybe a little uncertainty is exactly what I need.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

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After a while, no one wants to look like a tourist.

Experienced travelers will buy a hat in a local store, convinced that having the same head covering will somehow make them less conspicuous. They stray off the main streets and take their meals in the places locals frequent. They leave their fancy backpacks in the hotel and carry only what they need to explore the city. And, most importantly, they don’t take photos.

If the tourists who don’t want to appear to be tourists take photos, they only take a picture of themselves and their traveling partners. If there is something beautiful in sight, it serves as background. The goal is to appear to be anything but a tourist.

I was at a poetry reading the other day. I go to very few poetry readings. Because I write, I have writer friends, and some of them write poetry. So I occasionally go to a poetry reading to support my friends. But I never leave a poetry reading without feeling a little more stupid.

I sit among a group of people, listening to poetry, while consciously thinking to myself, “I have no idea what that means.”

As I puzzle over what it might mean, the poet keeps on reading. Then I realize I have missed the last line. Now I really don’t understand what is being talked about. So I sit back and listen to the words, and at the end, everyone applauds and, of course, I do, too. But all the while I am thinking that I am a much more stupid person than I give myself credit for being.

But at this poetry reading, I heard something that I understood -- although it was not from the poet who was reading, but from another poet. She said, “You know who I’m talking about -- the tourists. The people photographing bougainvillea!”

Everyone around the poet laughed, and I actually knew what she meant -- and I was kind of sorry that I did.

Much of Mexico is filled with bougainvillea, which bloom for most of the year, and San Miguel is no exception. It is stunning, especially blooming against a brightly painted wall. And it seemed to me that a poet -- a poet especially -- should realize this.

Everyone photographs the bougainvillea when they first arrive. Then they realize it is everywhere, and in time, they usually stop noticing it altogether. And this doesn’t seem especially funny to me, even if it’s true. It seems a little sad.

If having more refined tastes means I stop noticing bougainvillea, I’d be happy with the tastes I have, even if I never understand much poetry. Because it seems to me the ability to notice the beautiful in the ordinary is more important than recognizing the unusual.

My friend read her poetry, which I was delighted to discover I not only understood but found very funny. And I left, thinking about her poetry, and poetry in general, and bougainvillea in particular.

It is ordinary beauty that stuns me, time after time.

Seeing something that has no business being so beautiful -- in a setting where no one even notices -- seems like a miracle. Having the luxury to stop and enjoy it -- perhaps even take a picture -- feels to me like an act of worship.

It is not a bad thing to be a tourist. It is not terrible to stop in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking foot traffic, overwhelmed by the beauty of an ordinary thing. In fact, I think I will try to remain a tourist as long as I can.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

My friend Wally and I have a fractious relationship. This is no secret.

Wally has said he thinks optimistic people like me are self-deluded, always looking for reasons to be happy when there is a lot to worry about and not much to celebrate.

Wally used the metaphor of a tornado. He said that people like me would be down in the storm shelter -- right beside him -- but would ignore the destruction the tornado left behind.

“Do perpetually positive people even hear themselves?” he asked. “How nice that must be! To see the world in ways it might or should be while ignoring how it is. To look for the rainbow while ignoring the flood!”

Wally got me so irritated that I wrote a whole book about a character he inspired. Since I didn’t figure I could ever change Wally’s mind, I wanted to create someone, just like Wally, who believed he had the world’s worst luck and that looking for things to be grateful for was an act of willful ignorance.

I wrote the book, and I shared it with Wally, and -- to his credit and my astonishment -- he wasn’t angry with my depiction of him at all. He was tickled that something he’d said inspired me.

Wally keeps on inspiring me. He has some interesting observations about life and thoughts about how optimism might fall short. It’s taken me much longer than it should have to realize that Wally makes some very good points.

Optimism can be clumsy. It can be ham-fisted. Disappointment and grief and setbacks and bad news and failures are all very real things, and the optimist’s impulse is to sweep them under the rug in record time.

“Where is the upside? What is the lesson? How can I learn from all this?” the optimist asks, and Wally gets a little angry. And maybe he has a right to. Because somewhere, between the time when the tornado strikes and the optimist goes looking for the rainbow, maybe there is a moment that optimists, like me, tend to forget.

We forget to say we’re sorry.

Wally is worried about his future and the future of his children and grandchildren. When I tell him all this worrying isn’t getting much done, he gets angry and, really, I don’t blame him. Because I skipped a step. I skipped the step between the tornado and the rainbow.

Today, for a change, I remembered.

“Oh, Wally,” I said, “You always seem to think I’m scolding you when I try to cheer you and encourage you. I care about you. Do you not get that? I worry about you, and I want you to be happy.”

“Thank you,” Wally said. “Thank you so much.”

And I realized that he really didn’t know this.

I get impatient with Wally’s ruminating and doomsaying and daily dose of gloom. I want to remind him of all the things he has to be grateful for.

But I forget to tell him that I care. I forget to say I’m sorry he is troubled. I don’t acknowledge how he feels. I jump right from the tornado to the rainbow.

I’m pretty sure Wally will regularly irritate me, and I will do the same for him. And yet I don’t think he will ever be out of my life for good.

Because I will continue to remind him that things might not be as bad as he assumes. And Wally will remind me, in my endless quest for sunshine, it’s important to recognize the hurt and fear that come with the tornado.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION