I like the shower. I often have good ideas in there. I'm not sure why the shower is so conducive to the creative process. But I think it has something to do with being naked and alone with hot water.
To do my thing, I need to be in a certain frame of mind. Performers call this mind set "being on". I sometimes think of this state of mind in a very literal way, as building a structure in my mind, a tower.
When I'm in a good mood, energized and looking forward to a show, the distance I need to go to achieve the right state of mind is short and the effort required to build my tower small.
When I'm a bad mood, the distance is light years and the effort gargantuan.
I've been in rather a sour mood lately. So when my show last week, the one with only three people, was almost canceled, I was almost relieved. Because still only 40 minutes before I went up, I hadn't finished building my tower. But once the show started, I finally pulled myself together, gave a good performance, enjoyed it and was glad to be there.
This weekend was to be a double-show weekend, a real treat. But I wasn't appreciating it.
It's been a frustrating week and I was pretty depressed last night. So the process of getting ready, mentally, felt like dragging a dead elephant through the streets while wrapped in chains.
But as I always do, I psyched myself up to the task at hand and was quite chipper by the time I arrived at the club. So I was genuinely disappointed when no one came and the show was canned.
The process of getting ready left me in a good mood, even without the show. So instead I went out for a beer. And I'm pleasantly surprised to find my good mood has endured through to this morning. I sort of expected it to collapse when the show was cancelled.
What have I learned?
- Having a show taken away has made me realize how grateful I should be and am to have the opportunities to perform that I do.
- With the right incentive, I have it within me, through sheer force of will, to turn a bad mood into a good mood if I really want to.
1 comments:
I thought your best ideas came to you in my hottub. There's a theme emerging.
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