F is for FINALLY!

I am a kinesthetic learner. Which means: I pick up on things easily, and really "get" ideas quickly, but before I own it I have to feel it, integrate it.  And I need that ownership to fully move forward.

It is a rather ungainly process. There are times when I am ready and even well functioning on the outside but the ions and electrons, the cells and the chemicals, have not fully reorganized so that I can fully (and FINALLY) claim ownership. Luckily for me, I love process.

But the beauty of it all is the "FINALLY".  When all begins to make sense, when the madness becomes marvelous, when the disorder is ordered. Oh, how gorgeous it is. I love the stage of FINALLY.  The knowledge of the FINALLY is what I aim for.

My dad, an engineer doing the work of physics, used to talk about the beauty of math. He loved the combinations, the quiet steady excitement, the design of numbers, the problems, the answers. That was his beauty, his  FINALLY.  Mine is more outward.

Last night I FINALLY went to the Moth and FINALLY told a story. Wow. 

So you say, "Big Deal! You are in New York City, and you are a storyteller. Why wouldn't you go to the Moth? "

 That's what the host, Ophira Eisenberg, with whom I have shared a program, asked me. Why wouldn't I have done it already? Because I had to check out the concept, the feelings it brought up for me. I had to play with story ideas in my head and on paper. Because I was not yet comfortable with the idea of judging and 5 minutes for a story and I was not sure I wanted to get up on a (beautiful) stage with an audience of young's and all sorts of unorganized ideas in my head that now of course make no sense but indeed were there as a block to the kinesthetic integration.  Because I had scheduling conflicts!

Well, last night was the night. At the last minute, I told my friend Mel I would meet her. I said, "Yes!"  

Quickly, I floated a story idea past my friend Megan Hicks, and then wrote a first line, a partial structure, and some interesting side thoughts.

And though  I had not gotten enough sleep (still picking up from the Passover megablat), and though I had just taught a rigorous couple of hours of Musical Theater strategies to YMCA summer camp staffers, I knew it was time. That my kinesthetic integration was complete. So, I went. And got a seat up front with Mel and her man. 

I was picked to go up 8th.  And oh....it was fun, and easy. I was fully ready. I did what kinesthetics do...I FELT the stage and the place and got it. Though my story did not hit all the right marks, I loved the audience and the story and the spotlight, and I found myself in the zone...that marvelous performance place where there is time enough to rearrange and think while you are connecting with the story and the audience. To my delight, I tied for third.

Mel and I are making plans for the next ones.

Maybe I was "ready" earlier.  Maybe I should have pushed myself. Often I do that, and  more often than not it turns out just fine.  But sometimes I know it is time to listen inside and act on what seems to be right.

FINALLY is worth it.  FINALLY is a platform to launch from. FINALLY is the end of one process and the beginning of another.

Finally.