Second City-ing It

I have convinced myself I look good in baseball shirts. The three-quarter sleeved ones that are two-tone. In my head when I wear ’em, I look like a slender tomboy actress who is trying to not look like she is trying.

In reality, I do not look like this.

In 2012 I took a class at Second City in Chicago. The training center there sold one of these shirts. It was grey with black 3/4 sleeves. I loved it. They offered a choice of medium or extra extra large. I intuited the medium would be too small, so I told myself I could wear the Double-x. I bought it and wore it often when I got back to Cleveland. Sure, it fit me like an over-sized nightshirt. Thankfully I promptly and conveniently forgot this fact every time I walked away from a mirror. I loved this shirt -for its memories and over-sized soft fabric – both of which felt comforting to be enveloped within.

I was wearing this shirt one day and a woman said “Second City, huh?”

I smiled and told her, “Yes, I studied there.”

The fact that I have any relationship with Second City is something I am very proud of. Second City made me an improviser. And being an improviser changed me for the better. Many times over. I started at Second City Cleveland thirteen years ago. When I went to Chicago to take a longform intensive there, I felt like I had come full circle.

I was proud to tell this woman I’d studied there.

She looked at me, smiled and said: “Oh, how wonderful!” in a very happy, yet somewhat exaggerated tone.

I was crestfallen.

You see what I should probably tell you is this conversation took place between me and a nurse.

A nurse at a psychiatric hospital.

A psychiatric hospital where I was a patient.

When I told the nurse that I’d studied at Second City and she responded in this extra chipper voice, I felt like the very real fact that I am an improviser was somehow now being taken away from me. It occurred to me that this nurse might not even believe me. After all, I was a resident (albeit a temporary one) in a place that felt I couldn’t even be trusted with a regular toilet paper dispenser.

The thing is, it is hard to hold on to your identity when you feel like a prisoner – not only within the walls of this space – but of the chemical imbalances in your brain. Although I was voluntarily there, I also was aware of being “locked up” without the basic freedoms my friends and family have.

Since this stay at a psych hospital, I have been healthy and unhealthy many times over and though I am currently struggling I am lucky because I am surrounded by people who support me as I battle mental illness and so many of those people are my fellow improvisers .

I am also lucky because even though I felt at times like a prisoner, I recognized I had the freedom within me to always keep knowing who I am at my core.

It’s interesting. A lot of what improvising is about is learning to be comfortable with uncertainty. This is a huge obstacle for improvisers – to just let the scene happen – and to not rely on taking it to the easy, familiar place. In many ways my training with improv is helping me to improv my way through this uncertain time in my life.

So thank you Second City. I will continue to wear my shirt proudly.