Recent writing

After is always easier. The adrenaline flows, arrowing down your arms toward your wrists and then back up through the shoulders, into the chest, joining with your heartbeat. You sweat through your shirt. You always sweat through your shirt.

They’re down there while you read, watching you. The first thing you always do is adjust the microphone to accommodate your – let’s face it – short stature. Down there, watching you. You place your multiple-times-folded printout on the podium, run your hands down your hips for no reason other than assuring yourself of your own existence. Eyes upturned, waiting.

Taking the temperature of an audience is akin to watching the weather. Walk out and you’ll immediately know rain is on its way. Same principle with figuring out if an audience is friendly, hostile, or in that swampy ground between. Less logic, more sense. You see it in the shifting of bodies, crossing of legs, surreptitious check of cell phones. You can tell when the room heats up just that little bit, the straight backs, the forgotten purses, and you know you’ve hit a nerve.

You know from the start that the audience is receptive. They’re hushed, not quiet – those are two different things. You want them to make noise. You want them to sigh, to suck back their breath in surprise. You want them to laugh, to make that hmm noise that means you’ve struck a chord. More than anything you want them to feel, to touch them at a level they may not even realize exists within them.

Up there you can be anything, but can you really? The elements that make you malleable tend to shiver when you’re on stage. You can be anything, but you must be yourself. Whatever pieces button together to allow that, however their jagged parts come together, it is incumbent upon you to let them do just that. Neglect the need to be oneself and no one is going to listen to you for shit.

You hear yourself take one breath, then another, then start speaking.