A moment of appreciation

Cleon.

My Wife.

My Love.

The center of all that I have become.

What would my blog be without a vote of thanks to the one who never gives up on me.

Our story may not be a fairytale but each moment with you is a dream come true. I may not be the most religious person but I prayed for you and God delivered.
Your faith makes up for my lack thereof and it serves as a constant reminder that we never need to be lonely and in that regard I am abundantly blessed to have you as my life partner.You do more for me than is expected from any person and I have never felt a selfless love like you grant me. Your drive, your passion and your lust for life gives me a much needed wake up when all I want to do is creep in a cave and never see the sun again.
Our complementing personalities make for few dull moments. I see no flaws in you, even though you see many in yourself. What you see as flaws are just what makes you unique and enhance your identity, without them you would not be the identifiable personality that brings joy to so many.
I have to admit, I was late to fall in love with you. My broken trust in people made me blind to what you had to offer. I rejected you because I could not trust myself enough to let you in for fear of hurt and betrayal.
This was never fair on you and for that I am sorry.
I have begun to realise thou that as time went on my guards fell and I have gained a newfound freedom that can only be attributed to your selflessness and refusal to give up on me.
For that I am eternally grateful.
For the first time it feels like my life is finally coming together and a calming clarity has been found in your embrace.

I am jealous of our kids yes. They took a piece of you from me that I enjoyed and savoured while they were not around and how could I not be? You made me the center of your world and we adventured as an unstoppable force. I do feel like a rug has been swept out from under me.
Although I at times yearn for those days, I am filled with nothing but gratitude and awe at seeing you gift them with that same endearment that you once showered me with. That is when I realise it is their time now. We will have many more moments together in our lifetime, till death us do part but they need you most now. The love and attention you gift them is beyond a fail for a word, perfect.
I have always been a skeptic of love, seeing relationships as nothing more than a way to not feel lonely from time to time, shying away from the intricacies of commitment and fearing the monotony of monogamy.
You changed me, healed me and accepted me for who I am.
I owe you my life and would gladly trade my everything to see that beautiful smile of yours each day forever more.

I love you too much.

Part-time passions

As described in my previous post I have always been a fan of comedy. My family is huge and quite a few of my uncles and aunts are some of the funniest people I knew growing up. Laughing is the best way to spend life from one moment to the next and I grew up with a natural craving to make others laugh. I would not consider myself a naturally gifted comedian who can make others laugh with just a weird facial expression or gesture, for me it is a means of connecting with people. If you can find out what they find funny, you immediately connect with them on their level. It is a bond that profits everyone involved.

With that being said, about 8 weeks ago I saw an ad for a vacancy to join an improv team in my local city. I loooove Whose Line Is It Anyway? the tv show, and rewatch episodes regularly, always admiring the performers wit and imagining myself as a part of the crew or at the very least a guest artist. Improv as an art is intimidating to most, even veteran entertainers, who would rather hide behind the veil of a script than lay themselves bare to on the spot spontaneity. Within this lies the appeal for me; I am terrified of repetition, mundane continuity and would bore easily if something I find passionate becomes a redundant job. With improv one never knows what will happen and every performance is as different as the next. Takes me back to my days as a waiter where the appeal was meeting new people everyday. Unfortunately as a waiter you do kind of become biased and the longer you do it the more you are able to read people and place them into certain categories to make dealings with them more predictable and ultimately profitable.

I decided to take a chance on chance. Having performed in quite a few stage productions at school during my high school years, including an invitation to the Graaff Reinet Heritage festival in 1999 and the odd MC gig at family functions, I had the basics of stage performance grounded. I took to it like a fish in water (even if I do say so myself). Many commended me on my courage to do improv comedy but to me it felt like an itch I could finally scratch.

There is a certain high that comes with being an entertainer, a metaphorical drug, that once it hits is hard to let go off. Audience approval becomes a staple. Performing becomes a means of therapy and more so improvisation; as most of what you come up with is a true glimpse of who you are deep inside. A mutual understanding between you and the audience; that I desire to make you laugh for just this moment and you as an audience desire to be made to laugh.

The @WhoselinePE crew perform at a venue called The Bru Bar every Tuesday night and I have been fortunate enough to become a guest artist for this, the 6th week running. I have received mostly positive reviews but to me it is all about being in an environment of like-minded people who live for the art of comedy and learning as much as I can about the industry while I am there. The recognition of the audience is but the cherry on the cake. To me it is about doing something I respect, admire and enjoy. At this point I am uncertain what the future holds, I still have my full time job, family and education to complete but for now I take it one performance a at a time, as invited to and am just grateful for the opportunity to live out a lifelong dream of mine.

9 to 5 work sometimes kills the flame inside me but recently I can feel a new heat rising.
Watch this space as there have been talks of open mic nights coming up. Compared to improv, stand up is a whole different ball game. A challenge I would gladly embrace but for now, I play where everything is made up and the points don't matter.