Miming: laughing, crying, and bonding.

As one of the ladies in the gallery where I work applied my makeup I began to slowly let go of my sense of who I should be. By the time I entered the gallery I had begun to play as I can't remember having done in ages. If there is anything to it, it is taking what people bring and reacting. In the office a few people said they didn't like clowns or mimes. This made me sad and of course my response was exaggerated. I cried and flopped to the floor, shaking. When people laughed at me, I laughed back silently,  making them laugh harder. I played a spontaneous game of tic-tac-toe with a customer on the glass surface of a display cabinet. A friend's infant daughter was frightened by my face and cried. When I covered my mouth she stopped. And  a young boy, about ten, watched me for quite a while before pairing up with me for most of the evening. The evening included a lantern festival out on the street and  we had a table set up for mask and lantern making. Since the theme was Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights Billy's mask had a long pointy nose. But he proudly showed me he had painted the rest of the mask like my face. With his grandmother's permission we walked along the lantern parade route together, dancing a jig or two along the way as some scottish reels played. I will never forget that young boy and the magical time we spent together that evening.