Creative writing assignment: Improvisation

[RadiationTherapy]

I have to write a "litany" of ten things about whatever (I chose improvisation). Here is what I have so far, but I would love to read others' ideas if they so wish to share. These are in no order, and so not "stitched" together yet.

Improvisation is not necessarily the absence of pattern; it is the absence of a notion of past or future. It is feathered, floating snowflake moments landing and melting on your tongue; melting on your eyes and pink, 6 year old, upturned face when you were safe, surrounded by soft and white, and making your mark - angelic in both form and function.


Improvisation is gliding along the crest of a wave, responding to each nuanced, improbable moment until all-things-possible collapse back into a single course of is-ness. It is the ancient relationship between surfing and quantum physics.



And, after weeks of looking at books and practicing carefully, alone - Those first, tentative notes on your penny whistle cutting crisp through the cold, mountain morning when everyone slowly drifted into music; and it was a new town and new people; and you were never going to fit in until a young woman in long, clinging blue/orange skirt leans in with bright, dirty dreadlocks and says, “I like it.”

[RadiationTherapy]

1. It’s more than just doing what you want. It’s your being you in the midst of their being them

and it all works so beautifully together that you stay friends forever.

[RadiationTherapy]

2. Improvisation is the product of your creativity and your surroundings.

It is finding and filling the space and time you found between gray, introverted paper shufflers and professional asthmatics; to write haiku on pale yellow post-it notes and stick one on to each fresh pot of coffee, while nobody ever notices or smiles and then you stop because you’re gone and the temp agency sent you to a new pen of faces.

[RadiationTherapy]

3. When a child asks “can we go for a walk?” and you know not a goddamned thing has changed

in this beige and predictable television suburb in 11 years, so you grab the jump-rope and shape-shift. Now you’re a silver unicorn with a bright blue mane and who can breathe fire – an appropriate steed for a jungle warrior who is an orphan-raised-by-wolves that protects all of the animals. And the forest is laid low under asphalt and concrete.