A fidgeter. A dreamer.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
I’m these things. So, I relate to kids who can’t sit still in class. The ones on the soccer pitch that stoop to pick a daisy from the grass in the middle of a play. The child who doesn’t appear to be listening to your words and then responds talking a mile-a-minute. The kid who jumps up and down uncontrollably when excited. The one that brings up a non-sequitur topic in the middle of a conversation, because that’s where her mind had traveled to.
When you are a fidgeter and a dreamer, you learn ways to not look like one, because society in general, institutions aren’t very understanding of us. Depending on the context, it can be hard to mask.
Photo by rob walsh on Unsplash
Doodling was a survival tool for me in school, drawing mazes and animals and objects and random patterns on my notepaper during teacher lectures and never-ending spans in our plastic chairs. I’d sometimes fill a page, a paragraph of notes surrounded by a brain-like labyrinth or a zoo of drawings. I sketched multiple profiles of Pete Townsend in high school when I was obsessed with The Who. His nose was dominant in the design I copied from a magazine.
As an adult, masking my squirmy, distracted self is even harder. It takes different strategies: Deep breaths. Focusing on the person or speaker or maybe something about their clothes or face or some furniture or painting in the room. It’s always easier if I have some task to do, a job, something I’m DOING, a GOAL, whether it be taking notes or visualizing the speaker’s story on paper as they’re talking.
This idea, of having a goal to focus on, is something I use to survive social functions too. I’m almost always nervous arriving. It doesn’t matter if the event is with strangers or friends. But I relax way quicker into social events when I have a responsibility to focus on.
This actually reminds me of an exercise I used to do on day-one teaching high school Drama. I taught it for about eight years, grades 8-12. I’d have half the class line up on whatever stage I had available. The other class stayed seated. The audience. I asked audience members to watch carefully, be observant, to look at body language. I gave no instructions to the students on the stage, who stood fidgeting, smiling with embarrassment or frowning wondering why they took this, “supposedly” easy-A elective. I’d only leave them in this undefined state for about a minute. But it was a long minute.
Then, I gathered everyone on the stage and whispered to them that I wanted them to count the tiles on the ceiling while they stood there. If they finished that, to count the posters on the walls.
Shoulders relaxed on stage. embarrassment faded as they concentrated on the task at hand.
The students on the stage switched places with the audience so everyone could experience this. Then I asked them all, “What was the difference between your experience when you first got on stage and after I gave you an instruction?”
I asked them to describe the body language of their fellow classmates before and after as well. Through discovery, students concluded that they didn’t feel as nervous on stage when they had something to do.
“Right!” I told them. “And here’s the thing about acting, any kind of acting or performance. When you are on stage, you always have an objective, a focus. And you’re never alone. Even if you are performing solo, you have the script or a prop or the lighting and always an audience to respond to.”
Butterflies before performing are natural. I love to sing with bands. I enjoy public speaking. I really liked acting, did a lot of it before I became a teacher and look forward to doing it again—in “old lady” parts in the years to come. Even though I perform willingly, I always have butterflies in anticipation. But they flutter away as soon as I start doing my job. My fidgeting and daydreaming don’t even come to call when I’m employed in performance.
Although, I still get excited about things. Even bounce up and down. It doesn’t matter that I’m in my 50s. I’m still that fidgety person with a head full of dreams.
Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash