IN SEARCH OF FLOW

Twenty-five years ago, on a hot summer August Saturday, six running friends and I ran 72 miles from one end of New Jersey to the other in the River to the Sea relay. None of my non running friends thought it sounded fun, the opposite in fact, but for me, running a leg of six miles and another of seven and then being in a van with my running friends while the others ran their legs was bliss.

That year I ran three marathons. Not intentionally! Before the first, the Mardi Gras Marathon, the most I’d run was three miles, but my kids were in half day school and it seemed like a productive thing to do with my limited free time while they were there.

It was a Team in Training race to support childhood leukemia.

It was unseasonably warm that day. I ran at a good pace until mile 22 when I hit the proverbial wall. My left hamstring cramped badly. I was depleted.

“ I have to finish this!” I said to myself.

Like a wounded soldier fleeing the battleground, at a fast-pace, I hobble skipped with my right leg and groaned as I dragged my cramping left leg the last few miles until I saw the pearly gate finish line. The angels sang.

As if carried by Hermes, I got a burst of adrenaline-fueled energy. I sprinted as fast as I could across the finish line and then crumpled into the arms of a volunteer. I would learn my time qualified me to run the Boston Marathon less than three months later.

“How could I not run Boston?”

And then I got a lottery spot in the New York Marathon. “How could I not run New York?” After a little break, I ran one more marathon and had my fastest race time at 3:39:40. That felt amazing.

As my children grew older, I started working and making movies; Since I’m more of a short than long distance runner, I stopped marathons but continued to do an occasional 5K race to get the thrill of running fast and crossing the finish line.

***

My first athletic obsession was tennis. I played incessantly in high school – every day after school and weekends. My racquet was an appendage. Under the sweltering summer sun while swatting away gnats, I played and taught tennis from sun up to sundown at tennis camps. I would take salt pills to avoid blacking out.

My drive, determination and dedication a/k/a obsessiveness earned me a division one athletic scholarship after walking on the Syracuse University tennis team.

I’ve retired my racquet. Adult tennis doesn’t give me the thrill that I got back as a young player. I play occasionally and mostly hit from the baseline for exercise.

I know I'm not an extraordinary athlete; I'm a good one who thrives on the endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin released during competitive sports.

I also am in search of flow.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a pioneering psychologist who coined the term, described the state of flow as referring to a state of being in which a person becomes so immersed in the joy of their work or activity that nothing else seems to matter. There is nothing better than being in the state of flow.

I also find flow creatively through writing but it’s less reliable since it must be a fiction or memoir story that takes hold and possesses me. I love to practice my sport du jour, but I am not someone with a dedicated writing practice.

My professional life has been sales. Closing deals delivers the same hormonal surge that sports does and why many athletes work in sales. For several years I sold greeting cards and became one of the company’s top performers. I would get super charged by a sales incentive. The prize of one incentive was a trip to Club Med in the Bahamas. That’s where I first tried the flying trapeze. I loved and excelled at it over the long weekend.

After the trip, I searched for trapeze schools near me but at the time, there was only one indoor studio in Brooklyn which was impractically far from our home in New Jersey. While driving my kid’s carpools, I dreamed of running away to join the circus.

***

I started aerial dance a year and half ago and unexpectedly found flow during the classes. It takes intense concentration to safely master the shapes and sequences taught in class.

Aerial also triggers my pleasure hormones. When I started, my tank was near empty after an extended period of prolific screenwriting. I did not have a new story to tell. Additionally I was discouraged by the entertainment business and wasn’t motivated to find one. I was in search of something new to really sink my teeth into. I found it.

The aerial hoop hasn’t come easily and challenges lifelong vulnerabilities. Working to transform myself from a sports athlete to a dance athlete has been hard but is its own thrill since dance is a creative art and athletic discipline. It’s a new way to use and over train my body. I joke that my body says to me. “What are you doing to me now, you crazy ole bitch?”

When a student showcase was announced, even though I had mastered only the basic of skills, I was compelled to sign up. I’ve never been a live performer, but performing an aerial hoop routine for an audience elicited familiar anxiety endorphins that I knew from sports competing.

To date, I’ve performed in four shows – including Bushwick’s Got Talent. I’m far from a good aerialist but I lean in on the storytelling that makes a good act. Like crossing the finish line or winning an important tennis game, I get a similar thrill when I complete an act.

***

I’m leaving today for three and half days of physically challenging aerial training at a circus act creation camp in Vermont run by Serenity Smith Forchion and Elsie Smith who are the best in the business.

I’m particularly excited by the act I’m creating since it blends my two passions – the written word and athletics. I’ve taken a vulnerable memoir essay I shared at a storytelling show, tailored it to work in my routine and then sound designed it with a thematic song to be part of a spoken word aerial dance act using skills I’ve mastered in filmmaking. This act is particularly ambitious since I have a minute or so of floor work which is not intuitive for me.

After workshopping the piece over the weekend, my goal is to perform it this Fall.

Now that my kids are grown, I’ve found a way to finally join the circus!