Something stunning happened today. It happened towards the end of the class but from the beginning I felt lighter. The insults were back to being funny and the failures weren’t so depressing. Tragic, yes. But there can be a kind of joy in tragedy, which really wasn’t there for me yesterday.
Today he told Christy she was awful: ‘that was ‘orrible what you did. Absolutely awful.’ And as soon as he spoke, she had an unstoppable smile and a bright flush on her face. I find her charming to watch when she is out there with her red nose in front of her wide eyes. But I didn’t laugh when I was watching her today until I saw that face as he insulted her. Then I couldnt help laughing, and it wasn’t just because of what he was saying. It was her absolute presence. It was something that we are trying to learn each day but I don’t know how to explain or do yet.
christy, the new zealand peasant clown
Yesterday he had told me not to smile. Which I didn’t write because I was so over it all last night. He said, ‘you smile like a nice girl and I think it is not good for you’ which I acknowledge utterly. There is something precious about being recognised.
So today I tried not smiling. But, still confused between ‘you have to be ridiculous’ and ‘don’t push too much,’ I pushed too much. As soon as I went out there with my lion roar (the exercise today) he said, ‘so subtle’ in his special, sarcastically approving voice. Which I didn’t actually acknowledge by stopping and looking at him and saying ‘oops’ but tried other, smaller things which still got nothing. Until he stopped me. And did that thing about gorillas being protected ‘but I would kill this one anyway.’
But it wasn't bad. It gave me some clarity. I feel like I have two things to hold onto. Don’t smile and don’t push too much. I am ready to be boring for a while to see what happens next. 
me: ready to be boring
The really stunning thing today was one of the other students. She has trotted around the stage on her silly heels and been occasionally funny but often just nothing (which it feels like most of us are most of the time) until today. Today he changed her costume (from something revealing and a bit sexy to a big wedding dress) and sat her in a chair and asked her to sing us a lullaby.
‘It is not funny, but it is friendly. A way to show us how you sing a lullaby in your country.’
So she sat and sang. He even took off her nose. And she sang. Quietly. I felt so still as I listened to the two verses and she looked out at us.
She paused and after a moment I realised that her eyes had tears. She sang another line and then stopped and the tears rolled down and hung for a second under her chin. Then she sang again.
She kept singing and crying and looking out at us in her wedding dress with a false eyelash falling from one lid and I was crying on the floor watching her.
Afterwards he spoke.
He said, “We have a mask on the street when we fight because there are so many idiot. So we build a grimace on our face. You built a grimace on your face. It’s not bad or good but it doesn’t help you to show something fantastic.
“Everybody is beautiful. Everybody is beautiful when he show his soul. Everybody is ugly when he hide in conventional. To be clown, first you have to be beautiful – as everybody is. You have to start with something really delicate and fragile and you have to discover how you are funny by chance.
“With your grimace of everyday, you can’t be a clown.”
We had questions at the end and someone asked how we can find a way to take off our mask. He answered, in classic Gaulier style, “You have to go to a very good school.”
So Friday night in Paris. I left Luke and Christy in the apartment with DVD’s and braved the tangle of the metro to meet up with some of the others.
a slightly-scarey, alone-in-paris street-art moment
We met at a stand up comedy night – which was generally great for making us feel good about ourselves – in an attic bar with sloped, exposed beams, up flights and flights of wooden stairs. One of our people got up and we all thought she was by far the best, all of us cute and congratulatory.
We went out for Indian at midnight and I was by turns awkward, intimate and laughing relaxed, making friends over korma and naan.
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