It was one thing to sit with my friend Kathy and fill out our Second City Improv Training Center applications and mail them in, but it was another thing entirely to be sitting in the lobby of the iconic Second City at 1616 N. Wells in Old Town, Chicago, waiting for our names to be called. The former was energizing; the latter was terrifying.
But I did it. Well, we did it because, as I’ve told her in the intervening years, I wouldn’t have done it without her. And I left that two-year program with life experience and the ability to get on stage with no idea what I would do or say (for better or, more likely, for worse). It wasn’t that I was good, or even that I needed to be. It was that I was doing it. I did it. I did something people talk about but actually do.
And, most powerfully, I left with deep-rooted, robust friendships that have endured for decades. And, inevitably, when we get together, we talk about those days, the scenes we created, the agony of not quite getting it, and the ecstasy of that feeling when you “nailed it,” if even for only a few seconds. I remember that feeling. And I hold it close. Because it’s another lesson. I didn’t need to have huge wins. Tiny wins count just as much.
So, when we found out that one of our group would be visiting from Los Angeles in October, we set out to gather old friends together. And, it didn’t disappoint! Everyone gathered at my house on Sunday evening to hang out on the patio, talk, catch up, and laugh.
We recounted the same stories we always recount when any combination of us are together. Experiencing something so unique really bonds you together. I don’t like war analogies, but when you’re on stage, it’s just you and your scene partner trying to survive! You are each other’s only hope of doing so. And that kind of rigor builds trust and friendship.
The evening’s weather was perfection until late evening when the fire table was turned on so light flickered across 9 laughing faces until each one of us peeled off to go home, leaving me with the two out-of-towners who were spending the night at my place.
Once I saw them both off on Monday morning, I’ve spent the rest of the week drifting back to moments from Sunday—and even further back. Connection is so important to me. I’ve never been someone with a lot of friends—mostly a small group of people who just “fit.”
On stage, the first rule is to make your partner look good. Say yes. Build on what they give you. Somewhere along the way, those rules stopped being about scenes and started being about us. Decades later, we’re still saying yes to each other: to a Sunday on the patio, to the same old stories, to showing up. I didn’t know that’s what I was signing up for when Kathy and I mailed those applications. I’m so glad we did.
Ron Stempkowski is the author of The Luck We Carry: Love, Loss, and the Stories That Shape Us, a memoir-in-essays about learning to move with grief instead of moving on. If this story resonated, you can grab a signed copy—complete with a handwritten note—at ronstempkowski.com, or get your copy wherever books are sold. And if you'd like more stories like this one, join the journey and get them straight in your inbox.