Between client sessions yesterday afternoon, I found a bit of time to play with my newest puppet. This little one is a spirit baby who is very hesitant to incarnate but still likes to listen to audiobooks with me sometimes. Here we are listening to Andy Serkis’ narrating the chapter “Shelob’s Lair” from The Two Towers, both of us trying to get a little braver to be fully incarnated beings here and now…

A friend recently asked how I am doing right with everything that is awful and scary and infuriating in our country and I responded that I am at the point in my coping in which “puppets are real.” I was only half-joking as the truth is I am giving more of myself to this form of storytelling and committing to do whatever I can to let my joy for puppets guide my creative and expressive sensibilities in this bleak time. So yeah, puppets are very real to me. I feel how the joy they give me is making me braver to take risks, be a total beginner and trust how art and creative community and the deliberate cultivation of joy are all going to be necessary remedies to not only survive this era but to transform it.

But the thing I am learning about making puppets is that I don’t get a lot of say about who they become. And I also carry a lot of old beliefs that keep me from embodying the best of my hopes for living a creative life.

Two weeks ago, I made this sweet puppet at another awesome class at Puppetry Plus. But the first night after class ended, I was rear-ended by a sleeping driver on a busy freeway in LA and my car was wrecked. Luckily, both me and the other driver were able to walk away. I had the option to go home early but I refused because I wanted to finish the class. With help and hugs from another student, I was able to find a ride to class and ultimately home.

But as I attuned to the direction this puppet wanted to take, I found myself choking back tears as I made her. Having started her pattern from scratch, my initial feeling was that her head seemed too big and weird and pointy. She was nothing like I had first imagined. Tired and overwhelmed even before the accident, afterwards I felt shook with the memory of seeing the car crashing into me through my rear view mirror. And the rest of the weekend I was wrestling with doubts and fears: feeling the knot of an old story inside me that following one’s bliss will result in catastrophe, feeling stupid for being so in love with something so silly, feeling too old to start something new, feeling like I should have better serious answers for a deadly serious time. It is a trauma-based theology that says the only safety to be found is in following the rules and forbidding the risks found in play and pleasure and silliness. Joy is dangerous, it says.

Nevertheless, this little one started showing up. In her cosmic uniqueness, full of innocence and joy. There is nothing that seems to pull her down for long. And she softens my heart and quiets my mind just to spend time with her. She also came into being with lots of help and care from others, my teacher and classmate and family and friends and tow drivers—a reminder that we do not create or cope alone. I don’t know if any of this will help the world but it helps me to be in the world. And that feels like the power of play and art and story and community. And puppets. Because puppets are REAL.