Living Big as a Clown

Every once in a while I come across a book offering a great message. Author Pam Grout has written a little text everyone should read. It's called Living Big: Embrace Your Passion and Leap Into an Extraordinary Life.

Though less than 200 pages, it is packed full of tips on how to think, give, play, and imagine big. As a way to encourage an "Attitude of Boldness," Grout suggests that we make a fool of ourselves daily.

And she has an assignment for us: For the next seven days, we must do something that we've never done before--and it must be something we feel we simply cannot do.

Whoa! For some of us, that means taking that first leap into clowning!

Grout cites several brave souls who routinely make fools of themselves. But the really cool aside is that they bring a chuckle to those around them.

"C.W. Metcalf," she writes, "a humor consultant to many Fortune 500 companies, says he cured himself of 'terminal seriousness' by forcing himself to do things like walk through an airport minus a sock and shoe. Or stand in an elevator and talk nonstop."

Egad. Could I do that? Could you? What better experience for a clown-in-training!

Grout suggests that donning a clown costume is a great idea. "Given the narrowness of fashion standards today," she writes, "it's not too difficult to come up with something that will make people chuckle, point, and realize that maybe there are other possibilities."

And then she goes crazy by suggesting that we wear our costume to the library, the drycleaners--and even to work.

Sound insane? We'd definitely raise some eyebrows!

But I have to admit that my clown soul is dying to wear buck-toothed bunny slippers to the library, a gorilla suit (with tutu and tiara) to the grocery story, and a flapper outfit to my next business mixer. I started out on this track years ago, but got waylaid because I didn't believe enough in the power of humor.

Let me explain. A good eight years ago, after several cousins went through their weddings, I collected their maid-of-honor dresses, thinking I could use them for some zany occasion. I soon had what I thought were two perfect outings: I appeared as a vampy character I named "Sheila" at a family dinner and later during a dinner with friends.

I was surprised at how much difficulty the "normal" dinner guests had at accepting me as I sat, in an emerald-green, mid-calf satin dress, adorned with a pair of nerdy glasses and a bra that clearly showed through the diamond-cut hole in the back of the dress. A family member remarked that she couldn't comprehend why anyone would come to dinner as someone other than herself.

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