Clown: The Divine Interrupter

“How do you do it?” a friend asked me the other day. “I could not clown for sick people, especially sick children, because I would sit down on their beds and sob while they patted my back, saying, ‘Be happy, little clown.’”

For me, part of the answer lies in understanding the role of clown. In early times, during worship services where only Latin was spoken, a door sometimes opened in the chancel, and a clown would pop out and do or say something funny. His task was to break the serious atmosphere in order to make room for a new kind of awareness. He was called a “divine interrupter.”

When I stop outside the open door of a patient’s room, I am focused on my job, which is to break the severity and the order of the patient’s captivity there. It’s not about what I’m feeling. That’s for me to deal with later.

Here’s how it works: a patient, let’s say a middle aged man, is sitting up in bed, staring straight ahead. He’s hooked up to machines and tubes and bags and stuff, I’m not quite sure what it all is; I’m a clown, not a nurse. And anyway, it’s his face I want to see.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of color from the hallway. He turns to see Heart Throb: orange curls, lime green scrubs with red hearts on the pockets, hearts painted on my cheeks and on the tip of my nose. Also, I am wearing a big sign that says, OUT OF ORDER. He blinks. He can’t quite believe it—a clown is standing there. I wave a small, quiet hello.

He nods back.

I ask if he would like a visit. I give him a choice. Everyone else who enters his room does so without asking. If he shakes his head, No, or says, Not right now, or simply looks away, I bow in deference and leave.

If he says yes, I’ll approach his bed very slowly and then introduce myself. Looking again at his I.V. bag, I’ll say, “Why for goodness sake. They gave you an aquarium, but the nurse forgot to stock it.” From my pocket, I pull a neon blue, tropical fish sticker and paste it on the bag. “Now, the nurse is going to need to change the water. And this type of fish really likes company. So you might want to chat with him . . . but, um, I wouldn’t do that when the doctor is in the room.”

What happens next depends entirely on the patient’s response. He may tell me the story of how he came to be in the hospital. Or he may close his eyes in pain or fall asleep due to being medicated. The visit may be over or just beginning. Whatever happens, a whimisical presence has entered the room, a colorful relief from hospital routine.

I'm Not Funny

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m a clown.

I never had a magic kit. Can’t even shuffle a deck of cards.

I’m not drawn to jokes.

Physical comedy makes me nervous. To me, it’s not funny when someone slips on a banana peel. You can get hurt that way. End up on crutches for months.

As for the Three Stooges, they clearly couldn’t learn to get along. I thought they should separate for good.

I do, upon occasion, successfully deliver a funny rendition of an event that has happened in my life. But, by and large, I am not funny. Even though I can be fun, I am a serious, introspective person.

***

I once read an interview with an Irish comedian who said he got his start early in life by trying to get his mother, who suffered from acute depression, to laugh.

My mother was only forty when my father was killed in a car accident. It never occurred to me to try to cheer her by telling a joke. I did, however, try to raise her spirits by doing nice things for her, like spending my allowance to buy her a one-inch bottle of Blue Danube perfume at the dime store. The night she came home, tired from work, and saw it, sitting on our grey, linoleum-topped kitchen table, the bottle’s tiny neck wrapped in a blue bow, me standing next to it, she stopped, and her mouth flew open in pleasure and surprise. Perhaps that’s when the seed of the caring clown within me sprouted.

***
When I decided that I wanted to be a hospital clown, I researched on line until I found a class that was starting up near my home. But the day I signed up, a number of “Nay-Sayers” inside my head began to carry placards reading: NOT FUNNY. NOT QUICK WITTED. TOO QUIET. SLOW MOVING. CAN'T JUGGLE.

In consternation, I called Arne Swensen, the sponsor of the class I had found on-line and the head of the Foundation for Therapeutic Clowning. I’d read that Arne had clowned with Patch Adams in Russia and China. After introducing myself, I explained that I wanted to be a hospital clown, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t be any good at it.

“If you have a loving heart, you’ll be fine,” Arne said.

“Hmmm.” I said.

“Let me tell you a story about Mother Theresa,” he replied.“When she came to the States, she paid a visit to a local nursing home. Upon entering the facility, she saw several patients lined up in their wheel chairs along the entryway, facing the door. She walked over the nurses’ station and asked why they were all there. The nurse explained that each one was hoping the next visitor who came through the door would be coming to see them.”

Arne paused, and then he added, “Like I said, the main thing you need is a loving heart.”