A Traveler's TED: The Talk

The brown walls pulsate.

Why, why do the words refuse to come to me?

I’m doomed. In less than an hour I will be on-stage, delivering my TEDx speech, telling tales of when myself others went insane and learned how to live again. How am I going to tell a tale if I can’t remember the words? Actually, it isn’t the words I am concerned about. Lord knows I can talk. No, it is the structure, the organization, and the details. The most important parts. The parts my brain is disinclined to recall.

I sigh and give up, engaging with other speakers and staff waiting off-stage for the show to start. Spirits are high; laughter abounds. TEDx staff members are highly organized as they assist speakers like myself and Caspar Walsh. He is first to speak that day and last to arrive. I didn’t hear his mumbled apology but suspect that he might have been procrastinating. His speech, like mine, is emotional and revealing. I had used procrastination as a coping mechanism earlier that day, too.
That morning my Aunt knocked on the door of the Totnes Air BnB she booked for us. “Almost ready?” she asked, peeking around the door. Like a teenager caught smoking cigarettes in her bedroom, I stumbled to the door, wild-eyed. “Yah, okay, just a minute and I’m coming!” I pushed the door closed and tried to sound calm. I was wearing one sock, no make-up, and one-third of my third attempted outfit. My speech was in one hand and a dry toothbrush in the other.

Eventually my Aunt roused me from my anxious spiral. We arrived to a crisp Autumn morning at Dartington Estate, a cool hour and half early. TEDx staff showed me the “green room” backstage where they had sweetly supplied croissants and bananas. My heart appreciated the gesture much more than my stomach. I re-joined my Aunt in the Café, where she chatted with a suited, smooth-haired business-type. I tried to engage, then talked too much and acted coarse, eventually retreating to a corner with Hugo Tagholm of Surfers Against Sewage. He spoke my language (“Toomuchish”) that morning: excitement, apprehension, and gratitude.

And again, as I practice my speech off-stage, it is Hugo who pulls me from my racing-brain reverie. While I pace with speech in-hand, he relaxes like he’s seated on a beach chair. Kath Maguire is similarly poised, seated with feet flat, hands pressed to knees, spine straight, and a small smile, exactly as I imagine Buddha might act before his TED talk. “I’m doing okay,” she says. “I’m not at that point where I can’t sit or stand.” I laugh, inspired. Throwing down my typed speech, I turn again to the wall. I feel Danielle, the speaking coach, watching me.

I deliver the speech perfectly, mouthing the words and moving through the choreography like Charlie Chaplin in a silent.
Then, Caspar stumbles off-stage, a deer caught in headlights, smiling widely. Then hands attach a mic to my pocket. Then last wisps of hair are swept from my face by someone’s gentle fingers. Then black curtains on my fingers. Far away, a chuckle from the audience resounds. Then a gentle, flat hand pushes me forward. Then I am on-stage.

Position. Smile. Pause.

Speak, smile, speak! I have two brains: the one that lives in the NOW and the one that thinks about what my first brain is doing. During the first paragraph of my TEDx speech, my second brain whirs. Stop it! I command. Before going on-stage, I swore to myself that I would speak in the moment. My second brain would only distract me. I have to stop strategizing if I was to be successful. I have to trust that I can speak from my heart, not my head. I don't need to think my way through it. My second brain begins to consume me. I feel my heart skip a beat. Don’t lose it!

One sentence into my second paragraph I finally look at the audience. Unlike many performances, the audience in the Dartington Barn Cinema was close enough to see, shining faces between red chairs. I can see their prone, straight backs, apt and engaged. Right then, I experience the most empowering thought:

They’re on my side!

I recognize in the audience a willingness to listen, to learn, and to love. Together, we made sacrifices to attend TEDx Totnes. We showed up, displaying a reciprocal appreciation and desire to share. They are happy with whatever I say just as I am happy they are listening.

I want to perform for them! I hear the theme song form “Chicago”: Start the car, I know the whoopee spot… I want to give this audience my 110%. I want to delight them. I want to honor them by telling the tale. We came to see.
Who ever knew a tiny red circle could be so big? Or that speaking could be so fun? Or that somehow it is possible to hear every individual giggle in a crowd of 100?

I didn’t get the memo to stay on my circle to receive applause. Even if I did, I don’t think I could have stayed. I finish (“Never stop scavenging for delight”), click my heels, and flee like a bat out of Hell. I flee with tears streaming down my face, battling black curtains in search of an opening. From out of Narnia Danielle’s hands pull me through and then she is hugging me, holding me tight, as I sob into her shoulder. I’m smiling.

And all that jazz.