Sasha - A little angel in a hospital ward.

It took over 9000 miles for me to find the answer to the question “How will I change the world?”

I was sitting on a plane heading to Moscow, dressed in a rainbow. I had my rainbow shoes, red and blue pants, tie-dye shirt, a colored patchwork trench coat, and my big red nose. I was traveling all the way from my small city town of Bend Oregon, all the way to Moscow Russia. I was traveling with 33 other clowns, from 11 countries. Our mission was to spread love and joy to the Russian people, in hospitals, orphanages, homes, and on the streets. And as I sat on the bus as we heading to our hotel, for our stay in Moscow, I thought how I have no idea what I was doing in Russia. I had no idea how to clown, my friends call me a funny person, but could I be a funny person when everyone spoke a different language?

It was then that leader of our clown troupe addressed the bus, Patch Adams. Yes Patch Adams, the guy from the movie with Robin Williams. Although he looks nothing like Robin, he is tall eccentric man with a long ponytail that is dyed half blue, a huge mustache, parachute pants, and shirts covered with animals and hearts.

He took the PA and addressed my biggest unspoken fear, how to clown. He gives us two bits of advice.

1) Clowning is doing nothing special; it is merely performing thousands of experiments in public with a red nose, and a smile on your face.
2) Clowning is just a way to GET LOVE CLOSE.

And that was the advice I received for my first clowning test. But for the first three days, I did nothing but watch the other clowns, noticing what worked and what didn’t work. I watched and learned what I could.

After awhile, I become a clown. Success or failure had no bearing on what I did. My mission was to get love close to people; soft kisses on cheeks, holding a dying child in my lap. But it was in St. Petersburg, that I met an angel in a hospital ward.

Sasha was 7. She had bone tuberculosis in her spine, and couldn’t move the lower half of her body. She looked around the ward by lifting her head with her arms. Sasha had her mom stroking her hair when I first saw her. Her face was blank from any expression; her mother’s face was painted with infinite sadness. I walked right up to her hospital bed and poked her with my nose, making a whistling nose. She looked right at me with a wonderful “WTF, mate?” kind of look. Not deterred, I sat on her mother’s lap and mocked blowing my nose in her shirt. This brought out the faintest crook of a smile.

Getting close to Sasha again, I brought out my crayons. I mimed me drawing on her face. She gave a brief nod, but misunderstood me. She instead grabbed a crayon and began to draw on her own face. Gently I said “Niet Niet”, no in Russian, I grabbed her hand, and moved it around so that she was drawing on my face. And when I let go, she slowly began to draw on my face. And her face lit up like a fire! Suddenly she had the biggest smile, ear to ear! Her smile never disappeared as she drew a Picasso look alike on my face. A nurse showed me a mirror, and I acted like a supermodel, strutting my stuff down the runway. And even though Sasha never laughed or giggled once in my entire time with her. Her smile, or the twinkle in her eyes never left.

Two hours later, the clowns were getting ready to leave. I headed downstairs to the lobby, but stopped halfway. I peered my head back into Sasha’s ward.
And now, instead of seeing a blank Sasha, and a sad mother, I saw instead two great smiles, and that same twinkle in her eyes. I had only been with her for a half and hour, but two hours later she still had that smile. It proved to me that the little interactions I have with people when I wear a red nose; will make a difference in this world.

And so I found the answer to my question, on how am I going to change this world. I know I will do it with a red nose. I will change it one person at a time, I will love all that I encounter. And hopefully I will have a big ear-to-ear smile, and a twinkle in my eye, just like that angel in a hospital ward.