Episodes 52 and 53 - He’s Woven Into Us: Grieving Through Collective Memory

LISTEN TO PART 1 of the episode

LISTEN TO PART 2 of the episode

HANNAH: Several years ago, I went to one of your shows and you shared like a personal story about how, and you might need to correct my details, but how at the same time every year you would get your toenails painted to remember your friend who had passed. And that really stuck with me because it was so specific and touching. And also at the time I was secretly, very secretly and deeply grieving my friend. And it was like, I was like, oh my God, like someone talked about it out loud. Cause no one ever like talks about it. And then it just really touched me deeply and I've never forgotten it. So yeah I don’t know if you want to talk about that and maybe correct my description.

JORIN: No that's totally I mean, it's completely accurate. I guess I'll back up into like, I'll tell that story. And then that will probably be a leaping off point. But I think for that particular friend who is a who is a guy named Mike Enriquez, I think that there's a lot of improv community sort of built around appreciating him. And it's just considering how ephemeral everything is in improv, there's clearly less of a tangible legacy that gets behind for the truly great people.

And so I think that in Mike's case, there is actually more orientation to talk about him just because he had such an outsized impact on like so many of us and such a sort of a group of people within a generation of improvisers that I think that like part of the way that like we cope with it is by talking about him a lot and doing things and celebrating him because he deserves all that. 

And he so essentially there was a he got he got cancer in his late 30s early 40s early 40s I think he was in his early 40s when he passed away and one of the things that we did, he loved Pride, and so one of the things that in his final year that happened was a group of folks on Southport before Pride, and everybody getting their nails done and then going to watch Pride. And so after he passed away, that just kind of became a tradition of everybody that loved him and was in this group of people, would go annually to the Pinky's Nails salon and drink and sort of commemorate him and check in on each other because we weren't seeing each other necessarily all that much. And it was a way for us to come together and, primarily commemorate Mike's folks that lived out of town on other coasts would target that as a reason to come in. And so we would all get our pedicures. Some folks would get manicures, but mostly as a pedicure thing.

And, you know, drink our mimosas and whatever, and reconnect with each other. And so obviously with the pandemic, it's been probably three years since I've been to one. And sometimes it’s like, oh, this is the only time of year that I see a person or two that I really, really like and we're able to kind of reconnect. So in a funny way, it's like a thing that he keeps giving to us even while he's gone, you know? Which is very reflective of who he was as a person. He's an enormously giving person that was just a huge positive influence on all of us.

HANNAH: May I ask how you all were connected to him? Were you on an improv team together?

JORIN: He was the very first coach of the team Revolver that I was on at iO.

HANNAH: Oh yeah, I love Revolver.

JORIN: Yeah. Well, and he's really the reason that we were ever any good. He was our first Herald coach, was the person that kind of taught us both kind of like the societal aspects of it and like how you have to have a degree of responsibility and commitment to the thing to make it work and sort of set a standard for that and was really influential that way. But also he was an enormously gifted technical mind. And so there’s a giant coaching tree of folks out there that sprung from that team that are teachers, coaches, influential improvisers that I think many, many of us, if not all of us, would sort of say, well, yeah, he's the reason I understand these things the way that I do. I understand how to do this particular form of improv, and it's influenced how I think about improv in general because of this man.

And I think that, you know, if you talk to, if you talk to many of us still, whether that's myself or Farrell or Louie or Addle or Rob White or, you know, lots of folks that are no longer in the city that have gone on to other things, specifically from our team, but also from just iO around that period of time. I think that when we have technical conversations, we're invoking Mike's name all the time. You know, he's woven into us. He's such a massively joyful person that to kind of have him in the joyful parts of our lives still just indicates what a gift he gave us when he was here.

HANNAH: Wow…

JORIN: I know it's intense.

HANNAH: No, yeah, and it's so special. Like I'm just thinking about how being connected on an improv team kind of, it really connects you to the core. Like, I don't know. I feel that way about art in general, and especially art that involves collaborating with other people, but you just kind of zip straight to the core with other people more than in like regular life.

JORIN: Yeah, I totally agree. You know, for me, it's a thing that I wind up saying when I'm teaching classes and we're in that class where we sort of wind up talking about like, why? And I think for me, I feel the most myself when I'm improvising and it's not because I'm actually sort of extroverted at all person, but I feel like the most actualized when I have the opportunity to be connecting with people, I feel the most myself when I'm with an ensemble I trust and I'm making those connections with other people. I still feel like inside myself, but more expressive and more present.

It's a strange feeling, you know, when I'm truly, truly alone, I feel like a reduced version of myself, even though it's where I get my energy from and like the perfect state of equilibrium is kind of to be with myself, with other people that I'm connecting to as if they're…it's that whole social prosthetic network thing.

HANNAH: Oh gosh, that’s so interesting. Cause I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I get so deep that I'm like, “when I'm by myself, am I myself?” Like, do I need other people to be me? Like, just like, really? And then I just get so overwhelmed. I'm like, oh my God, that's so big of a question.

JORIN: Well, I think, you know, it's like, I don't want to be. I'm afraid that I am who I am. I’m afraid that the person I am is the person when I'm totally by myself, which is the reduced version of me. What I hope is that I am the version of myself that feels the best, which is the version of myself that is networking in a social pod with other people. And I don't know. I mean, it's that whole social prosthetic thing is like, I think Stephen Koslin is the guy's name. He just wrote an essay in an Edge question thing, like 15 years ago. But he was basically like, hey, we use other people as social prosthetics, like a crutch or whatever, or like an intellectual prosthetic, like a calculator or computer. Like we use other folks, these social prosthetics, where they help us, they might store information for us or help us process emotion or whatever, but they kind of like help us execute our humanity.

I've become like a really big believer in that notion where identity is actually a network of people, you know, like your identity is like a cluster. And one of the things that I think that he sort of implies if not outright says is that our can include those folks that we lost, and by sort of actively maintaining our esteem or recognition of what was special for them, we managed to kind of carry up a piece of their identity with us, you know? It's like we're all sort of like memetically affecting each other all the time, which is why I think it's really important or that it is such a part of the language of this particular group of people that love this particular friend as much as we did, and do, that he's still so present in the way that we express to one another.

HANNAH: We need community, like we have to. To like be able to survive, to be happy, all these things, I've been reading books about it, and thinking about it a lot and, um, I'm just emotional hearing about how you have this great community around your grief because it's so different when it's not there. Yeah, because the memory feels less alive because you don't have that synergy in the group like you're talking about. And then it almost feels like it's on my shoulders to keep this person's memory alive even though that's obviously not true. It just feels very disconnected. And I don't have people to bounce memories off of, so then over time I'm like, is this memory even true? And I start to feel crazy. So yeah, I don't know. And hearing about the community around this loss and how you guys remember together is really beautiful.

JORIN: Well, good, good. I want people, you know, I want people to know the idea of Mike, you know, and I think we all do, because our general feeling is gratitude. We're thankful that like, he affected sort of the reciprocation that you're talking about to kind of reinforce and maybe purify our feelings about him is really available. But I think that might be another thing that's special about like the good side of improv. You know, it's far from being a utopian environment. You know, it's any other artistic community where there's plenty of ugly, terrible things as well, but there are at least utopian ideals embedded in it, which lets us be really appreciative about those things that are good or like the good in people often, and lets us kind of give due attention to those folks that we've lost, you know? I mean, it's a strange thing for me to cognate because I kind of feel like the ephemerality of improv is like, even me, someone who has been around Chicago for a long time and has done a lot of stuff, my expectation is kind of that nobody really knows who I am because there's this, you know, churn and I'm not places that I was before.

And so it's very easy to feel a quality of invisible passage, right? But at the same time when I observe how we talk about the folks that we have lost, you know, having just recently lost Noah, for example, you know, it's like people are extremely diligent. It seems to me there are enough enough like really quality artists involved here in Chicago that the amount of diligence about kind of paying due and recognizing influence and recognizing what people have done to make the community improved. You know, Mike probably most of all, because of the way that we wind up having conversations and the way that he so influenced the way that this particular pot of people conducts themselves. That happens most of all of all but there's plenty of times where even before we lost Noah, but then certainly after him where Noah comes up as a reference point where it's not about like, oh, we lost Noah, but like here's something Noah said. Here is something that I got from Noah. You know, more like an active thing rather than something that has passed.

You know, I know that like that comes up with Jason Chin a lot too. You know, there's people like that, or even, there's an improviser I really, really liked that passed away within the last few years named Anne O’Neill; I just really liked how she played, right? And I feel like, should conversation turn, I would still talk about that person in terms of their gifts and what I learned watching them, you know, without compunction. So I'm glad that this is my tribe, right? It's like, it's created a good environment for me to celebrate the fallen, you know?

HANNAH: Yeah, and that ephemeral nature also really sticks with me. You mentioned that a couple times. And that's something that's really beautiful and also really kind of tragic about it.

JORIN: Agreed. Totally.

HANNAH: After every show I would do, it would kind of be like a mini death, because I'd be like, well, we're never going to see that ever again. And if it was bad, I'm like, good.

JORIN: [laughs]

HANNAH: It's funny, because it's just like life. Life is also just as ephemeral. Every conversation, every interaction is a mini death. And you're like, well, that's never going to happen exactly like that ever again. And then it still has this cumulative, effect. So it's like even though we'll never necessarily be able to see a show that Noah or Mike or Anne have done unless it's recorded, you still remember the feeling that you had when you watched them or things that they taught you. So I don't know, I just think that that connection is interesting and maybe that's why the improv community seems so powerful a reflection of life in a way.

JORIN: Yeah, I mean, that's what I say. It's when I'm trying to tell people, you're not writing jokes, you're running hyperbolic models of life. So behave like you're really living. And I agree, it is those two seemingly contradictory things going on all the time. And it's why it's awesome, because it's bittersweet, right? And I think the thing that you're talking about there is, the emotional surge that happens with remembering, and it's not reproducible by sharing information with someone who was outside the room, you know?

HANNAH: Yeah, it does not work. I've tried it.

JORIN: Yeah, it doesn't. It's like, cause it's non-informational. You know, information is like the cosmetics of it that helps us evoke the feeling, but it's really about the feeling. And so like, that's the thing that is, like, you know, saying a few key words to recollect something that happened in a show and having everybody that was there feel it and so clearly feel it, whereas everybody who is not there is just like, “I don't understand why you'd care. This is just nonsense.” You know?

And it's... And it's kind of like, oh. It's so sad that I can't actually convey this feeling to you.

HANNAH: I know.

JORIN: But it's so happy that I can conjure this feeling that I was lucky enough to have the experience to conjure the feeling. And I guess it's that it feels like that might be a sort of a microcosm of a larger pattern, you know, based on the way that our conversation is going, right? It's like you feel so much pain from not having access to it anymore and not being able to convey exactly what it meant to you to someone else but the feeling is still available to you. Which is both wonderful and torturous right?

HANNAH: Yeah. And it's like, if I were to explain to you or you were to explain to me, like, oh my gosh, like my friend was so funny. And he would say this and this and this. I would be like, that's so cool. But I wouldn't get it. You know, I wouldn't totally get it.

JORIN: You could have empathy for my feelings, but you couldn't feel what I felt, you know? So maybe that's more sympathy. I don't know. I'm not great on my Greek roots.

HANNAH: Maybe I can feel sympathy but not empathy. Yeah. Or I can get a general sense of it, but yeah, it's like you can't recreate it really. But in a way it's like by the ripple effect of his art, still alive in your art, and that way I am feeling it.

JORIN: That's my hope, yeah. And it's kind of like why it's important to me is that like, I'm not gonna be able to primary source, give you a sense of what it was like to be with Mike, but Mike changed me in a way that makes me absorb him and be more like him. And so his influence, like I will pass on his beliefs through my own lens. And some of that may change as a result of me missed because of me. But some of it will be exactly him. You know, sharing the sharing that is like really important, you know, and not as kind of like a historical biography of someone that was amazing, who was, but rather what the essence of that person was, it's like by me being with you in the way that I have been affected, it's the best representation of what I got from him, you know?

[END OF PART 1]

HANNAH: Do you feel like there's differences in how you remember him individually and then remember him collectively?

JORIN: I think probably so. I think that we all have our own sort of independent view of who he was, right? And it's kind of like the collective perception is this crowdsourced thing. I think that we all have these speculative moments where we sort of guess at how he would behave, right? How we would be like, oh, Mike would think this or he would do this or here's how he would behave, right? But it's only based on like the historical model. And none of us can know for sure. And when he was alive, it's not like we had accumulated enough data that all of us knew exactly what he was gonna do in exactly any moment. And so I find that to be an interesting thing that happens because all of us that knew him do that. We inherently make these guesses or say like, oh, Mike would feel this about that. Mike would do that, you know? And it's like, well, we can't know, you know? Like we might even agree about something and be like, yep, yep, he probably wouldn't like that much. But it's like, or he would love that, right?

And so I think collectively we agree on the history and we agree on our memories. And we have that. But sort of singularly because of the nature of the one-on-one conversations we've had, how we observe that history, all that stuff, we have different guesses about probably who he really was or how he would behave. But I think this goes back to what we were kind of talking about before is like, we're not going to know who he was alone. But if we are the most ourselves when we are embedded in the collective, then maybe our impression is the best version of him.

I mean, and I hope that kind of probably for myself, you know, like I'd rather, I would productive node in a collective rather than think about like, oh, all the anxiety I must have had all the time. It's like we're inherently internal creatures because we're trapped in our minds and, you know, our reality is ourselves. But actual reality is the collective aggregate of what happens outside of us. That's what's really going to get recorded and reflect who we are.

HANNAH: I really love that because, clearly I think about this topic a lot. I have this podcast. So earlier today, actually, I was thinking about how I knew a certain sliver or portion of my friend because we spent one summer together, one year. It's like I know her 14-year-old self really well, but I know that six weeks of that 14-year-old self really well. So then I was thinking about how that's kind of like a sliver of a sliver and then I was like Oh my god, did I know her at all?

Like all these things. But what you said was really comforting because it's like, it's funny that you can think one thing about yourself, but you don't project it onto the other person because I was thinking about how she enhanced me. And I liked who I was most around her and all these things. So why would I not be able to kind of flip that and be like, oh maybe like... she was an enhanced version of that sliver around me too. And we kind of like enhanced each other. And maybe I did know her better than I thought when I do go into that spiral. So yeah, I don't know. I was literally thinking about that today.

JORIN: Yeah, I think that probably a good way to examine that stuff because I don't know, healthy friendships generally have a lot of mutual appreciation in them. And even if that's something that wanes over time, I don’t think it should be something that is then jettisoned, you know? I mean, another way I'd think about it is that like the effect that your friend had on you was enormously positive, right? And like you said, you felt like this better version of yourself as a result.

And so I feel like then the best way to celebrate your friend is to appreciate that and like appreciate her for it. I mean, I don't know, you hardly seem like the kind of person that's going to exert ownership over someone else. She's part of you now. I'm really appreciative of the folks that are part of me now. They gave me something and best way to appreciate a gift is to, you know, accept it.

HANNAH: Yeah, and embrace it. And I don't know why I always thought that I was particularly malleable. Maybe I am. I don't know. But where if I am really close to a friend and really admire them or whatever, I'll start even taking on some of their mannerisms. Like, not on purpose, but even right now. Here's an example. I made a new friend last year, and she laughs in a way where she'll jerk her head back as she starts laughing, and then I noticed that I started doing that and I was like, oh my god I'm copying her. I didn't even mean to. So I think that's actually just like a human thing to like that kind of mirroring but I know I used to kind of beat myself up about it, like gosh, have a unique personality already!

JORIN: Well, it's definitely not something that I would ever accuse you of, of not having a unique personality.

HANNAH: [laughs]

JORIN: I mean, I think it's another one of those things that's like, well, we're in our own head. We're so much more inclined to observe that stuff and not understand how other folks are experiencing it as well. But like, I think it, it's just that when you really, really like, somebody and have an affinity for them then yeah having some part – I mean, we're very different people, but in the way that we express and the way that we think and feel, but like the amount of time that Louie and I have spent together, I think that there would be so much of that same kind of stuff behaviorally, we’ve co-mingled the way that we expressed and I’ll do the same thing.

I'll catch myself, you know, doing things that Louie does. Or like, even though my brother and I are like completely physically different, the way that we talk is so similar, you know? And it's not like my parents. And it's, yeah, I think it's just human and we shouldn't feel bad about it. We shouldn’t feel bad about liking people.

HANNAH: I know, right? It’s just like the whole judgment thing comes in, which, I don't know, I feel like that happens a lot with grief too, because we just don't have much data to work off of. Because our society is so absolutely horrendously terrible at just teaching us about it. My therapist was good but she also would say some things that just weren't helpful or I'd just be like, huh, your advice is for me to scream into a pillow. Like that just feels so not helpful.

JORIN: It feels like the flavor of repression that Americans have, like other nationalities or other cultural groupings, I think, have different repressions, but this feels uniquely American. I mean, I don't know if it's all back to the Puritan stuff or what, but, not that the English are wildly non-repressed either. But when I talked to my English friends, I feel it's noticeable to me sometimes that we just have like different, so there's some ways where I seem wide open and there's some ways where they seem wide open to me. And I think it's one of those things where I think we can interrogate what our culture has done to us in certain things and be willfully iconoclastic if it feels like there's a better way.

HANNAH: Yeah, it does, and it does feel like- repression is a pretty big thing that's forced onto us. Even repressing our joy. And this is another thing I've been thinking about a lot, is just how our joy is squashed. This is a very generalized idea. But in childhood, we really don't hold back in expressing our love. And then we learn like, oh, that's not okay, we need to repress our love and our joy and basically everything. And yesterday at church, it was Easter, and a couple rows in front of me there were these kids at the prime age in which they like don't repress their joy, like I don't know, six, seven. And they were just like... hugging each other and one was gazing in adoration at the other and they would put their arms around each other and rock back and forth. I just got so emotional because I literally watched a movie that came out recently called Close about these two boys that were really close friends and then after they hit puberty they drifted apart, so I was just sad for what I knew was going to happen to these boys in several years and just how we don't feel like we can express our love really intensely to our platonic friends.

JORIN: Yeah, we gotta get over that. I mean, it's all different ways that folks talk to each other, but I think it kinda stems from sort of the reptilian fear of what the implications might be sort of like in our societal constructs, right? But it's worth getting over, you know? I tell my friends I love them all the time and they tell me and it's great.

HANNAH: Aww, yeah.

JORIN: Louie and I go do our shows every Wednesday and he lives right around the corner. So we go and come back. And the last thing that we say, when I'm walking around the corner to my house, is just like, “love you, man.” “Love you.” And I don't know, maybe it's like the almost wearing down of realizing as you get older, it takes effort to remain open because you've seen so much stuff, so you feel like you know more than you do or whatever. And we don't know anything, right? So fighting against that makes you more inclined to like, I think maybe interrogate the things that have built up and to get to a point where you're like, but you do, you do love people.

And there’s a point when you're not going to have the opportunity to have that conversation or acknowledge it. And it's not like it has to be like a here's something that I need to acknowledge and then you need to acknowledge. And it's like a conversation. It can it's just a casual show of esteem is yeah, we don't have mechanisms for coping with it. But it doesn't stop me from telling people. I don't feel inclined to hide that sort of information because it's not useful to do that. I think we all need help all the time. We should be more inclined to help each other and more inclined to provide emotional support. So that's what I'm doing. And I thank improv for it, you know?

HANNAH: Yeah, I do think that I'm sure that that like seeps into life, right? Like that living really boldly and making big choices.

JORIN: I mean, I think just being honest, you know, or like for me what it's given me is I don't know that I'm necessarily more bold, but what I do understand is that it's worth the expenditure of energy to express things. You know, and being someone who doesn't get energy from other people necessarily in in like a classic extroversion way. And it's realizing that I have an amount of emotional and energy capital that I accrue and there might be some anxiety cost and there might be some personal energy cost and all that stuff to step outside my comfort zone and make a connection with someone. But it is, it's always worth it.

HANNAH: I don't often tell friends that I love them, but I do want to do that more. And not in a way that's like forced or anything, but like...

JORIN: I'm guessing they probably know, and yeah, you can always show in other ways too. You know, you're a very sweet person and very caring. So I'm sure that the information is telegraphed.

HANNAH: Oh, thank you. I hope so.

JORIN: So I guess I'm just encouraging you to be like, yeah, then do it. Like, I think they know already. So I don't think it's like a big leap. It’s not a big leap for you to just sort of confide in someone that you care about them because I feel like you'd demonstrate that pretty clearly just interpersonal. I mean I don't know but that's my sense of you when I think of you I think of someone who is warm and kind and present. So if that's generally how you're conducting all your relationships then a little “Hey, I love you.” It feels like it's mostly going to be like, “I know.”

HANNAH: Aww, yeah.

JORIN: This could all be terrible advice. This is just my sense of things.

HANNAH: I always also think about, I don't know if you've heard about the book Platonic. It came out fairly recently, I think. It's all about like, platonic friendships and the science behind them. And one of the many lessons in the book is like, you gotta put in a lot of effort to make friends. And she was like, it's hard to make friends as an adult. It just is, but like, it's your fault if you're not good at making friends. Ah, crap. Dang it. I can't blame it on society. I had to blame it on myself. And that's another way in which like, I don't know, I could be more adventurous or bold or whatever you want to call it, or whatever you wanna call it, like more honest. And like, okay, it is uncomfortable, but it'll be worth it. Like you were saying, it's worth it to put myself out there. So I'll have to introduce myself to people, which is like my nightmare. Like I hate it so much. But I don't know, you gotta do it. Ugh, it’s so hard.

JORIN: It is super hard, but it's really worth it. Like, you know, and it's not like you can just pick and choose, you know, who you're gonna be friends with, right? But I think there are probably a lot of opportunities out there. Many more than we think, you know? Or I've just been lucky. But I think that probably in part it might just be sort of my attitude towards the whole thing too of like, of being inclined to feel gratitude toward folks. And then it's kind of like, well, if someone is your friend and they wind up being sort of a passing silhouette that you don’t spend much time with, but for whatever reason they have some effect on you that you carry, then that's still worth it, you know? There are different gradations of closeness, relationships, friendships, all that stuff. And I mean, as much as I can be bummed out and hurt by folks, and probably bum people out and hurt folks, I'm very humanist and people are worth it. Even though they are they take so much effort, it's still really worth it.

I love Mike and I'm so happy that he was in my life and is still in my life in the way that he is. This is an opportunity for me to acknowledge it. I get to say I love you to Mike.