Tuesday, July 26 - Liliana Tandon

"Ready to go on an adventure?" Danny asks me, Karlee, Ryn and Daniel. We all agree to follow him past where most people dare to go at the beautiful watering hole we frequent on hot afternoons. Wearing our bathing suits and confidence, we all begin the trek. We start by walking along the flat rocks that border the flowing stream. Nothing special. We've seen it before in the beginning of the watering hole. We continue on, laughing and talking, unaware of what we are about to experience. We finally arrive at what Danny calls the "vomiting rocks" - a lot more beautiful than it sounds. A sprinkling of water flows down moss covered rocks, creating a natural shower to those passing below. The water is cool and refreshing under the hot Mediterranean sun. But we barely stop to gaze at the beauty, as Danny pushes on, arguing that we haven't seen the half of it.

Our next challenge, the next level of the game, gets a little more tricky and little more wet. We first pass through "fly alley": a patch of rocks over which hovers a disgusting amount of flies. Next, we have to swim through a pool of freezing water to get to a small ledge, which we have to climb. However, after we complete that challenge, we come to a small waterfall. "Now what you have to do," Danny explains, "is put your feet and hands in the middle of the waterfall. Trust me. That's where you won't slip." Immediately, my survival instincts kick in. 'There's no way you can climb up the middle of a waterfall,' I think to myself. 'I'm gonna die this way.' However, after seeing Danny, Karlee and Ryn all climb the waterfall without slipping, I decide to trust him. As I put my first foot down in the rushing water, expecting to feel a slimey slippery mess, my foot remains secure on the rough stone beneath the water. I gain a little more gusto to let go of the dry rock, climbing the middle of my first waterfall. We arrive at a massive, deep pool with a huge waterfall on the other side, and decide we must have reached the end.

Just as we were silently taking in our gorgeous, hidden destination (although by this point, it wasn't so hidden, as another group of adventurers had followed our lead), Danny says, "Alright guys, now all you have to do it swim across the pool, and scale the wall up that waterfall." Is he crazy? He must be kidding. Well, he wasn't. "Wait, um, Danny... How are we supposed to get down?" I ask innocently. "Yeah... you have to jump... Don't worry it's easy. I'll go first." And with that, Danny dives in the clear water, surfacing on the other side. He clings onto a few rocks, pulling himself out of the water. He places one foot in a non-existent foothold, and hoists himself up into the middle of the flowing water. He continues climbing, moving gracefully from "foothold" to "foothold", and soon ends up on the "flatter" part of the waterfall. From the top, he encourages us to join him, luring us by exclaiming about the beauty that lies ahead. Ryn goes next, climbing the waterfall with such ease I actually convince myself it'll be easy.

Closer to the waterfall, I can now see that the first rock is straight up... completely vertical. Looking up from my five-foot-two stature, the waterfall seems to continue up forever, Danny and Ryn now looking like small ants. I try once, putting my foot where I think it will be most secure, but quickly decide Daniel should go before me. Watching him, I again convince myself of the ease with which I will now climb the vertical waterfall. With my left foot in the foothold, I try to find a place to secure my hands, but I am at a complete loss. Danny shouts from the top that it will be ok, that I should take a leap of faith. And if not, he says, you'll just fall backwards into the water. As appealing as that sounds, I tried harder to secure myself. At one point, my right foot lifted an inch or so off the bottom rock, but after feeling my heart drop to my knees, I instantly put it back down. By this point, it's been about two minutes of trying, and the line of strangers behind me, waiting to climb the waterfall, continues to grow. But instead of growing impatient, they encourage me. "What's her name?" one man asks Karlee. "Liliana," she responds. "Liliana, you can do it!" His words inspire me to try again. Danny, Ryn and Daniel stand at the top of the infinite waterfall, shouting words that should have made me take that leap of faith. But still I struggle. After another minute of lifting my foot an inch and putting it back down, I make up my mind - to give up. I take my hands off the wall, lowering my left foot back to safety. I look up in pain at my friends at the top. Danny sees my pain, exclaiming, "one more time! Just try one more time!" Ok. One more time.

I put my left foot back in the hole and take a staggered breath in. "Look at me and only me" Danny says quietly above the hubbub of excitement behind me. With that, I take the leap. I lifted my right foot of the rock and manage to get my knee up. I pull myself onto my two knees and try to push myself up, but I immediately feel my security slip away. As I began to hyperventilate, I reached out, finding Danny's outstretched hand waiting to pull me. I find myself on top of the waterfall, hands shaking, knees shaking, heart thumping, but looking at the most beautiful pool of all with the most gorgeous waterfall basking in a ray of sunlight. I fall into Daniel and Ryn's arms, Karlee shouting words of love and excitement from the bottom, and I'm happy to be sharing this moment with people I love. After spending a moment on top, it's time to descend, and I leap off the waterfall, the cool water enveloping my entire body.

The next day is our first day with Darrell - a day of clowning and Lecoq. We walk through the church courtyard, exploring leading with different parts of our bodies - the knees, the pelvis, the chest and the head. We explore the seven different levels of energy with which you can explore a space, from the extreme slowness and instability of drunkenness to the largess of opera. After discovering those levels and those parts of our bodies, we pick a picture of a mask that speaks to us, and create a character. Are they a 'yes' or 'no' person? What is their "go-to phrase"? After about an hour, Darrell asks us to show our characters in little two- or three-person scenes. In the first round of the exercise, he needed a third person to enter the scene. It's hard to go first. No one was going up. I rose from my chair and entered the scene. No one oohed or aahed. No one laughed. I didn't receive a compliment or a pat on the back. But I sat down after the scene, content. It might not have been a waterfall, yet was just as terrifying, and knowing that I had allowed myself to take that leap of faith was enough satisfaction for me.