From the Audience

     There's something horribly unnerving about watching your child perform. I was always so terrified of being in front of an audience that even today I can taste the stage fright. Merely presenting in class froze me. No way could I have produced a memorized line or recreated dance steps for a crowd. As a young careerist I deliberately chose a position within the law that required me to be "on" in front of a live courtroom day in and day out, with little advance preparation. I was a courtroom prosecutor, for a busy municipal court in a large urban environment. Two years of that made me able to think, speak, argue and win on my feet. Eight years of every day on my feet in front of four different classes of junior high kids added to my spontaneity. So today, I am less nervous about public speaking or performing than many adults, but when my daughter did it? I was right back in that grade school knee-knocking stammering gibberish mode. 

     This last weekend she performed a small role and danced and sang in the chorus of her high school's sold out and very well received musical. For weeks I had been nervous for her, and at dress rehearsal I was a mess.  But not her. From her first step onto the stage, I knew she was going to be fine. She danced flawlessly, spoke her lines dramatically and with perfect inflection, and sang so clearly I could pick out her voice. All with excitement, electricity, and the sort of glow that makes the audience pick her out of the crowd on stage.  

    It's that moment when the notion that your child isn't you is drilled home.  

    I know she is her own person, and has been since her first sour squint up at me, but moms can fool themselves that there is a degree of control over their child's personality makeup. We want to believe that this is our chance to right wrongs we made, to make different choices than we did, to somehow create in our child a better, less flawed version of ourselves, one that will practice the piano without being nagged, or will know the secrets to being the favorite at the lunch table, or will be neither queen bee nor bullied by one. Oh to have the chance to do junior high again knowing what I know now! I would ignore the silly girls who bloomed early and ended up worn out by college, be nicer to the boys who could barely work up the nerve to meet my eyes but turned out to be kind and interesting men, and pay attention in history, because, man! That stuff is really interesting!  And if I could just tell her all this - if only she could learn it from me -  I am sure she would not have to relearn it herself, right? Yea, no. 

    Hopefully I can make the learning as free from tears as possible, but if not I will be here to wipe them away.  Watching her on stage I certainly needed someone to wipe mine. The vicarious joy of her performance was only part of it. The swell of emotion was mostly from the idea that she is hers, not mine; she is the captain of that bold ship on seas I wish I could chart, but I know I must be content with merely offering a map. Knowing my daughter, she will smile sweetly, say "Thanks, mom," and then set it down somewhere forgotten like the shoes she just took off.  And she will be fine. Bold, dramatic, compassionate, funny, lovely. And very very fine.

Today is the day

     Today is the day I am going to start loving where I am in my life. I have always been a reasonably happy person, but for as long as I can remember that has been shadowed by what I think of as the "other shoe" syndrome; as in, when is it going to drop and change everything. As though I am not somehow entitled to have everything go the right way. As John Green says, life is not a wish-granting machine.

      BUT. . . . I have always been pretty cheerful, while waiting and worrying about what was going to happen next. Or whether I was good enough. Or whether I was a good mom. Or whether I would ever stop worrying about money. Or whether BLAH BLAH BLAH you get it. So today is the day I don't anymore. Worry, that is. I will stay cheerful.  I will also start accepting whatever I am given and being thrilled at my gifts, especially my family and my well-being, and know that this is where I am supposed to be right now.

      If it sounds like I have been sitting on a little spiritual whoopee cushion, you wouldn't be far off. I have been listening to my sister-in-law who may be the most joyful and loving person I have ever known. I have gotten my metaphorical kick in the rear and am looking around with fresh eyes. The universe is unfolding just as it should, as Max Ehrmann wrote in the Desiderata, and it is up to me to accept it, whether or not it is clear to me. I also have to believe that it holds good things for me.  So today is the first day for these things:

Acceptance of whatever is planned for me.
Understanding that I am capable of great, and good, things.
Appreciation of the beauty that is everywhere around us.

   If you would like to get your universe in line, or at least feel a tremendous lift in your spiritual possibilities, or just hear a little more about what she is all about, check out Darlene Marie at TheSoulSpeaker.com.

     For me, for today, I will love my life.

In My Life

I have a blog. I do because, well, everyone seems to, but more importantly because I like to write. The act of putting words on paper seems to fulfill their promise. In many things we envision, the potential is so much grander than the actuality, but somehow a finished written work can be better than its parts. It seems to me that in the recording of events they become more real. Not sure sometimes that I need my life to become more real, but there is room for the emotions to latch onto something permanent. Anyway, I now have a blog.

The name of my blog is In My Life, at least it is for now. It's hard to name something eponymous without sounding smug, and frankly I am not sure I nailed that. It comes from one of my favorite Beatles' songs, from the Rubber Soul album (which by the way I was too young to actually own at the time, but I often snuck into my cousin's room to stare at the album cover and try to figure out what had happened to the super cute British Invasion Beatles of 1964; who were these distorted looking ruffians? Clearly I was not yet a fan of the long-hair movement.)
     
       

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

In my life I have loved a great deal of things, and as the song goes, some have gone and some remain. Our consciousness retains them all, and shapes what we say and do each day based on the ways we experienced them, and the way we choose to move forward with or without them.  In the same way that the same two parents can produce children with virtually identical childhood experiences but who approach life with different attitudes, we can take the same conversation or adventure and it will become life-changing or a drag. I usually aim for the former. It makes for a busy interior life, always finding meaning and positivity in stuff that happens, but the alternative is a bit of a downer, and I have never been accused of being that. 

So what persuades a person that there are others out there just dying to look though the window of my soul? I don't really believe that, I just like to write. Maybe if you like to read, and have some time to kill, you will like In My Life. It may include the things I love: travel, family life, cooking, history, adventure, my daughter. The things I write about are necessarily shaped by the way I see the world, and the things I have done in it. It may be to your liking; sometimes it isn't even to mine. But it makes me happy, and helps hold things that are dear to me near to me. As the floppy version of the Fab Four sang, " . . . I know I'll never lose affection, For people and things that went before . . "