The day after Mother's Day

Me and Mom on Mother's Day, 2012, her last

I couldn't write on Mothers Day, the feelings too raw, the wounds still unclosed. Yes, even here, more than a year out and counting. So I gave myself the day to muddle through.

I shined at breakfast - lox and bagels produced by my offspring and husband - but then faded midday. In spite of abundant sunshine beaming in through our windows, the winter's accumulation of grime rendering them near opaque white in the brilliance, I took to my bed in the early afternoon.

"Mom gets to nap on Mothers Day!" I declared, making it sound fun. But really it was a retreat from the empty space my mother should have occupied.

Ethan was mad that I had slept though our potential stroll through the park. Instead we had a rushed half jog along Riverside to Jake's playing field, peeling off as we got there, me to accompany Jake to his weekly baseball game, Dan joining Ethan on the basketball courts nearby.

I love my son dearly, but must admit, watching special needs sports is simultaneously like watching paint dry and having your heart ripped open repeatedly. The pace is glacial, the triumphs beautiful and painful. I sat on my blanket in the sun and baked myself into a semblance of peace.

Afterwards, waiting outside the boat basin cafe for our table to come up and Ethan and Dan to appear (hopefully somewhat concurrently, and in the right order) Jacob befriended a dog named Sophie and talked to me about classical music. He picked up a stick and wanted to conduct violins "like Squidward" so I lazily googled "violin concerto" planning to let YouTube entertain my boy. I had forgotten the landmine there.

My mother loved music. My childhood home had been filled with it, from classical to folk to jazz and then rock as her musical taste evolved through the 60s and 70s.

My mother's amethyst and glass beads moved with a sweet heaviness around my neck as I swayed to the tinny Tchaikovsky pouring out of my iPhone. My mother also loved sunshine and the water, flowering trees and children. I was surrounded by the things she loved, as I often am, she who took such joyous bites of out the scrumptious world.

The rest of my boys arrived with perfect timing and we were seated at an outer table overlooking the sunset river, just as I had desired. Ethan was a bit grumpy surveying the menu, declaring nothing to be quite to his liking and questioning why we had to eat there.

"Because I love it here. It makes me happy to eat outdoors and by the water, and it's Mother's Day so I get to choose." I was trying not to whine. I really didn't want a scene.

For once he took my answer without a fight and resigned himself to a dinner of calamari and fries, supplemented with bites of everyone else's dishes.

I then did something I rarely do, I ordered a "Mommy drink" something silly and frozen and alcoholic, because dammit it was Mother's Day. It came with three maraschino cherries on top which Ethan devoured with abandon, his first time encountering such beasts. 

"Is this what they mean when they say 'and a cherry on top?'" he asked. Yup.

We walked back home through the park as the twilight thickened, the air heavy with the promise of a soon-coming summer. Up ahead the the George Washington Bridge's majestic sway cut through the haze, spanned over to the other shore.

"Look, Grandma's favorite bridge"  I pointed out. But I didn't have to. They knew.

They all knew.

I Listened to a Bunch of Mothers (and some non-mothers and a cool dude) on Mothers Day

So, the second annual NYC Listen to Your Mother Show has come and gone. I would say it completely dominated my life for the past month, but that wouldn't be quite true.  It had a lot of competition from my Uncle's decline and death and Jake's IEP and Ethan's... well, you get the idea.

But it DID dominate the awesome in my life. And having something major and all-consuming to do on the first Mothers Day without my mother was, frankly, a godsend. I know I have just side-stepped the pain, that it will hit at some point, but if I can put it off just a little longer, that's fine with me right now.

(I haven't even finished my "first Mothers Day without my mother" post which is sitting half-written on my computer. Every time I go to it and see the picture of the two of us last year on Mothers Day I just get too sad, and let myself get distracted by Facebook and the Twitterverse.)

The show was... well, it's hard to find words to describe it... wonderful... glorious... moving, inspiring, side-splittingly funny, heart-rending and thought provoking, all in turn and often simultaneously.

And I can say this without seeming conceited because I was just a small cog in the great works of it all. What an awesome talented bunch of folks up there on the stage and behind the scenes. It was an overflowing vat of wonderful, all around.

My co-producer & directors - Holly Rosen Fink, Amy Wilson, and Shari Simpson - were amazing to work with. They all really carried the day when I was less than my 100% capable self, due to my mother's dying in January just as the production was ramping up.

And the cast... well, you're just going to have to watch the videos when they come out on YouTube soon.

The experience on Sunday was lovely for everyone, in the cast and audience alike. And if you weren't able to be there, I hope you can come next year. And if you're not near NYC there's probably a LTYM near you - find it!

And if you're one of my many dear friends who was producing and/or directing one of the 24 LTYMs around the country this year - yay! Can't wait to see YOUR city on video, too!

But until then... here's a taste - what I read (an edited version of this post from last year):

Planets

Tonight my son Ethan and I ran a little excursion after dinner. Just the two of us. When we walked out the door it was not quite seven o'clock. These days that means a sky full of light.

Added to the ridiculously unseasonable warmth, us stepping out on a March eve in mere t-shirts, and I was hard pressed to remember it wasn't a languorous summer evening, but yet a school night, and thus we had to execute our errand quickly and hurry home.

Besides, I had promised the upstairs neighbors with whom I had parked Ethan’s twin brother Jacob that we'd be back within the hour, and I sorely did not want to abuse my favor currency with them. Friends who are comfortable taking on Jacob are few and far between, precious as diamonds.

Jake himself was delirious to be upstairs with the neighbors and their white terrier, with whom he is nearly as obsessed as he is with our cat. Jacob calls these animals 'my best friends' which, though it breaks my heart, is true.

Ethan and I were on a mission.

We absolutely HAD to go to the bookstore tonight because he had finished the last book of a particular series in our possession the day before, and thus we were now in the dreaded state of NOTHING TO READ.

Ethan is in high, silly spirits as we walk the busy Broadway blocks to our local Barnes & Noble. He skips and darts around me walking down the street, as much crazed mosquito as boy.

"Look at all the people out in the evening!" Ethan proclaims with wonderment, and I dive again into pointless regret that we are not living anything like the life I had imagined, filled with evening family strolls and nighttime explorations of the city.

Jacob does not like to leave home all that much, and to be out with Jacob and Ethan together is most often a form of torture. I must have some wealth of resilience in my bones, some stored reserve of calm and good mothering at the ready.

There are days when I can and days when I can't and today was decidedly in the impossible column.

<^>^<^>

Mission accomplished, book in hand, Ethan and I pushed through the store's glass doors into a city become night, the sky's blue glow nearly extinguished, the streets bathed in yellow-orange incandescence.

Turning west to walk the two short blocks to Riverside and home, the brightest of stars appeared in the overhead sky.

Not stars, planets: Venus and Jupiter blazing in the deep cerulean sky that slices between the high-rises, thankfully not obliterated. These two gods are in a much celebrated love fest this month, a rare conjunction.

And yet, while they appear to be quite close, kissing distance tonight, they are in fact not truly crossing at all. It's just an artifact of our perspective, the way they look from here on our own mudball.

They are in fact deeply distant from each other, Venus, sunward, drawing us in toward the heart of our solar system, while Jupiter circles round us from the outside.

I do not like that my children are distant planets, each locked into their own distinct orbits, occasionally approaching but never truly crossing paths, both merely circling 'round me, their sun.

How I wish instead they were more like a double star system, like so many of the other twins we know: circling each other, at times closer, at times more distant but always in orbit, one about the other; connected, entwined, hurtling through space as one.

But I must, as ever, resist the siren pull of the "what ifs," of that dark matter that draws me to its crushing embrace.

I must instead stay here, in the now, in the track of my actual sons.

The one who lives on planet Autism.

And the one who does not.

Time to Listen to Your Mother again!

Yes! It's true! 

New York City's Listen to Your Mother show will be back this May.

I will once again be producing, and working with a great team: returning Director Amy Wilson, and Associate Producer Holly Rosen Fink, and joined this year by two more wonderful writer/blogger/media gurus: Associate Producer Nancy Friedman and Assistant Director Shari Simpson.

Last year’s show was such a resounding success (selling out weeks before the performance) that we needed a bigger venue for this year’s show – much, MUCH bigger…

And thus we are thrilled to announce that in 2013, New York City’s Listen to Your Mother show will be performed at:

Symphony Space

on Sunday, May 12th (Mother’s Day)

at 5 PM

So this year on Mother’s Day… spend the DAY with your family but the EVENING with your friends and us!

(Tickets are even already on sale, here!)

If you don't know what the Listen to Your Mother show is? It's a national series of original live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother's Day.

If you don’t know Symphony Space? Located at 2537 Broadway (at 95th St.) it is a pre-eminent multi-disciplinary performing arts center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, renowned for world-class music, film, stage, dance and literary productions and events.

We are thrilled to be bringing LTYM:NYC to a whole new level – and larger audience – here this May.

And if you’re interested in being in the show, come visit the LTYM:NYC website next week… where we’ll be announcing the call for auditions!

Also if you are not in the New York City tri-state area* and want to either BE in or SEE a Listen to Your Mother show, and you live in or near these other 23 places?

Austin . Boulder . Chicago . Denver . Eastern Iowa . Indianapolis . Kansas City . Madison . Milwaukee . New York City . Northern Utah . NW Arkansas . NW Indiana . Oklahoma City . Plumas County, CA . Providence . Raleigh-Durham . Sacramento . San Francisco . Spokane . St. Louis . Twin Cities, MN . Washington, DC . Wilmington

You're in luck! LTYM is coming to your town! So go to the LTYM national site, then find and click over to your city's site on the "Local Shows" pull-down list to see what's happening there. Many cities are already setting up auditions - so exciting!

*If you are like me you can nevermore read those words: "Tri-State Area" without hearing them in a funny-fakey German accent - thanks to Phineas & Ferb.

This is Not a Post

This is not a real blog post.

I just don't have time for that right now. Neither the time nor the energy. So I'll just sketch things out. You can fill in the details.

I thought things would slow down after Listen to Your Mother had come and gone.

Not hardly. There's always something. All the little things I didn't do in those last frantic weeks of preparing for the show? Still needed to be done.

Mountains of laundry. Sinkloads of dishes. A living room that looks like a toystore threw up in it. The house elves did not come in and magically take care of all that shit.

And in the midst of it all I decamped for an overnight to Philly to hear THEIR own LTYM.  A one day road trip with my producing partner Holly, the Culture Mom, which couldn't have been more fun.

The wonderful LTYM - Philly Producing Team

But I returned to the same workload I had left, and then some. (Dad in charge. Need I say more?)

And then there was Mothers Day. More work. A brunch in New Jersey with the in-laws.

If this were a post I would tell you how tough it was this year on Mothers Day, being with my mother, who is a mere ghost of herself. She has forgotten who nearly everybody is. She could barely walk, gets less steady on her feet each passing week, yet won't use the rollator walker - of which she has THREE - out of stubborn pride.

Mothers Day

It makes me really sad to be around her. I want my Mommy back. Even the befuddled, filter-less mom I've been taking care of these past few years was still feisty, funny. I'll take her.

This subdued old woman who just sits and vaguely smiles with nothing to say and no idea where she is or why she's there? Just breaks my heart.

She appreciated the sunshine and greenery on the backyard deck. She smiled at our niece's toddler twin boys who so remind us all of toddler Ethan & Jake, simultaneously so long ago and just a blink away.

But she no longer plays with my boys. Doesn't know how to talk to them, their interests incomprehensible to her now limited comprehension.

If this were a post I would tell you about how Jacob has developed a whole new panoply of annoying habits this spring, including a frequent maniacal loud giggling laugh that we call "the silly laugh" because calling it "the maniacal creepy laugh" is just too... creepy.

I would tell you how the medicine that was helping Ethan to focus all year started to make him paranoid and angry so we had to stop it, and now we're back to square one.

I would tell you.

But I'm too tired to write that post. You'll have to fill in the blanks. I'm sure you can.

Now, sit down here and take a little nap with me. There, that's nice. And when we wake up we can fold some laundry. And I will tell you...
 

I am linking this up with Just Write, because this was ... just written.

LTYM-NYC has made a busy bee out of me.

Noticed it was a fairly quiet month on my blog this February? Yeah, me too. Sorry. I’ve actually been very busy, just not HERE.

I’ve spent a lot of time THERE, working on the NYC Listen to Your Mother Show, gearing up for its first annual appearance this upcoming May. (The 6th at 2pm at the JCC. Go HERE for details. Tickets on sale soon – but not yet.)

This week? Three glorious, wonderful, exhausting, grueling, uplifting, wrenching days of auditions. Sitting in a little room with my wonderful partners - the director, Amy of When Did I Get Like This and associate producer Holly, The Culture Mom - being amazed and humbled by the outpouring of stories brought to us.

And, of course, this being New York City where space is at a premium, we held our auditions in a big professional casting and rehearsal studio. Which was… interesting, as big Broadway shows were being cast and / or rehearsed all around us. Which meant that big Broadway voices were belting out showtunes accompanied by boisterous piano plating throughout the audition process.

You’d think a place like that would have better soundproofing wouldn’t you? Well, think again.  But we got really good at tuning out all the distractions and tuning in to our people.

And I do think for some of the folks who were not performers (maybe especially those who had traveled in from distant ‘burbs and beyond) it was a thrill to be waiting for their auditions in the same halls as professional actors and dancers with Broadway credits to their names.

And now? Auditions are DONE!

And now, the very, very painful choices need to be made. 

We saw over 50 writer/readers. (What were we thinking?!) Wonderful stories flooded our ears and eyes. Woman after woman - and two men - came in and laid their hearts and kishkas on the table (that’s “guts” for you non-Yiddish speakers).

We could probably just drop all of the auditioners names in a hat and pull out a dozen or so and have a great show. But you know we’re not going to do that, right? We’re going to think and talk and agonize; and think and talk and agonize some more.

And sweat blood, as we move names from yes to maybe and back again, our hearts breaking a little each time, as we sacrifice an individual piece we love in order to make the show stronger, as a whole.

Creating flow, creating a beautiful quilt in the pattern of motherhood, one lovely square at a time. (Full credit to Amy for this metaphor. It has been very useful as we work together to choose the big and little stories that we’ll stitch together to create our show.)

Thank you so much to everyone who bravely came forth to share your stories with us. We appreciated each and every one of you. We loved hearing your stories. You truly were ALL stars.

And if you were thinking about coming to audition and didn't; if you thought "Why would anyone want to hear MY unimportant story?" -- please think again.

Come see our show on May 6th. If you live in another city or area of the country where there is a LTYM sister show, by all means go see that one! If you can't come in person, watch the videos when they come out shortly thereafter.

And next year?

Grab your story.

The one that scares you because it is so honest, because you are so "out there" when you tell it.  The one about which you think "Can I really say this?"

The one that makes you laugh or cry, yourself, when you read it.

Bring it to us.

Stand up and read it out loud.

We're giving motherhood a microphone.

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

We want your laughter and your tears. We want your unvarnished truth.

Yes, YOU.

Bring it on!



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Listen To Your Mother-NYC's Call to Audition!

Y'all may recall my announcement this past fall, that I was going to be a key part of the team bringing LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER - the national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother’s Day - to New York City for the first local production here, right? OK, if your memory needs jogging, here it is: Listen To Your Mother!

Well, kids, things are now heating up big time...

We have a date and a space and a charitable cause, and now we need a cast. So that means... AUDITIONS! ... and that means YOU! Yes, you! No, don't look over your shoulder, I'm not talking to them (well, I may be talking to them too, but that's not the point here!) I am talking to YOU, my friend...

If you are a writer, and you write about mothers (being one, having one, or any mom-role person who has been in your life) then come audition to be in the show. While many of us are also bloggers, you don't have to be one to participate (but if you are it's a great way to promote your blog!)

Here's the skinny on auditions:

The show is on Sunday, May 6, 2012, at 2 in the afternoon, at the Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Family Auditorium at the JCC in Manhattan (on the Upper West Side).

Auditions will be held on the following dates by appointment only:

Sunday, February 26 th    11am - 2pm

Monday, February 27 th     6pm - 9pm

Tuesday, February 28th   10am - 1pm

To schedule an audition, email listentoyourmothernyc@gmail.com. Please include your name and your availability during the time slots listed above. Auditions are being held at a convenient midtown Manhattan (west side) studio. The exact location and other details will be sent with your confirmed appointment time.

Choose a piece you really love, and that takes about 3 to 5 minutes to read.  While you don’t have to be a mom (or even a woman) to participate, your piece MUST be primarily about motherhood in some way, and the words must be your own.

I really want to hear your stories of MOTHERHOOD, the good, the bad and the ugly; the funny and the sad; the profound and the profane. (Yes, you can curse, this isn't a kid's show, it's for US!)

That's it! Easy! (And if you want to see what sort of pieces have made it into the show before, you will want to watch the past Listen To Your Mother shows.)

The time commitment if you are chosen for the show? Not that much: two rehearsals TBD in March/April, a pre-performance run-through at the JCC, and the 2 p.m. performance itself on May 6^th. Also, while it's not REQUIRED that you come out for a celebratory drink with us after the show, I'll be damn disappointed if you don't.

All that said, I am warning you in advance that there are going to be readers and works that I absolutely LOVE that will not make it into the show this year because:

a) it's not my decision, alone, to make; I am but one voice on a team, and

b) we need balance, to represent a wide spectrum of mothering voices and experiences, and sometimes the specific wonderful has to be tossed to serve the show as a whole.

Please don't let the possibility of rejection hold you back from auditioning. At the very minimum you'll get 10 minutes of my undivided attention and a hug at the end (if you want one). 

Also you should know that even *I* - the PRODUCER - am not guaranteed a spot on the final roster. Like everyone else (with the exception of our MC and Director, the amazing Amy Wilson), I am also going to be auditioning, and might not make the final cut. 

Finally, if you're feeling at all nervous or anxious about (gulp) standing up and reading your work in front of (horrors) live human beings? You should read a wonderfully encouraging essay by my friend Stacey Connor of the blog Is There Any Mommy Out There?  This year she's reprising her role as the Director/Producer of the Spokane, Washington LTYM show, and wrote this about the experience of being a writer, reading: A word on stage fright and storytelling.

Also, if you want to read the more formal (more informative, much less chatty) version of the call to auditions, come to our local Listen To Your Mother - NYC Website, and read the official post, here:
NYC Listen to Your Mother show CALL for AUDITIONS!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to begin this audition process, to be sitting in front of you, meeting you, and hearing all your stories. Bring it on!

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