in the wings
by bam
i wasted little time this week playing out my role as wholly dispensable mama in the wings.
on sunday, a whopping five days before the curtain so much as budged, i stocked up in groceryland, filled my cart with all the things a young thespian would need to stoke his flames. he tagged along, of course, not willing to succumb to my uncharted whims. he edited and amended as we rolled, my 5-11 mop of curls and me, throwing this and thats into the basket, willy-nilly.
ever since, i have been tossing all those duly-carted essentials—the steak, the frappuccino, the calamari, even—right back in the direction of his open gullet.
i am, after all, attending to the care and feeding of a boy about to be a butcher. tonight’s the night he fiddles. on a stage. in the glare of blinding lights. before a wad of strangers, ever-scrutinizing eighth graders, and even, gasp, a girl whom he might consider not only smart, but that’s all i’ll say.
and i, the mama who will be biting nails, slunk low in my cushioned seat, i will be left helpless, more or less. there is nothing, people, for a mama or a papa or anyone to do when it comes to watching one you love take to center stage. no matter what the stage, or what the stage of life.
all week, i have been pondering this latest twist in our equation. it is, like watching little backpack toddle up the giant steps to yellow schoolbus, yet another noodge beyond the nest. mama bird watching fledgling beat wings against the wind, catch the updraft, soar. see the world from vantage seen only when you fly on your own power.
and so, all week, i’ve done a little wing thing all my own: i’ve flapped, all right. flapped plenty. in little ways that no one’s really noticed. but i knew. i was flapping in the hopes that somehow i could build the breeze to keep him from wobbling up on stage.
i have lobbed vitamins by the handful toward his mouth. i have whipped up every dinner that he loves. and splurged on scrambled eggs and cheese tucked in cardboard pocket (he claimed the protein would do him well as he reached long arm deep into the freezer case). i have even—shh, don’t tell a single one of his uber-dude friends—tucked a love note or three in hiding places he was bound to come upon. underneath the toothpaste was one, should you need to know.
just now, as i tiptoed past his door, where on the other side he sleeps, i paused and whispered little prayer. God, give him strength. a mother’s mumbling in the half-light of the early morn. casting vespers as if a safety net. as if that will keep him from tumbling, say, through the stage floor trapdoor.
in the end, of course, it’s all just propping.
he, my not-so-little guy, will be alone on stage, belting out tradition, spouting lines with all the gusto he can muster.
this is all brand new. never before, not counting the piano recital where i held my breath and moved my fingers just as he was trying to do up at the front of the cavernous rented auditorium with really sad acoustics, have i seen him on a stage, alone, moving his mouth.
i have a feeling it won’t be the last.
but now, this time, i am feeling fully the fact that he is off without me, without any earthly anyone for that matter. i cannot hold his hand. oh lord, he would swat me with his glued-on, rubber-banded beard at the very thought. i cannot whisper lines into his ear. and i sure can’t quell the rumblies in his tummy.
i must interject, interrupt my blathering: i am not, not one bit, the stage mama you might make me out to be, despite the whispered mama thoughts that i’m confessing here. i’ve not set foot in the theater, not for weeks and weeks. i just lurch to curb, load in carpool, and meander on my merry way. and it’s not that i’m worried. not yet anyway, not until i’m slunked and peeking through my fingers.
this is all just the mama voodoo that we of certain ilk are wont to do. we all but wiggle our noses in hopes that we can keep the twinkling light from freezing, fizzling there in front of tens of hundreds. or at least a few occupied rows.
be not confused: he will be wholly himself. afloat. at sea upon the waves of his own making. a child turning man, all eyes on him. and, up to now, he is mister cool.
we have all, though, been the mama in the wings. we have all loved someone completely. but not been able to slip inside that someone’s skin. not been able to run the meeting, to take the heat, to grab the mike and lead the national anthem, so help ’em God.
there is a line, there is always a line. it is where life takes finger and runs it through the sand. then stands back and beckons, cross here. be your own person.
you know it’s coming when you’re the one who won’t be crossing, when you’re the one left standing just this side of over there, hands clasped politely right behind the tag on the back of your pants.
but when you are right here, at the edge of that line, you find yourself doing all sorts of silly things: vitamins, as if they’ll make him not forget his verse. delmonico steak (whatever slice of beast that is), in breath-held hope that it will put some pink in his most pinchable butcher’s cheeks. prayers to the patron saint of butterflies, begging for deliverance from that belly-flipping annoyance.
most of all you blink through teary eyes, knowing, praying, hoping, that all the love you’ve breathed into those great big lungs will come belting out in song and verse that tells the world, but most of all the owner of the lungs, “hey, kid, you’ve arrived. you crossed the line. you’re out here on your own. you’re somethin’ else, my friend.”
and then you leap to your feet and wish you could charge the stage. but you won’t. because you’re the one waiting in the wings. it’s not about you, mama. it’s about the boy who, all on his very own, became the butcher.
silly me, i get watery-eyed just thinking about. but what about you? what about the times in your life where you weren’t the one on stage, flying under your own power; you were the one in the wings, crossing fingers, holding breath? how did you breathe air into the lungs that would be expelling on their own? what voodoo did you do? or, if you were the one under glare of lights, how were you propped up by the hands that no one else could see?
“break a leg” to that curly-haired young man who we know will soar — and best of luck to you, mom. you should be so proud.
Let us know how both dramas turn out! The one on the stage, and the one in your head in the audience!
there is something extraordinary, there always is, about watching schoolkids creating theater. i have written about it as a newspaper person, pulled into the drama of the weeks of coalescing, coming together, disparate characters learning to hold each other up, to love each other, in the end. i got a snapshot of that tonight, could feel how they pulled for each other. watched small triumphs, giant ones too. i am always drawn to the unlikely, the shining light coming from the shadows. the girl with the legs in braces managing a fine spirited russian dance. God bless her. the girl i’ve known from synagogue who watches everything so quietly, and who tonight, opened her mouth and sounded something like an angel. she hushed the place. i think everyone in the room knew they were hearing something extraordinary. my own kosher butcher made my heart thump through my chest. it was the uncanniest thing, watching my bearded boy who looked exactly like my grown beloved, very handsome bearded brother. i could only see some of it blurrily, as my eyes were clouded with tears. but it was the whole production, the incredible staging, the attention to poetry and nuance that blew me away. the teachers of children, the teachers who teach the miracle of theatre, the possibility and cumulative triumph of theater, ought to be nationally landmarked. they are treasures. as was all of tonight. that would be my theater review, on deadline, shortly after curtains. thanks for asking carol. thanks, always….
We sit with you in the wings and watch like no other time. No distractions just watching… and we see the future. Kids always seem so grown up some how when they have accepted another character as their own and perform it for an audience. Sounds like the butcher rose to the challenge. I hope he enjoyed the experience. I bet he stands a little taller today.Love to you all.
I found it interesting to read your reflection from yesterday. I have a theatre background, but left it behind years ago. My teen/young adult children never were called to the stage, but theatre has been a metaphor I have often used for reflecting on my everchanging role in their lives. It has helped me keep perspective as to what I am called to do with and for them. I remember well when I spent so much time as the director/stage manager/costumer/prompter and fellow actor. Gradually I have spent more time sitting in the front row sometimes as the playwright (Calling for a rewrite!), sometimes as a critic – evaluating the performances and trying so hard to be objective. This process has helped me resist the intense urge to run up on stage and take on one of roles or go back to directing or stage managing – or God forbid, be a their costumer. Often I am happy just to be an loving and passionately interested audience member – wondering where this play is going. Right now with my two oldest in college, I often see myself as the producer – financially funding the production, but I am not often at the performances – I will be at the closing show for my oldest when she graduates from college next month (the reviews have been solid.) All in all, theatre has been a useful for tool for me to think through what my role can be in my children’s lives….and allowing me to find and understand ways to be part of their lives without running their lives. As always thanks for your prompt to reflect and put into words my own thoughts. Blessings on your budding thespian….it is a wonderful experience for parent and child.
Bravo for the Kosher Butcher!
Barb, Thanks for the update! I can identify with your view through misty-eyes that just appeared as you son walked on stage. I felt such a tug when reading your description of the tiny, unassuming classmate who opens up her mouth on stage and sings like an angel.Lamcal, I LOVED your use of theater as a metaphor for being a parent through the life stages of your (and our) offspring. As The Bard wrote, “All the world is a stage and the men and women merely players.” I think if I had thought of college as a “production” and tuition as my role of “producer” I would have had a lot more fun writing the tuition checks!
LAMCAL whoever you are! I think you should submit the comment you wrote above to the NYTimes as an essay at: parenting@nytimes.com .I say this because I forwarded your comment to a friend of mine who has theatre in her past and a college graduate-to-be in her present and she LOVED what you wrote and passed it on to her husband who passed it on to….you get the idea.
it is all a complicated drama. perhaps we get so caught up in the crossed fingers and the extra protein and the never before, possibly never again treats to support that soaring because the big event, the one we are sort of part of, reminds of us of all the times, of all the millions of moments, most of them maybe only minutes or milliseconds long, our most precious belongings are out there doing, seeking, navigating, choosing while we are definitely in the wings but have no view whatsoever.we cant think about all those tiny moments in the hallways or classrooms or back yards or we couldn’t function. but every once in a while we can let loose with all the magic we can muster and then this love is good for many more moments in the big production … !
Ah, the parental theatre experience! We each do what we can, what we have to, to get through those shows, sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for the wig to fall off and the cue to be missed. Four shows into being a “theatre kid” ours landed the Big Part, the one that really makes a difference. The one where he carried so much of the show that there was no place to hide. How many times did I offer to help review lines or sing songs, all the while silently begging – please practice, please go over your lines, please, please, please, so that when you get up on stage you don’t embarrass yourself, because although I know that would be a true “life lesson” I’m not really sure I know how to put you back together again if that happens. My offers were met with rolled eyes, “I’ll take care of it Mom,” or “I’ve got it! I know what I’m doing!” But still, I doubted. How could he, at 14, know what he was doing? And couldn’t the science lab write up wait? Because the show opens tomorrow night and you need your sleep, or you won’t be able to. . . . “Mom. Enough.”The night the show opened I was busy helping other kids find hats and put on makeup until the very end. I never even saw my own to squeeze his hand and wish him the traditional “break a leg.” I took my seat in the audience. The lights went down, the music came up. There he was, alone on stage, opening the show. And I was awestruck, because he was really, truly wonderful. No wonder he didn’t need me to review lines! His work had been done in rehearsals, at school, perhaps alone in bed before he went to sleep. It was his work, and he’d been telling me that, and I’d been so afraid to believe. Because he was only 14 and how could he know. . . ? Well, somewhere between the rehearsal where he came home full of self-doubt and that last dress rehearsal – somewhere he figured out what he could do. And he decided that he knew. And when the curtain finally went down, his audience knew too.And at 14, even if he never did another show, he found something. And I learned that sometimes it’s OK for me to believe. Ah, the parental theatre experience.
Your writting is always such an inspiration, or something I really need to hear at the time and your timing is perfect. Your stories have made me laugh and cry. Good luck living in the suburbs- it’s really not that bad ,is it? Take care and looking forward to your beautiful stories .