It’s been a little over a week since I stood on stage at Milwaukee’s Listen to Your Mother Show. It was a day full of excitement and nerves and appreciation for the women around me. I’ll post a video of me reading my piece eventually. Until then, there’s this.
Before
In a dance room turned dressing room, ladies lean over a barre towards mirrors. Primping. Preparing. Mascara and lipstick. Then me. And, my hair. Hot-rolled and set for too long, it hangs and then flips and threatens to behave all Medusa-like, minus the snaky tongues.
This would not be good for pictures.
I fall to the familiar pony tail and pity the photographer who tries hard with small talk to catch me unawares. He does not know my curse with the camera: sleepy eyes, ridiculous smile or none at all. Remember that family photo when I was fifteen? I do: heavy lids, drunken grin. My mother and sister and I never laughed so hard, that cathartic low-in-the-throat giggle that rose to guffaw then fell into tears. I think of this as I look away from the camera, try to summon that silliness, look back and smile again. It’s all I can do to ignore the click-click-click of the shutter.
He says he got a few good ones, I thank him and immediately text my sister, The worst is over.
During
The curtain closed, we take our seats on stage and hear the audience taking theirs. Conversations rise in waves just beyond us; nothing is decipherable. I reapply lipstick I’ve smuggled in–once, twice, until finally I realize, like my hair, they won’t be studying my lips. They’ll be listening.
Then, as theater lights go down and stage lights go up, I think of my husband, my kids, the friend I have not seen for months. When my name is called, I am grateful I remember how to breathe, to walk, to read. I force myself to slow down. Because this moment, it’s important.
My mother, I say. My son. . . . my daughter. . . . and me.
After
Someone tells me that my husband beamed while I was on stage, and I feel a lump in my throat. I remember how my son’s chest puffed with pride in the moments after the show and my daughter looked at me with a new expression. Not because I was some superstar now, but because I, who am quiet and introspective much of the time, pushed aside the curtain for a moment and told my story about the time I caught my mother unawares, and how that stuck with me. That moment retold to family and friends and to that one woman whose feet must have tingled and heart surely pounded as she whispered, Yes. Me too.
