My Day

It’s my first Mother’s Day as a mom, and one of my gifts is to not be with my baby.  As strange and even unsettling as the idea seemed at first, all seems right with the world as she naps at home and I sit at a Starbucks with the latest draft of my screenplay spread across my desktop.  Her daddy made sure that we celebrated well last night and this morning, and now he’s making sure that I am not only a mom, but also my whole pre-mom self.   I used to brag that I could write with my baby on my lap, but now that she’s just about to crawl and really taking the whole world in, I want to take her to the zoo and to the art museum and to watch the ants crawl in our backyard whenever she’s awake... and the I quickly do freelance work while she naps.  That leaves my own writing feeling a bit neglected.  But not this afternoon.

Minutes before curtain at my play a couple of weekends ago, I said to the director and good friend, David, “Is it strange that I’m so relaxed right now?”  He shook his head, even though he looked a little surprised.  It was their opening night after all.  I continued, “It’s just that when we were at your place twenty minutes ago with both babies wanting dinner and three minutes to get myself ready, everything felt so chaotic.  Now, people are about to see my work, and I feel like I’m at a spa.”  Having stayed home with his little girl for the first 8 months while also work full-time, he totally got it.

On this special day, I’d like to say that I love being a mom.  I love it more than I ever could have imagined.  I also love doing what I do, and I just want to express relief that there’s a tiny bit of room in this crazy world for both.  Now back to that script.