Year: 2014

The Substance of Strangers

Another City Room reject for your enjoyment…  I’ll keep trying.  They’ll bite one day (I hope).
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Dear Diary: 
I moved to New York to sit next to strangers in theatres and cafés—
To mingle with the many dreamers and doers lured onto this island.
In my early years here, I experienced much of that, but without the experience of married life and motherhood I now hold within my soul.  
Now, every outing alone is a resurgence as well as a reminder that I am still the same person with more to share… Something easily lost when the “Frozen” Soundtrack is on repeat. 
Sunday evening, I saw a play alone.  The last of many for a while as I am expecting before the Summer begins.  Needless to say, any time alone is more like a pleasant surprise these days, than anything expected.
I sat next to a lovely older woman, Charlotte, who spends part of her time in Mexico.  I answered all of her questions about my iPad Mini and other comparable tablets and talked about my family (being away from them doesn’t mean they aren’t constantly with me).
After learning I was a playwright who had studied under the writer of the show we were seeing, she said she was very proud of me.  
On my way out, another stranger remarked that I was the most beautiful pregnant woman she had ever seen.
For all the mess people give this city, those that live here sure know how to make a woman feel good and I am forever grateful for the kindness of strangers.

My Passover Taxi Eclipse

I submitted this to NY Times Metro Desk / City Room Blog, but never heard back… So before it’s outdated, I’d like to share the following experience with you…
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Dear Diary:
Monday night was a night like no other night(s).  I was working late, and therefore out later than usual for my seven and a half month pregnant self.  I grappled with taking the subway and then waddling up St. Nicholas to our apartment.  So, while it was a stretch, I decided to spend the money on a cab home to Harlem around 10 o’clock.
Ever since reading Matt Flegenheimer’s piece on the changing culture of Taxi Drivers in the city, I had taken to asking any driver I encountered what their personal experiences were.  The majority American-born drivers of “TAXI” no longer existed.  Most of today’s drivers were immigrants.  The driver-passenger relationship of old had faded away.
I was immediately thrust into the most pleasant and fluid conversation with a rare breed of taxi driver: A non-accented white guy.
I recalled the American born taxi-driver interviewed and photographed for Flegenheimer’s article, whose name I had not imprinted (John Abrahams).  
Maybe it was the impending lunar eclipse, but this trip, I never mentioned it.  
After a collision with a young man as I made my way to the yellow taxi van my “minority” driver drove, we kibitzed like old friends even before I told him where I was going. 
“So other than getting trampled, how was your day?”, he said in his soft spoken professorial tone.
Topics ranged from my friend’s poetry, staying out as one gets older (and while pregnant), and even my hometown of Detroit, where his wife was from.  He was a native New Yorker.  
There were so many questions I wanted to ask him.  I didn’t want the ride home to end.  
I paid, we chatted some more, laughed and I checked his name plate before sliding out the non-traffic side to my doorway:
John Abrahams

Whatever happened to… Figure Skating…

Ok.  I love figure skating.

A lot.

Or used to love it at least.

I have been watching the Winter Olympics in Sochi and it’s just not the same for me.  I don’t know any of these people.  I’ve been out of the game so long.

Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, Kristy Yamaguchi, Brian Boitano, Oksana Baiul, Scott Hamilton, Victor Petrenko, Surya Bonaley, Tara Lipinski…. Sure, throw Tonya Harding in there…

I would say that Michelle Kwan was my all time favorite.  I watched pretty much everything that she did.  Maybe it was an age thing, we were around the same age and she was just so spectacular.  Nancy Kerrigan and Kristy Yamaguchi were women I could look up to as a little girl, Oksana Baiul was so delicate looking, yet so strong.  I loved watching her perform “The Swan”.  By the time Michelle came along, I cheered her on like a would a best friend that I would see the next day at school!

Tara Lipinski seemed to be in and out so quickly, we are the same age, AND she trained in Detroit, so I should have seen her as a hometown hero, but it was all about Michelle Kwan and for me at the time, Ms. Lipinkski seemed to rain on her parade.

The Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding incident happened in my hometown, Detroit, so needless to say, it was even more scandalous and awful.  Bad enough that Tonya did what she did, but Detroit… really.  The city didn’t need anymore negativity, Ms. Harding… Thanks.

I had pretty much stopped watching by the time Johnny Weir came on the scene, but I did see his documentary and would definitely add him to my list.  He’s a pretty funky guy and a phenomenal athlete for his generation as well.

My daughter seemed to enjoy it when I turned it out and started spinning around the room.  Since she loves dancing, Figure Skating and Ice Dancing was definitely fun for her to watch!

So while it’s time to cheer on another generation, nothing beats the forever stars in my heart like my Figure Skating Olympic Champions.

What are your favorite Olympic memories?

Mourning Motherhood : Sex and the City Style

Dressed in Black, they headed to a baby shower, to mourn the loss of Laney, a friend who had left the single NYC life behind, married a Wall Street banker and moved to Connecticut.  Charlotte was of course excited and respectful of all the baby shower duties, so it only made sense that she felt the sting of her baby name being stolen. Which is exactly why you don’t tell your baby names to other people…

By the end of the episode, Mama Laney, facing a mommy-crisis, was near her infamous strip tease, but couldn’t get her supportive pregnancy clothes off, leaving her fumbling on a pedestal in a room full of semi-drunk strangers.  Instead of being the life of the party, she was the pregnant woman who should have just stayed home with her hormones, ranting about not recognizing herself in the mirror.

This anti-motherhood sentiment spreads far and wide as young independent women fear being tied down to anything or anyone, desperate to be what they dreamed of as little girls.  
Maybe I witness it more in New York.  I am one of the few of my friends having children here, and of those women, I am the youngest at 30 years old.  Women here either work at their career longer or do both, work and raise children, which is exactly what I had intended to do (in that life plan that I am still working on) …doing both.

Never did I imagine a spell of unemployment so long, carrying me from the birth of my daughter and through another pregnancy…

My plans included the working mother balancing both and loving it.  It is what I feel I was made to do… And in this city, no less.  

I distinctly remember that one of the semesters I had the best GPA in High School was when I was doing multiple activities.  Although the work got harder over the years, that type of juggling worked and still works best for me to a degree.  It is stimulating and gets me moving.
After trying for nearly two years, I know that I am not a housewife.  But I’m not purely a career woman, either.  I love the idea of working on a home, but crave a job that gets me in the adult world, if only for hours a day even. I am a woman that desires both… needs both or else her psyche will burst.
While motherhood always seems to signal the loss of something in most mainstream media, (like the 

women in black heading to the baby shower), I have only felt a strength since embarking on this journey that was unknown to me in my single mingle days.


So instead of mourning the loss of life, I would love to see having children depicted not as a burden, but a celebration – an extension of your life with your partner.  I understand that it is difficult to express that within a culture that is mainly one side or another.  The in between is where I feel there is much exploration and where that discussion truly lies.  The capable and educated women who cannot afford full-time or part-time childcare, the families of two-parents working multiple jobs to make ends meet. We loss this in-between exploration with the dawn of Reality Television and The Real Housewife, who did everything and looked perfect while doing it.  

So let’s raise a glass to being a mother in all it’s many forms!
What do you love about this job?  Do you / Did you mourn your pre-baby days?

Join me on Thursday! February 13, 2014

Thursday, Feb 13, 2014, I will be co-moderating with Howlround (Howlround.com) a weekly howl about Raising a Family while in the Arts at 2pm ET

I am hoping the discussion will be a success, so please join-in or tell your friends.
I feel as if parenting in the arts is not talked-about.  Parenting in General is a juggle for the average person, but when you have few resources and have writing deadlines or you have to give-up a child’s event or event of your own etc… What is that like with Tech rehearsal and rehearsals etc…
So join-in the conversation with the hash-tag #newplay
I can’t wait!
Regardless of your location, I really hope you can join!
COMPLETE DETAILS
The Weekly Howl is a peer produced, open access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay.*
This week’s conversation topic is “Raising a Family While in the Arts” and will be moderated and peer-produced by Garlia Cornelia @garliacornelia.
This Howl will take place on Thursday, February 13 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PST – 12pm PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST – 2pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST – 3pm EST (New York) / 19:00 GMT – 20:00 GMT (London) / 8pm CET – 9pm CET (Berlin).
On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

*The hashtag #newplay in Twitter is a commons tag (i.e. non-proprietary, community-invested tag) for aggregating global knowledge, information, and conversation related to new works, new performance, and new strategies in the theater.

Learn more about Howlround!  Visit Howlround.com