My life is shifting.

Tectonic plates of past, present and future do the bump-and-grind, and I have to laugh. There is movement, suddenly, beautifully. And in spite of the churning, as my life redefines itself, I feel more anchored, more grounded to my own earth, than I have in a very, very long time.

I just returned from San Diego, a place I’d never felt compelled to visit. But I have friends and family there. I imagined a 40th birthday bonfire on a beach, right by the surf. Did such things exist? Even wondering if I could make such an event happen was forward motion.

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He first wooed me by asking me if I would collaborate with him.

I did not know then, nearly 14 years ago, that our collaboration would eventually include two daughters.

It is that time of year, the time of awards and ceremony and graduation and promotion to the next grade.

The girls wanted us to sit together, so they could find us easily. I wish we could have found each other easily.
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See Mommy. See Mommy act. See Mommy smile.

Good Mommy! Playing is fun!

I did it, you guys. I got the part.

I really did. Those orange shoes did the trick.
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I haven’t been onstage since I was pregnant with my firstborn. And I’ve missed it.

My MFA was one of those superduper useful ones: an MFA in Acting. When we were first married, I was doing the aspiring actor thing in NYC, working crappy day jobs and doing occasionally good, more frequently crappy plays by night.

But I was happy.

I loved acting. I had to leave it behind when the girls arrived and we moved out of the city to a rural country-mouse setting. They needed Mama, and Mama needed any spare time to breathe and earn a paycheck.

But there are theatres, where we are, small ones, that do some good work.

Theatre was a shared love for me and my ex. We met at theatre grad school, and got to witness each other’s colossal creative failures, as well as exciting successes. If that’s not a fast track to bonding, I don’t know what is. It was a gorgeous time in my life, a time of great hope and creative energy and powerful love.

Since the split, I’ve been trying to get my creative mojo back. Writing Breed ‘Em and Weep for five years has been a gift, but I have missed the immersion into character, the fun of devouring a new script and absorbing every syllable of it into my bones. But I didn’t know when or if I would have a chance to do that again.
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