Rehearsals for the play are moving along at a brisk clip. The play goes up in mid-October. The last time I was onstage, I was in NYC. I was newly pregnant with my first (and didn’t know it). Having kids put the temporary kibosh on acting, but I always suspected I’d go back to it. I couldn’t have guessed then that it would take me a decade to return to something I love so much. Motherhood—ah, it’s funny that way, isn’t it? One year stretches into three, three stretches into five, five to ten. Stretch marks, it seems, are not just for skin. When children arrive on the scene, time has a funny way of stretching as well, and leaving its marks.

I am rusty. Not as rusty as I’d worried I’d be, but rusty nonetheless. Memorizing lines is a trickier feat than it used to be. So is the physical comedy—two rehearsals ago, while slaying an imaginary crocodile, I also slew my poor lower back, and wound up in bed, drooling and passed out from naproxen and muscle relaxants.

I am mother; hear me snore.
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Add this to the Survival Kit.

Watch at least ten times.

Chapstick for the single soul, for sure.

Click the blue below, and breathe:

How to Be Alone

Told you so.

Wow.

Thanks, Sarah McNair, for this drawing of my happy alone-ness.

Thanks, Andrea Dorfman (filmmaker) and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis.

My younger daughter just started first grade. She brought home a gift from her new teacher—a bag containing nine peculiar items, and a card that explained them:

First Day of School—Survival Kit

Cotton Ball: to remind you that our classroom is full of kind words and warm comfortable feelings.

Chocolate Hug: to comfort you when you are feeling sad or alone.

Sticker: to remind you that this class sticks together and helps each other.

Starburst Candy: to remind you that you are always a star in this class…and everyone shines in their own way.

Tissue: to remind you to help dry someone’s tears.

Toothpick: to remind you to “pick out” the good things in your classmates and yourself.

Eraser: to remind you that everyone makes mistakes and this is okay.

Lifesaver Candy: to remind you that you can come to any adult in this school for help.

Band Aid: to remind you that feelings get hurt easily.

*****

Awwww. I was charmed by the thoughtfulness of her teacher’s gesture.

Then the crass side of me kicked in and I started designing my own Survival Kit. I think there’s a market.
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Well, THAT happened.

“That” being vacationing with the girls, as a single mama. Crikey, it’s enough to make you miss the old days, no matter what the old days looked like. Neither woman nor man was meant to vacation with offspring as the sole caretaker—at least not for longer than three days.

I am single mama; hear me whimper. Or roar at my children as they lick the metal bar on the Tilt-a-Hurl.

They had a mostly good time. I think. When their mean mommy wasn’t yelling at them to come out of the pool, get closer to the lifeguard, stay out of the sun, eat at least one item outside of the Deep Fried food group.

I had a mostly exhausted time—with glimmers of goodness, moments of laughter, certainly. But I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I didn’t do enough, wasn’t the best mom I could be, wasn’t the mom they needed to have on vacation with them. That we needed this trip. That we didn’t need this trip. Conflicted emotions.

I like to think that time will scour off the rough edges of our memories of the trip, leaving behind only a sea glass glow.
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