Now I Lay Me Down…. Or Jupiter Enters My Daughter’s 11th House of Leo

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My daughter wrapped her summer theater production today. First in June, her Dance performances. Then in July, all month, the Summer Musical. I pick her up from the cast party — a sprawling lavender lined estate with pool, horses and sunken trampoline. There’s a kindly dog trotting up to anyone and everyone, carrying her tug toy in her mouth, asking, “will you play with me?”

Theater Kids. Always breaking into song. And it sounds amazing.

At the closing night party yesterday, an ice cream parlor post performance, they serenade the show’s “rousing anthem” into the darkened sky. A new local business having agreed to stay open well past normal hours to scoop out cold treats just for the cast and crew. Onstage, closing remarks, tears and hugs. Final performances. Last chance to embody this character. Last note trilled.

Until next summer.

Many, most, of these kids come back year after year. They know each other, support each other. Their whole demeanor says, “come as you are!” At least that is how it seems from an outside mother’s perspective. Let me not forget. These are drama kids. I’m sure there is sometimes drama. But trust me, if there is, it is more than matched by talent. This is no Participation Trophy kinda show. Real stars grace these playbills. The applause is always compelled — never perfunctory.

A lot of these kids started in the program in the junior show — shorter, performed in an elementary school gym — usually Disney themed. But this is the senior show — a whole other ball game.

We live in a small country community. A cluster of small towns each with their own elementary school district comprised of just a few hundred students each. Ridiculous! (But that’s another missive) Yet they all end up at the same high school — Valley Union. When you step into the theater it’s impossible not to see faces you recognize at the very least, often with names attached.

One night (you better believe I attended 3 out of 4) I’m sitting next to an intelligently commanding older woman whose grandson is in the show. She tells me how she used to work for the newspaper, remembers when this Arts Outreach program began decades ago. She says she can’t hold a tune herself, but she did put on a “teachers roast” in high school. And a sequel the year after that.

I am thinking of generations — of passing on the torch.

My daughter — the youngest in the cast, petite and lithe with memorable eye glasses frames — stands out. Because of her size (and those bright teal frames!) people see her and think, “she looks so young! And yet she’s dancing, singing and delivering lines, keeping up with the rest of them!” They come up to me after to tell me how she shines, is adorable, draws the eye on stage. And I watch her finding her “people”. I watch her stepping into something that will shape and define her formative years, one summer at a time. She has already told us that this is how the month of July will be spent for the foreseeable future, (no more family vacations for us!) how she admires the older kids, wants to be one of them some day. I watch as one of those older kids runs up and lifts her in a bear hug, twirls her around, and I know in my mama gut that she is being held in so many more ways than one.

Earlier, during the mandatory strike (you want to attend the cast party don’t you?!”) A group of us moms stand outside the classroom that houses all the costumes, waiting to collect the labeled bins — hats, solid colored pants, maid costumes — that need to be transported to the storage office off site. One of the actors steps outside and makes a quip about our gathering of matriarchs, and I am struck by the realization that, here, now, that is what we are. The moms. And this is their story, their moment under the lights.

Oh, to be just beginning to chart your star!

But this is where I find myself — loathe to be a stage mom, a dance mom, living with a vicariously firm grip through the life of my child. At precisely a moment (of course none of them know, why should they, or more importantly care?!) when I am cautiously, tentatively, attempting to step my toe back into a world that defined my formative years. And so far, the signs point to “Maybe it’s time you let it go.”

My daughter is developing a sense of self, an ego, all while I grapple with my own.

And torches are passed.

But I hope to God that someday I’ll remember. That someday, some young parent sitting next to me in the house will have a ready ear to hear how I used to take the stage too. Without bravado — just with the love of this thing called the Performing Arts. Whether Teachers Roast or Musical Theater, or Dance Performance, the Show is the Thing. And all that goes with it. The people who lift you up and twirl you around, who both inspire and applaud — who sing with you, literally or no. Because, what the Hell?! Is there anything better than spontaneous song in an ice cream shop?! Would that all of life were so.

And I feel such profound gratitude that my daughter was invited to, and did, join in.

I recently added a new offering to my Astrology Services — A Family Constellation Year Ahead Reading. If you have been wanting to ecplore how the astrology of the year ahead with be engaging with your entire family’s charts, consider booking a this new offering with me! You can go to emilytatomer.com to learn more.