I felt my heart come a little bit off its hinge last night as I left for rehearsal.

“No rehearsal, Mommy. Don’t go to rehearsal…. Please….”

Sam was doing his five-year-old best to keep me from getting out of the house.  He wanted me to stay and cuddle, as I had been doing – purposefully – to spend some quality time before I left for the theatre on my next-to-last night of rehearsal.

I drove by a church after I dropped everyone off at school this morning. Their greeting to me was “How do children spell love? T-I-M-E.”

The guilts are definitely on for this Mommy artist.

“Picnic” has been one of the fastest rehearsal processes I have experienced – four intense weeks to get it out and delivered.  Tonight is our final dress rehearsal, the night we open up to a small audience of board members, friends and some folks with media connections. 

Once tonight is over, everything settles down considerably.

Sunday – I am back to being “normal” Mommy, the Mommy Emma frequently says she wishes she had – not a Mommy who lives to create, whose very breath is connected to bringing art to life.

Even as I write this I know how important it is for my children to have a Mommy who expresses her art passionately. There were too many years when I was asleep to my true self, when I pretended I wasn’t an artist because it wasn’t socially acceptable, because “what would people think.” *Gasp*

I remember when I first started acting, many of my “normal” Mom friends would ask me, “Where do you find the time?” 

It isn’t a matter of finding it, it is a matter of creating it – of breathing with it. Of trusting, knowing and loving both the art and my children enough to know that creating art is absolutely the right thing to do.

I am a better Mom because I create.

Tonight I bring Rosemary to life for her first audience. Monika was sort of an audience last night (being her first night on the light board) and when I heard her emotional response to my art, I can not tell you how intensely satisfied I felt. I am looking forward to being in front of a wider audience – because I hope they laugh at the parts that are meant to elicit laughter, too.

Oddly enough, I am not nervous.  I am, instead, grateful… and feel incredibly privileged to be out there on stage again.  Each time I do, I think about what I almost missed out on.

Pablo Picasso said, "Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."  That could have been me. I could have died with my stage self… left undone.

So now, tonight – and for the next three weekends… I will take my heart and open it up for everyone who comes to see and experience first hand.

I never fit into that “normal” box very well, anyway.  And people may truly think whatever the heck they want. I have learned not to let their thoughts bother me… too much.  Instead, I will create – on stage, with words, with poetry-photo-collage, with my children and sometimes, without them.

It is quiet in my house. My dogs are sleeping, my laundry is tumbling, my dishes are waiting in the sink for me to finish them.  I am eternally grateful.

= + = + = + = + = + = +

"Picnic", written by William Inge and Directed by Barry Wolcott, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. It explores the hopes, fears, excitement and sorrow of following our dreams while we make choices that impact the ones we love. It is playing at Bakersfield Community Theatre beginning September 8 for three weekends. Call 831-8114 for reservations and further details. 

(burn the witch) is an all woman group art show at the Empty Space Theater with a gala opening Saturday, September 9 from 2-7 pm. I am performing my poetry and will be engaging the audience in some live, collaborative art creation at 3 pm.  The Empty Space is located at 706 Oak Street – which is between Brundage and California behind Pizzaville.