give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name

I love this quote.... It's from A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Shakespeare's line is spoken by Theseus: ". . . as imagination bodies forth/ The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen/ Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing/ A local habitation and a name."

This is what artists, poets, musicians, actors do. They use their art to create a world within the piece they're working on. I'm more familiar with this in the theatre. Each show I've performed in or directed, we created our own world, our "habitation" in which to tell the story. And for the time we're working on the play, it becomes very real to us. I've been thinking about this as I prepare to start directing another play. It's my job to help the actors find their way into that habitation; to take the words on the page and give them a "name."

But don't we, to some extent, do that in our real lives too. We create a world within the larger one--a local habitation. Our family and friends are our world. For them we want things to always be happy and wonderful. And sometimes we invent things to protect them from the harsh realities of real life. Which may not be a good thing. We need to know about the bad things to know how to protect ourselves. I've seen so many adults who have no coping mechanisms because they were too sheltered growing up. I wanted to keep my kids from ever getting hurt or knowing about evil, but I would have done them a great disservice if I had. It was my obligation as a parent to give them the tools they needed to function on there own. In a sense it was my duty to make myself obsolete.

Of course, as a parent you're never really obsolete. Your kids always need you there in the background supporting them. Just like my actors need me to parent them through the story.

Maybe that's why I love directing so much--I get to be "mom" over and over again--without the potty training.

The Whirligig of Time

I've been thinking alot about time this week--or rather the passing of it. You hear this contantly [and when I was a kid, it annoyed the crap out of me], but the older you get the faster it goes by you.

It seems just a bit ago that I was a young woman of 17 [with a hot body and perky boobs]planning to take Broadway by storm... Instead I fell in love. And wasn't is last week that I was the mother of 2 bright pre-schoolers. Now they are in their [gulp] 30's. Now I know it was just the other day I was helping my 16 year old daughter give birth to a son. And yet, her son graduated from high school on Wednesday night. [I vividly remember him sitting on my lap, weeks before his second birthday, applauding his mommy's graduation--in the very same venue where his was held.]

How can all of this be? How did the time get away from me--And why can't I snatch some of it back? [And not just to have my younger, thinner and more nimble self back--although that would be nice too. But that's for another post]

My daughter and son are amazing adults, but I still can't help but wish I could do a few things over. I tried the best I knew how, but I still have nagging doubts about so much of how I handled things. The most important things we do in life, our relationships and parenting, are the things we have the least training for. There was so much I just guessed at--and prayed I didn't screw them up too much. I sometimes think they've turned out well in spite of me.

The one thing that has been a validation, of sorts, is watching my daughter raise her son. She is a fantastic mom--and I try to tell her that as much as I can. There are many things she handled like I would have, but there are countless times she did it so much better.

For the first 8 years, she and her son lived with her father and I. And my mother-in-law and my grandson's paternal grandparents also cared for him quite frequently. As did her brother. As a result, he's kind of an example of "It Takes a Village" in that he's absorbed a lot of traits from all of the people who helped take care of him those first few years.

But it's been pretty much all my daughter during the past 9.... and I commend her for giving the world an amazing young man. Yet as she, my son and I watched him graduate, we later shared that we all wished we had more time. Time to give more life lessons. Time to impart more wisdom. But most of all, just time to kick back and share more laughs--and hugs.

Yeah, I've been thinking alot about time this past week....