A Little Help From My Friends

That sound you just heard was me exhaling. I’ve been through several weeks—most of the summer really—of a non-stop schedule. You’ve heard about some of it. But not all. Just because I often wanted to stand out in the yard and scream, is no reason for you to feel the same way. At least, not about my life. I can’t do anything about your life and it’s potential to cause screaming.

It's nice to have a little brain space to think about other things. For instance, the other day I was on the phone with one of my daughters. She had to get off the phone to accept a delivery in the lobby of her apartment building. This was the third time it had happened recently, and she joked that when she wanted to hurry a delivery along, she would call me.

This brought back a memory—a really old one. I was five or six (see?), in a turquoise leotard with a lot of sequins. I was waiting outside with my mom and a lot of other dancers waiting for our turn on stage for a dress rehearsal. We’d been waiting a long time and not having any fun, since we couldn’t run around in our tap shoes. My mom lit a cigarette (just about everybody smoked in those days) and said that would make them call us. I didn’t understand that at all, not even when my group was called in a couple of minutes later and she had to stub out her cigarette.

Which brought up another dance class memory. Occasionally I, or another child, would miss a class. Because all the lessons had to be paid for whether we were there or not, once or twice during the year, the school would have a make-up class. I didn’t understand that at all either—we didn’t get to wear makeup. My mother saying that it was to make-up a missed class didn’t help. Okay, I was a little slow at that age.

Anyway, I was trying to think if I had any surefire little tricks to make things happen, and so far I’m coming up dry. I mean there’s washing your car if you want it to rain, but that’s not a trick, just a fact of life.

I could use a few useful suggestions--anyone?