Fog

As it was happening, I wanted this moment to last forever, even though I knew it would stay vividly in my heart as long as it beats.  After Waltz, before Finale, Golda's life of Nutcracker performances was suddenly all but over.  I was standing backstage with my Chinese and Golda asked me to take a picture of her and Ruby together.  As the girls posed for me, their eyes filled up with tears that shone in the stage lights.  They both struggled to contain their emotions.  Margaret Wahlstrom, the wonderful mastermind behind the whole production, started coming toward us, probably to chide us about the camera, but, seeing the tears shining in my own eyes, she turned away.  She knew how emotional I was; earlier in the evening, talking to her, I hadn't even been able to speak.  I felt like my heart would burst into a million splashy tears if I opened my mouth.

As Deepak Chopra observed, "There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."

During the scenes in Nutcracker when fog is used on the stage, the stage doors all have to be kept closed.  Opening any door will immediately draw the fog off the stage and toward, and out of, that door.  There are warning signs on all the doors when fog is in use, and someone has to keep them tightly secured, lest the magic is whisked away.

Now the doors have been opened.  The fog has dissipated, the house lights have come up and the book has been closed on this chapter.  The shocking thing is how quickly it seems to have happened.  Once upon a time, Scott and I had a beautiful, perfect baby with red, curly hair, inquisitive brown eyes, and an independent streak as wide as her smile.  Scott used to hold her above his head so people could admire her.  Nurturing her became our life's work.

And now it's over.  This Nutcracker was just the first of a whole year of lasts that we're just now coming around the corner on.  I know the lasts will be mingled with firsts, and that life will be beautiful, and go on.

But being OK with that door opening and that fog ebbing away...is just asking a lot of a mother.  Because it's that moment - searing, exquisite - when you realize that your whole life's work...was never really about you.