PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASK ME WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE A FAMILY (FOR WHICH I COOK AND WITH WHOM I DEMAND TIME) AND ALSO WORK AS MUCH AS I DO. WHAT’S THAT LIKE? HERE IS AN ANSWER, TAKEN FROM MY JOURNAL OF LAST YEAR.

September 18, 2009
Lee Sankowich called about a weekend ago and asked if he thought I would be okay to go into first public performance for SLASHER on the 22nd of October [at the Zephyr Theater in L.A.] I checked dates and checked how long this play, (my play here in Georgia) had been in rehearsal and called back to say it would be okay. [ I WAS IN REHEARSAL FOR MY PLAY, MUSIC BY HARRIET SCHOCK, “MISSOURI WALTZ”.]
Then I realized that Celine is starting on a life. [SHE HAD BEEN ACCEPTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY AT ART CENTER OF PASADENA AND THIS WOULD BE HER FIRST SEMESTER] This is it. Her chance. Hope is something that looks so beautiful on her just as when she was the most beautiful little thing with a great lifting space around her.
Her voice now, the quality of the bounciness of it, her opening in her spirit to look forward to and not to renounce tomorrow -

I called Deborah Taylor [PRODUCER FOR THE ZEPHYR] that lovely miss and we talked about schedule for rehearsal and then I called Celine and between the three of us we seemed to work it out and I was relieved.
I would do the play, which I loved very much, and Celine would do most of our school work Saturday evenings and all day Sunday.

Then the word NO woke me up at 3:30 in the morning. I lay there, and with all assiduousness and rapt attention tried to honestly mock up the days - those days of her being at Art Center and my being in rehearsal and eventually, in performance. What would they be like? I remembered the way I am almost completely absorbed into the play when I do a play; how I re-memorize every single day so I am sure I will be okay for the evening’s performance every night. I thought of how, after opening, I would not be there any evening, or many of them. I thought of how I would be at rehearsal, earlier, when she came home from school at 3-4 in the afternoon. I remembered the way when my parents came to visit with me, I would have a feeling of subtle joy in my gut, I would sort of float with them there downstairs, talking. I knew I had to be at home for her, even if she doesn’t like my dinners, (which she often doesn’t) even if she wants to finish watching the TV show she’s got up instead of talking to me (which she often does), even if I can’t get her to take vitamins and she eschews some of my attempts to help; even then, I know that inside of her there will be that satisfaction that is so important -that sense of contentment – and she will feel it because we are both there and that she is cared for in a contiguous way.

So I turned it down.