Winter Concert

(Archival Gooey Goodness)

Every year, the blizzard of holiday activities, holiday shopping, and holiday parenting nibbles away at my holiday cheer. The season’s greatest test of my mettle is the elementary school winter concert. By mid-December, I yearn for quiet and an IV drip filled with eggnog, both of which earn me tongue clicks and impressively raised eyebrows.

This past year, I’d gotten everyone ready and had ten luxurious minutes to dress in something other than my usual straight-from-the-hamper chic, when my twins handed me a note from school dated three weeks earlier:

“FESTIVE CONCERT ATTIRE REQUIRED”

With the resourcefulness of a half-dressed MacGyver, I sprang into action. I found their ill-fitting dark slacks crumpled up in their under-bed ecosystems, then ran to find and use the iron for the first time since Buffy went off the air. Over my shoulder, I yelled, “Please find dark socks, dress shirts, and something resembling a hairstyle.”

When I returned, they were even less ready to show up in public. One son had brushed his hair so as to either brutalize his waves into submission or in homage to Crispin Glover. The other had stuck his head under the faucet to tame his cowlick. They stood there in misbuttoned shirts and black socks. I dropped my plans of pre-concert photos, tossed them their pants, grabbed my own clothes, and hustled everyone into the car.

We arrived one minute before we had to be there. My daughter was crying because she was too young to sing in the concert. My son was crying because he had to sing in the concert. His twin brother was crying because he had icicles in his hair from sticking his wet head out the window on the way to school.

Meanwhile, I tried to look casual as I yanked my skirt out of my underpants, a repercussion of getting dressed in the car.

And there we stood in the vestibule, panting and feral, surrounded by happy concert-goers not hissing at their children to please hold it together.

At 6:30, my husband took my daughter to get seats. I grabbed my boys by the shoulders and steered them toward their classrooms down a hallway reminiscent of the running of the bulls. We weaved our way, trying not to get gored by the PTA, the bake sale, or the tech club. I tossed the boys into classrooms I hoped were theirs, then made the return trip through the gauntlet. Parents offered polite nods as they stiffly ran-walked back to the gym to vie for seats.

A sweaty haze from the eager audience gave the gym all the acoustic and olfactory qualities of a yurt. The thick air made it hard to spot my husband and daughter as did the neighborhood tradition of chair dibs. Here, we save seats with sartorial splendor, strewing scarves and sarongs, boho bags and boyfriend jeans across seat backs, daring anyone to challenge our territorial markings with a need to sit.

I spotted my husband, who’d draped an entire vintage t-shirt collection on a chair for me. I sat down, looked around, and clenched.

Everyone in a three-row radius was nice.

And they wanted to talk. About their concert excitement. About their kids. About their kids’ concert excitement.

My excitement fizzled out many days prior because my kids performed the entire show for me nonstop for weeks. And when not giving sneak previews, they were little information snipers, spraying me with behind-the-scenes data like perfume spritzers at the mall. “Can I interest you in the backstory on ‘Winter Wonderland?’” they asked every time I walked past.

I want to be excited, but I’m tired from parenting. And working. And volunteering. And from tending to their illnesses, which have been nonstop for six weeks. Keeping up, catching up, trying to do it all, and being present — even though being present feels as though I’m emptying out the last of myself.

But, with a closer look around the room, I saw mismatched shoes and under-eye bags and worried glances among spouses. I saw grumpy toddlers squirming on laps and eyes closing for moments longer than a blink, in reverie or reset.

To a person, we were up to our jingle bells in seasonal stress. All of us trying to be in the moment, to remember who we are and what we’re trying to be. Trying to both be seen and, at inopportune moments, not to be noticed.

I softened and inhaled. The room smelled like feet, so I tried again, breathing only through my mouth, and took in everything: my kids entering the room like on a forced march. My kids refusing to open their mouths more than a millimeter when they sang despite belting out these tunes in my face for weeks. At least, that’s what I thought was happening. It was hard to tell, exactly, because I watched the whole thing through the view screens of everyone else’s phones.

I closed my eyes and just listened to the last songs. By the 8th day of Christmas, the kids were four measures behind and also, somehow, four measures ahead.

Maybe it was the youthful enthusiasm, or the treed partridges, or the Spanx chafing my Bûche de Noël, but finally, amid the blessed imperfection, it hit home that this was the vocal equivalent of fingerprints on our walls — a real, messy, sweet measure of a moment.

Then it was over. Before we could gather our children, the teachers announced that at the next concert in the spring, the kids would be playing recorders, which they would be bringing home to practice on.

On our way out I stopped at the tech club table.

Because maybe there was a way that the spring concert could be livestreamed.

I originally performed this piece as part of the Chicago cast of Listen to Your Mother.

Later the piece ran on WOW! Women on Writing, and you can see it in its original glory here.

An interview on that piece can be read here — Read it and learn my parenting trick for dealing with noisy toys and party favors like whistles.