Zona

When my kids were younger.......

I used to enjoy watching them when they were unaware that I was watching them. No, I wasn't spying on my kids. I might be in the same room watching TV and they would be playing or drawing or coloring and I would watch. I always wanted to see what they did and how they acted when they didn't think they had an audience.

Tonight and last night I attended a festival of one act plays that my daughter's high school drama classes presented.

Last night my daughter played the role of Nanny in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds. Nanny has no lines. She just sits at a table in a wheelchair doing things like drink tea as the action goes on around her. That was fun to watch because my daughter played the part of an old senile woman who had movements to perform. Subtle, but believable movements.

Tonight she played the main character role of Paul in The Rocking Horse Winner. Paul is a 13 year old boy in the play and it is a role much too complicated to explain here. When it was all over I was so amazed that this girl who I argue with and laugh with and have tried to raise the best I can could become this character and do such a fine job of something she likes to do.

When the actors came out to take their curtain call my daughter was missing. Later she came out into the lobby where we were and I asked. She told me that she was so embarrassed that she couldn't come out to take a bow. It wasn't that she thought she was bad in the play. She's just that way.

Just like when she'ld catch me watching her play when she was much younger.