The typical Friday evening of a playwright/mom.    I was going to go see a screening of the Tony Kushner documentary - Wrestling with Angels - at the writers guild, but somehow I ended up seeing Santa Clause 3 with my daughter instead.

How dedicated to the craft can I possibly be?

Or is it just that it’s always a shifting, always that juggling, always the turn-it-on/turn-it-off of motherhood/writer/motherhood/writer?

I remember how hard it was when first out of grad school, first out in the world and people would say ” what do you do?” and I’d say “I’m a playwright?” with that upward questioning inflection, like “do you know what that is?” (I do remember running into someone from high school whose response was “you can do that?” like  “that’s legal?”  How long it took me to state it without questioning (myself or the other person asking)!   Being a mom - it kind of slams you in the face but I remember how long I felt like a faker post birth, like “nobody has figured out yet that I’m not really allowed to have a kid.”

There are upsides, too, you know.  Being a mom has built in great procrastination excuses for the playwright part of me.   And I have already stolen words out of my four year old’s mouth - score for the playwright side.    And being a storyteller, and having complete faith in the worlds of the imagination - always a plus around kids.

But now that I’ve assumed both mantles -  the slide between them is hard to negotiate.  So…Kushner or Clause,  Clause or Kushner….we see who won this battle….but the delicate balance continues.