Family Ties and Bindings

I know a very talented composer/song-writer.  Like so many in the music biz who blow my mind, he is versatile and able with a whole mess of instruments and can, all by himself, compose, arrange and record a full score's worth of music all by himself, playing every part, with a little home-recording equipment and mixer.  Amazing.  Because he insists on having ridiculous extravagances like uninterrupted health insurance and paying his bills in a timely manner, he teaches and manages in addition to composing, but he longs for a day when he a score gig, theme-song or recurring jingle pays well enough that he can devote his working days to music full time.  

He landed a commercial, a national commercial, which doesn't equate to suddenly living in a beach house in Malibu but is, nonetheless, a monster big deal, especially to those of us still on the breaking-in side of any creative industry.  He excitedly shared this fantastic news with his family, explaining that he'd sold an original song that would then be recorded and played, nation-wide, on multiple channels, etc.  Very exciting stuff.  Through it all, his mom uh-huhed and smiled and listened, and then said, "I don't see how this makes you money, though."  He explained again about copyright and pay-per-play and rates varying by channel and exposure and repeated play.  "Uh-huh," she said, still confused.  "But why do they pay you for that?"


His big news fell like a stone.  It was kicked around a little through dinner.  Finally, he stopped trying to make his mom understand not only that he would earn money every time the song was used but that he deserved to be paid for each use.  He returned to SoCal and LaLa Land  a little heart-broken.  


Family is such a funny thing.  Nothing means more or is harder to get than a ringing family endorsement, and no rejection by colleagues, friends or strangers stings quite like an unenthusiastic, "it's nice but--" from a relation.  It's especially problematic when your work is outside the familial expertise or taste.  Help-books and friends tell you to harness these feelings, channel them into your work, because they are potent and real and universal, feelings rooted in the deepest love and respect --

These are the feelings that make lifelong careers!  

For therapists.

ba-dah-dah-dah!

Tag-Teaming Twins

When you have twins, reality becomes utterly defined by the term "tag-team."  They tag-team you, and, if you're lucky to have a partner in this (heaven help you if you're flying solo), you tag-team them right back. 

Take bedtime.  One washes, the other dries, the first pajamas, the second stories, the first waters, the second herds to bed as the first chaperones to the bathroom, the second chaperones to the bathroom as the first herds from bathroom to bed, then second hugs-and-kisses, turning out lights...wait, why are you crying?  Use words, honey--

"It was my turn to turn out light!"  

Okay, then you turn out the--  

"No!"  

Okay, you don't have to-- 

"But it's my turn!"  

I...(sigh).  Hey, where's she--?  Where are you going?

  

"My bear has to poop."  

No, come back--can you catch her, please?  Wait, why are you crying now?  

"Because I'm not tired!"  

Forty-five minutes later, team-twins rests.  In contrast, team-parents has aged a year and a half.

You tell yourself it's about balance.  You play with your schedule, trading sleep for exercise, diet for showers, hedging your present against your future.  You apply the self-control and critical thinking that got you through graduate school to watching the squealing piglet riding a zip-line commercial "again, Mommy!  Again, again!" with genuine interest and enthusiasm.  You resign yourself to never completing a meal or a thought or a sentence unless they're asleep, and even then you do so quietly.  

"It's tough right now," you say when asked how you're doing.  "We're finding our balance."  

No.  No, you're not.  There is no balance.  They win.  That's it.  You tag, they tag back, but there is no balance.  They don't play fair.  They cheat.  And they don't expend a single resource to keeping you or themselves safe and alive.  While you're looking both ways, holding hands, picking up, doling out snacks, wiping and cleaning and band-aiding, finding lost loveys, untangling, re-tying, watering, pottying, righting and wronging, they're siphoning what little energy you've got left to dedicate in total every forming pathway in their shiny new brains to devising their next tag.  

"Where's the--take that out of your mouth!"  Tag.  

"Oh my God, I just said because I said so!"  Tag.  

"No, you don't!  How--?  Whaddya mean yes you do want a spanking?"  Tag.

It's hard and it's rigged and it's war and they're winning.  And it's taking forever and over so fast.  And they're so incredibly cute, you feel lucky and grateful to be lost and bleeding on the battlefield, feeling your way, muttering about "balance" with your duly bludgeoned partner.  Knowing even as it's happening that you're both gonna miss this the rest of your lives...

Tag.