Last year I figured if I had to turn 50 and have a mid-life crisis, I better have fun doing it. So I went where I hadn’t gone before–to the stage. And the girls restored peace into my world again.

Name another way that a mid-life mama could sing and dance and draw attention to herself wearing a dress above her knees to ABBA music and not be drunk or raving mad?

It was a safe environment to make a fool of myself; after all, it’s community theater, where the girls grew up and spent all their time when they weren’t at home or school. If we trusted it for the girls, it should be good enough for me.

My mid-life crisis was all about me. Why not? It was my problem, no one else’s. But somewhere through the process, I grew up and discovered my family and my community. The big wake up call that I wasn’t going through life alone. It only took half my life to figure that out.

I got to do something creative with my daughters. I got a stage husband and talented new friends who helped me through the terror of it all and beautiful old friends to support me. And when we came home, Alex ever-so-patiently listened to me complain (at least the first time).

And when 50 hit last September, I had two husbands (one stage, one real) and a sister-wife to come with me for a quick jaunt to London to ensure I had even more fun when we partied Mamma Mia style in ABBA costumes and white boots.

We turned a mid-life crisis into having the time of my life, and all of our lives, as I boldly speak for the others.

I had so much fun. I wrote the rough draft of a book about it, “Mama Meets Mamma Mia! Having Fun Through My Mid-Life Crisis.”

The crisis came about while overturning the old me—the one who knew better than to have fun. Life is serious. I wrote a book for 30+ years that’s unpublishable, and I can’t write non-fiction either. I’m not famous if you didn’t know, and there’s the whole issue with copyrights anyway.

(These are real issues that writers think about and entertain in their minds before they attempt to query an agent, I’ll have you know).

Ah, another book that I never published—washed-up as a too-serious-50-year-old.

But back then, there was no Covid. No excuses. If I didn’t have enough fun to sell an agent my book idea, I’d start a blog—attempting to have a mid-life crisis post by post instead.

Without readers, publishing my blog wasn’t fun enough. I could have my fun on a stage instead, thank you very much. So I changed my devotion from ABBA to Shakespeare. Mama takes to the stage—take two.

(Just in case we don’t count my first stage experience since I didn’t write that book about it anyway).

And that’s when the irony of my mid-life crisis came to a head. “Twelfth Night” was less than two weeks away when the show got canceled. The world was having a crisis of its own and left me upstaged!

Cast a mama having her mid-life crisis during a pandemic, and she can’t exactly be a drama queen.

It was like watching TV when we were kids…”We interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you this important message.” It was so annoying. You’d scream at the TV, “Can’t you let me watch my show?”

Except there was no message taking away our show, just a pandemic.

No community theater. (And, heck, no travel either). We had no spring break plans anyway because it was supposed to be hell week (okay tech week if you’re reading this Sky), but hell has been what we’ve been through ever since, so I’ll stick with that.

There’s a fine line between tragedy and comedy. If we weren’t so scared and confused and sad, heck we still feel like there’s no way out, we’d be laughing now.

But back in March, I was licking my wounds trying to make the most of the “new normal,” even though I had no idea what that meant then. The only creative outlet I still had left was to write my weekly muse, readers or not, I planned on making it fun.

The girls were adjusting to life without community theater, too. They’d always gone from show to show like migrant workers. They understood the time commitment and dedication required to make a show come to life, and they’d beg to do it anyway.

Every show would start with me, saying, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Translation: Do we have to go through this again?

But by the end, we’d be singing the tunes at every waking moment and even in our sleep. We’d think back on the good times, forget the hardships, and be sad that it was over.

We’d miss everybody so intensely the day after strike; we’d see signs of the show everywhere and couldn’t wait to do it again, and again, until the day it stopped.

It forced the girls to come up with another outlet for their creativity and gave them time to do so.

They were like little sprouts at first–they started by writing one song each, independent of one another. My oldest, Sky, had the idea for them to swap songs and see what the other could do.

They played them for Alex and me. I said that I liked how they doctored each other’s songs better than their originals.

That’s when they had that ah-ha moment that they complemented one another. Zana, that’s her stage name (but please don’t call her that if you know her) could make beautiful music to Sky’s lyrics.

But singing together hadn’t always been their thing. When the girls were younger, they wanted to prove what they could do without the other—kind of how I hoped to plow through my mid-life crisis by myself.

Their voice teacher dreamed of the day that they’d sing beautiful harmony together. At the time, I’d say that wasn’t going to happen. They’d never rely on one another, look at their mama!

But the world crisis collided with our old way of doing things and in the aftermath brought the girls together. And they’ve divided and conquered every song that they wrote ever since with Sky writing the lyrics and Zana composing the music.

I remember those early nights pieces of their songs came from behind closed doors like the smell of cookies wafting from the oven. I’d say to Alex, “The girls are making music together.”

And he’d say, “Don’t say anything. Leave them alone, or you’ll jinx it.”

On Mother’s Day, they were ready to share, and they performed all 13 of their songs, including the one they wrote for me, “United We Stand.” Sky went through all my blogs and used my words to write the lyrics. Of course, I cried, and that will always be closest to my heart.

Meanwhile, the girls had enough material for an album.

While they wrote and composed their songs and continued to make harmony, they prepared their songs for an audience. They called me in to listen to a few sessions for feedback.

One such session, they messed up, and the music stopped. Sky pumped me with questions; she always wants to know what needs improvement, while Zana started mindlessly playing a riff on the keyboard. (Not sure if it was a riff, but that’s a word the girls have used).

Since it wasn’t the song they were working on, Sky said to Zana, “Stop goofing off.”

And I said, “Wait a minute! Record that before you forget it. That’s really good.”

And from that one creative moment, that’s how the Father’s Day song came to be. (I like to say I had a small part to play in the making of that melody).

But their songs were meant to be more than making Alex and me happy. They had shared a few of their songs with a supportive music teacher who recommended that they start a YouTube channel.

They spent the better part of a month trying to get supplies and figure out how to make a “recording studio” in the basement.

Recording began, and they launched their YouTube channel last Saturday.

They have a schedule for programming until the end of 2020. And here, I can’t even tell you what I’ll be writing about next week.

And there’s one more thing. Remember how community theater has been so instrumental in our lives? It helped raise my kids, get me through my mid-life crisis, and now it’s there for the girls in a new way.

When Deb Schrager couldn’t finish directing “Twelfth Night” (the musical that I was supposed to be in due to Covid), she pulled together a small group from two community theaters to direct the filmed version of a play called “Hope and Gravity.”

Thanks to this small cast of characters, community theater will be coming into our homes (if you buy tickets).

Not that I have a vested interest in this. I care about the great cast and crew who are making this happen. Oh, and did I fail to mention the girls’ involvement?

What could the girls be doing with an adult play? As it turns out, Deb can’t stray too far from her musical theater roots. She’s showcasing Zana’s original medley before the show starts, and Sky and Zana’s original theme song while the credits roll.

Somehow, I’ve raised my daughter’s to teach me what I needed to learn: pursue creativity! You never know where it might lead. (Hint: right back to where your heart is).

This year I figured if we had to have a world crisis, I better have fun anyway. So I went where I had gone many times before–to the page. And the girls brought harmony into the world again.

Enter community theater! When you feel gravity weighing you down, hope rises. Watch “Hope and Gravity” and get inspired as you see how the cast and crew have been creative, in spite of our world crisis.

All proceeds go to Black Lives Matter, so the film has special meaning.

Click here for tickets:

jenkintownmusictheatre.org