Burnt Toast. Teri Hatcher

Чтение книги онлайн.

      The working mom vs. stay-at-home mom decision. I’m cautious when I talk about this because I love and appreciate women, and I don’t ever want to sit in judgment. There is no right answer in this debate. It’s a struggle for all of us, and we have to make our own decisions. So much is asked of us – to work, to parent, to look a certain way, to act a certain way. I never judge a woman’s choices because I actually don’t think there is any easy, right way to be a woman in our society. You’re not building either a career or a family. You’re building a life. How it adds up, what feels right, is something only you can decide.

      Becoming a mother changed my life. Previously my acting career and my marriage had been the tent poles of my life. But when Emerson Rose was born she became, at once and forever, the center of my world. I was responsible for this small, perfect being. It was up to me to protect her from danger, to introduce her to joy, and to give her the tools to build a life that will make her happy.

      People in Hollywood probably thought I was making a mistake by letting my career stall in order to raise my daughter. They either thought I was finished – I was out of the game – or that it was, at most, a quick year off. (Which, of course, it wasn’t.) I could have succumbed to the pressures around me, telling me I was risking my career. I still wouldn’t have changed how I spent my time, but I certainly could have let myself feel torn between what people said and what I knew was right for me. But I made a choice. I ignored my agent. I didn’t pay attention to the decreasing number of party lists I was on, how quickly the phone stopped ringing with job opportunities, or how the free stuff that celebrities always get stopped arriving in the mail. I didn’t want to go back to that insecure hell of being an actress. Especially not now that I was a mom. I had to do what felt right to me.

      Suddenly the influences of outside people fell away. I looked deeper than the opinions and reactions of my friends, family, and colleagues. A relative didn’t like the name we’d chosen. Other people told me I should cut my daughter’s hair. She liked to eat pats of butter, plain. People said I shouldn’t, but I let her do it. I had a strong sense of how I wanted to parent, and I wasn’t about to let anyone else tell me how to do it. When outside voices conflict with your heart, all you can do is try to find some temporary, tightrope-walking balance that almost works for you more than half of the time, maybe, and know that you’re doing the best you can. Being a mother was a real shortcut to realizing that I could make decisions without worrying or caring what others thought.

      As a new mom, I felt surges of warmth from the world. If the baby was screaming in the grocery store, people let me cut in line. (Okay, maybe they did that ‘cause they were trying to get rid of us.) You know how little stores claim not to have bathrooms, but you know the employees must go to the bathroom somewhere? Well, now that I was a mother every store let me use their secret bathroom. At the airport, people who’d normally be pushing past me heedlessly stopped to help with the stroller. But being kind to strangers shouldn’t be reserved for a mother with a baby. Too often we’re that trash can-hating neighbor in Sunland. I took a flight on Virgin Atlantic and noticed that there was a sign on the counter that said, IT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE TO ABUSE THE STAFF OF VIRGIN ATLANTIC BECAUSE YOUR PLANE IS LATE. I said to the guy behind the counter, “That is so sad. They have to have a sign that says you can’t abuse people!” Since when does freaking out at an airline employee change your flight status? You’re already having a bad day. Why would you make it so that someone else has to have a crappy day too? Imagine what that guy tells his partner about you when he goes home. Seriously, people. Ease up on the airline employees! Life is hard enough.

      The Christmas right after Emerson was born, I decided to make a big Christmas dinner, goose and all, for my friends and family. Emerson was only three months old; I hadn’t slept in weeks. Clearly I was out of my mind to think this was a good idea. A perfectionist always, I wanted everything to be seasonal and festive. So on Christmas Eve, amidst the daze of night feedings, burping, and diaper changing, I drove to Bed Bath & Beyond to get maroon tablecloths and matching napkins. I was so out of it that I’m lucky I didn’t get nabbed for an MUI (Mother Under the Influence). Nonetheless, I made it there and started wandering the aisles, haplessly searching for what I thought would be obvious items to stock for Christmas. But no, it was not so easy to find the tablecloths among the Santa Claus salt-and-pepper shakers, Marilyn Monroe tree ornaments, and reindeer-themed pleather bodysuits. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration.)

      I was making my way through those superwide, luxurious aisles when I heard a voice behind me say, “Well, excuuuuuse me!” I turned around to see a woman who was clearly annoyed that I’d crossed in front of her. Apparently, in my oblivion, I’d broken her shopping right-of-way code. I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” She scowled at me and walked away. Now maybe this was one of those “let it go” moments, but I couldn’t. I pride myself on being fair and conscious of others’ feelings, and in my heart I was nowhere close to thinking I’d been rude to this woman. So, after a few minutes of stewing, and against my better judgment, I walked back up to her. I was really trying to hold back my tears, but of course I broke into sobs as I explained that I didn’t even see her, and that I was a new mom, and that maybe she should just give people a little break because you never know what they might be going through. To which her lovely, generous response was, “I guess you are the big fucking bitch I keep reading about in the tabloids.”

      What a lovely way to start Christmas. I think about her, and try to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was alone on Christmas; maybe the only thing that made her feel good was being able to put down someone who seemed happier than she (and she would have to have been really bad off for an uncontrollably sobbing woman to be the happier one). In moments like this, I try to be forgiving. When someone cuts me off on the highway, instead of letting road rage take over, I tell myself that I have no idea what’s going on in that other driver’s world. Maybe her mother is sick. Maybe she just got fired. Maybe she’s an airline employee who was brutalized by delayed travelers all day long. I imagine that we have more in common than not. I cut her some slack the way I hope others would cut me some slack on a bad day. We all suffer enough on our own. If we try to ease the suffering of those around us, who knows how the karmic echoes will lighten our loads?

      We went to New York for New Year’s a couple of days later. I was walking down Ninth Avenue when I saw a woman drop a full bag of groceries. It was a gray, cloudy day, and the street was full of people hurrying their separate ways, dull and unanimated. Several oranges rolled out of the woman’s fallen bag; the only bright spots of color on the street. Nobody stopped to help her collect her groceries. They just walked past, oblivious. Then something happened. The clouds broke, and a double rainbow appeared. A double rainbow! In New York City! That’s two more rainbows than you ever see in New York. They arched perfectly across the sky, right over the Chrysler Building. There was a collective gasp on the street. People pointed and smiled. Some ran into stores to buy disposable cameras. We all watched until the sky clouded over again, then went on our ways. But then the second miracle happened. The whole way down Ninth Avenue strangers stopped each other to say, “Did you see the rainbow?” and “You can still see it over on Seventh Avenue!” A twin rainbow. That’s what it took to get people to notice each other, to bring them together.

      Sure, you’re probably thinking, Well, that was once in a lifetime. After all, New York ain’t Hawaii. Still, rare as rainbows may be, it seemed so simple, so easy to instantaneously transform people from cold, unconcerned strangers who wouldn’t help a woman chase down her oranges to members of a friendly, warm community. We’re all right there, on the threshold of caring about each other, of coming together, of relishing the funny, pretty things that appear in our world. You’re on that threshold with everything that happens in your life. Doing your hair. Going to the grocery store. Having a meeting. Making dinner for your family. Going on a date. Robbing a bank. (Actually, if you’re a bank robber, I’m not sure any of this applies to you. Put down the book and turn yourself in.) You can find friendly faces. You can live in the moment. You can opt to be in a world that makes you smile. (Cheesy, but you know what I mean?) You can be the person who doesn’t help СКАЧАТЬ