“A few weeks back, I alerted you to the Listen To Your Mother show, a national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother’s Day.
I’ll be auditioning in San Francisco on either February 10th or 12th. No, I haven’t secured an actual spot yet. This is just one of many ways I psych myself up.
“There’s no place like a stage. There’s no place like a stage…” Do you hear my heels clicking?
I’ve refined the five hundred and eleven words of my entry until I count each one in my sleep. I’m honing it with the precision essential to nail a spot.
But until my audition in February on that stage, I’m reading my piece out loud to adjust the flow as I work to stay under the strict five-minute maximum. I’m reminded of Nana Herminia’s advice, when I’d read a book report out loud to her: “keep them wanting more”. This applied to my boyfriends as well.
Reading for a handful of minutes may not seem like a big deal, but it is another calculated step in accomplishing my goal as an author.
I grew up among a witty and bold brood of eleven where we auditioned every day for my mother’s approval. Luckily for us, best behaved was not a category my mother deemed important. Best dressed, best manners, and best Spanish ranked high, but funniest reigned supreme in her book.
A witty joke or humorous story prompted her to stop whatever she was doing and award us with the best prize of all: her laughter. My mother didn’t giggle or chuckle. She threw her entire body into a laugh until her eyes squinted. That was golden! That was the equivalent of Johnny Carson’s okay sign to an up-and-coming comedian at the end of their routine.
That’s really what I’m striving for when I submit my piece, to hear my mother’s laughter.
