The Recital

When the heavy black curtains parted ways, the auditorium turned quiet, and my eyes skipped across the stage for Erin. The phone was in my hand, with the camera app open, its perfectly white button and the halo around it ready for pressing. A few seconds later, the audience broke out in ohhhhs and ahhhhs at the sight of little girls, costumed in frilly dresses, lying on their stomachs on the floor of the stage. It was Danith who located our daughter first. “Oh, no. She is all the way over there.”

He was right. Erin was all the way over there, stage left. We were all the way over here, stage right. The very last two seats in Row F, to boot.

The upbeat, playful music started, and all nine toddlers — aged two and half, to four — with hands propping up their cherubic faces, began to kick their legs behind them. And the audience, overcome with their cuteness, began to adoringly giggle.

“Look at our baby!” I cried into Danith’s ear, grabbing his arm. “She’s doing it!” To explain, I was surprised that Erin was even on the stage. For the last two Saturdays, she had refused to participate in her dance class.

I held the phone almost at arm’s length and zoomed in on Erin, and pressed the white circle. Gahhh, the picture was not clear. Like fog on an early morning, worry crept into my head.

Eight of the nine girls pushed themselves up from the floor. Erin, the youngest at two and half, was one of them. The little dancer beside her decided to remain on her stomach. Then, seven of the eight girls began to kick out their legs and wave their arms, their oversized tutus pinned around their small frames like lollipop wrappers. My daughter, however, was not one of them. Instead, she held out her left hand in front of her and was admiring her nails, which I had painted a fuchsia pink earlier that afternoon. “They’re so pretty, Momma,” she had said in her raspy voice.

On the first Saturday that Erin had refused to enter her dance class, I chalked it up to her being tired of dancing. In the weeks and months before, she had shown great independence by bidding me farewell at the door of her room and marching in with her bag of dance shoes and water bottle. On many occasions, I had peeked in on her tapping her foot, chasse-ing across the space, and fluttering around like a butterfly. I had been surprised and impressed that she could follow instructions, but now it made sense that she needed a break from those instructions. So, on that first Saturday, I had been the mom who solicitously followed her child’s lead: I changed Erin and dressed her in her shorts and t-shirt and took her back to the car.

In the auditorium, Erin moved on from her painted nails and took to gazing around the stage. She saw her classmates scraping their tap shoes on the floor, but this did not interest her enough to join in on the collaboration. I laughed loudly and proudly at her innocence and her adorableness. Before I had the girls, I did not understand parents lamenting their children growing up; now I did. The clock, with children, ticked more loudly and quickly. And annoyingly. I debated running to stage left for a clearer and more center-view of Erin. But do I have enough time, I wondered. Surely, by the time I get there, the routine will be over. Will the people sitting behind me be annoyed when I get up? And, more importantly, where do I go when I do get to stage left? I can’t just stand in the aisle, can I? Maybe I should just stay put. Even though I was missing parts of the dance routine during my internal dialogue, I could not escape the worry of how I would sufficiently explain Erin’s darling first dance recital to friends without any visual evidence. Equally, I was worried about how I would explain to Erin why she appeared nondescript in the blurry photos I did have of her. I whispered to Danith that I needed better pictures of our younger daughter.

On the second Saturday that Erin refused to participate in her dance class, I was perplexed. She had changed into her costume for the dress rehearsal so easily that day that I hadn’t expected her to cling onto my arms when I tried to set her down. As I considered my next move, I attempted to channel those people who spoke of being present in the moment with their children: Don’t let your thoughts wander. Stay here, right here. How, though? I did not yearn to go anywhere with my thoughts, but I could not, just could not, stay here, the present, as the internal dialogue overtook my head space. Was last week a mistake, when I allowed Erin not to participate in the class? How do I not make her dance in the recital when we had paid a lot of money for the overpriced costume? More importantly, if I don’t make her participate, what does that teach her about following through with commitment and not wasting money? She and her sister will grow up to be spoiled and whiney kids, right? Worse than my inability to stay present was that I did not want to hold Erin that Saturday. In fact, I wanted to scream at her: Stop clawing at me like you’re a crab! When I reasoned with her that she needed to practice in order to perform on the big night, she shook her head. When I threatened her about not being permitted to perform in the recital, she nodded her head in agreement. I sighed. Inwardly and outwardly.

When I did break free from Erin on that second Saturday and set her down, she wailed, and as I stepped away from her, she rammed into my back and buried her face between my legs. But, oh, her soft and tender face, her tiny little being! Unlike Nora, her older sister, Erin was petite for her age. She liked to be held, and frequently pleaded in Cambodian, “Poh me.” She had a way of resting her head at my collar bone when I did. She still fit in my arms nicely, her bum snug between my stomach and thighs, when I rocked her at bedtime. Some late nights, after everyone had gone to sleep, I stood outside her door, aching to go in and pull her up from her bed, and hold her; but I rarely did for fear of impacting her ability to sleep independently. And, oh, the way she locked her arms and legs around me, as though her grip was a statement to the word: she is my momma! I cherished being claimed by her. Still, on that day at the dance studio, her clinging to me sent my heart racing. I sensed other moms watching me with raised eyebrows, and I wanted to defend myself: is has nothing to do with dancing. Trust me, I want to sit around all day cuddling with her. The way she scoots herself into my side on the couch, the way she crosses her ankles, the way she leans over and kisses my arm? I can do that with her from sunup to sundown, but that is not realistic! You know that! What if she grows up to whine about everything she did not want to do?

At the recital I stood up from my seat and ran to the back of the auditorium, across the width of it, and down the aisle of stage left. Once I was confident of being in no one’s view, I began to press on the phone’s white button. Filled with so much pride, my heart was about to burst. I started to feel bad for the seven little girls who were actually dancing, because I did not think they were receiving as much attention as the girl on the floor or the girl looking around the stage. The joy and gratitude that ran through me lifted and suspended me in a space where time did not exist. It was freeing. Exhilarating. But, then, my mind began to drift. I wondered how I would recapture that feeling to return to later, and I desperately wished for Erin to go back to admiring her nails — so that I could have one perfect shot of that moment to show her. And others. Then, I remembered the night Danith spoke to me about our daughters.

When our backyard was constructed many years earlier, before we moved into our home, it won a design award and appeared in a local magazine. An elaborate koi pond cut through one portion of the yard. Built on a hill, another portion was layered, each rung held in place with boulders. Danith occupied much of his free time with maintaining the yard, and oftentimes I griped about it. He cared for the pond and fish. He planted rose bushes. With the annuals, he strategically grew them along large rocks and the pond to offer a more natural aesthetics. This summer he erected a garden bed for vegetables. One night, after a day of battling the girls’ incessant momma, momma, momma, I was short and impatient. Danith had just come in from being outside, and he asked me to stand at our kitchen windows that opened out to the yard. “You do so much for our kids, but you are not having fun,” he said. I explained that I couldn’t accomplish much for the special activity I was planning for them and their friends, and I added that our girls had an entire playroom they weren't using. “They need to learn to play independently!” I cried. I saw a film of soil covering his hands and forearms as he tapped on a window. I knew where he was going. We won’t live here forever. After the girls are grown, they will move on with their lives, and we won’t need this house, he had said a few times before. “The yard is a lot to do, for you and the girls–” Before I could cut him off, he asserted, “but I have fun with it.” He circled an arm around me and tugged me in closer. “Try not to worry about the end result. Have fun with the process.”

I waited for both Erin’s and Nora’s dance routines to end before I hurried backstage. The space was jammed with dancers. A group here. A group there. A dance mom here. A dance mom there. The floor was strewn with coloring books and dance bags, remnants of hair bows and Zip-lock bags of make-up and Cheerios. I located Erin’s group. She was sheepishly pulling a veggie straw from her plastic bag when I glided my hands around her torso. “I am so proud of you,” I said. “Did you see me dance?” she asked, before popping the veggie straw into her mouth. Her thin arms encircled my neck, and I lifted her up so that her legs could wrap themselves around me, and I twirled with her pressed against my chest. “I saw you dance, and you were beautiful,” I answered. I did not worry about whether the celebratory ice cream we eat later would keep her and her sister up or whether the late bedtime would impact the following day’s activities. And I did not worry about the missed photo opportunity or whether both my girls would grow up spoiled. Instead, I was here, right here, in the present with Erin, where she was two and half and time had stopped.

August 10, 2023