songs of experience

You know how you read about some festival, or lecture, or music on the lawn that you really should go to, really do want to go to, but never get around to it? Or how you might hear of an exhibit or a play that’s awesome but when you actually go to buy the tickets the show is sold out or ended its run? Well, since having children this has happened to me more times than I care to admit. In my quotidian routine of driving the kids to and from (and to and from!) school, food, laundry, cleaning, homework, dinner, bath, bed - rinse and repeat - I exist in a personal drought despite the refreshing, cultural waters all around me.

One such event that occurs in nearby Durham, NC is the Full Frame Documentary film festival. Every year I think THIS is going to be the year I make it over there. And every year this amazing four-day film-lover’s smorgasboard comes and goes without my even sampling a morsel … not a sip. It took my 12 year-old daughter to get my tail out the door. When she saw the flyer for it, she said, “Mommy, this looks like something you’d like (damn straight!); why don’t we go?” Well, I can’t possibly, I thought. It’s on a school day. Who will meet the school bus? How can I? I can’t just drop everything and go to the movies in the middle of the day, can I? Huh!? I didn’t SAY all this, of course, but Sarah jane could sense my hesitation (my silent pity party) when I did say, “Do some research and let me know if you find one you want to see.” Ha! I might as well have said, “We’ll see” which always means, “You’ll forget about it, so I won’t have to say NO.” But SJ didn’t forget about it. Oh, no. She found a documentary about asparagus farmers in Oceana County, Michigan that was showing at 12:30pm on a Friday along with a short called, Kings of Christmas that looked interesting.

She called my bluff. SO, I called in a favor for someone to pick up Lizzie from pre-school; I had my husband meet Rosie’s school bus; and I checked Sarah jane out of middle school early that day with the excuse, “enrichment appointment.” Zooming down the highway, skipping school and my mom life, I felt like Thelma and Louise with my daughter/girl friend. We bought, maybe, the last two tickets to the show (because, as it turns out, this was a world premiere for Asparagus! a Stalk-umentary) and I managed to smuggle in two Hershey bars. I spent the next 90 minutes drenched in culture and an overwhelming feeling that I can only describe as an embarrassment of riches.

Asparagus! (a Stalk-umentary)