Sticky Moments

Opening night at any one of my plays always feels like Thanksgiving.

This time of year I can't help but remember a lot of dinners where people talk about what they're thankful for. It makes me think instead of moments that stayed with me, good and bad. I call them Sticky Moments, and here are a few:

1. The first moment happened this week when driving on a dark stretch of road near my house. A large buck appeared with huge antlers, speeding across the road with one or two other does. It was so dark it seemed like they appeared out of nowhere. I slammed on the brakes and luckily, we had no snow on the ground and all of us survived to tell you this tale. 

2. I was walking toward the subway one night in New York City and passed Godiva Chocolatier. I decided to go inside and, though I had barely $10 to my name, spent $5 on five little chocolate bars. I ate them immediately and the whole time I was eating them I felt immortal, like nothing bad would ever happen to me again. The feeling ended as soon as I finished the last chocolate bar -- but I didn't care.

3. Favorite sign ever, seen in a New York subway tunnel: "Hold on to your hopes, your dreams, and the handrails." Yes.

4. Favorite moments throughout my playwriting career happen when I sit down in the audience on opening night in a dark room, waiting for the play to start. It can either be in New York or Canada or Minnesota or L. A. or Wisconsin, doesn't matter, Just that first moment in the dark before the lights come up on the actors feels like I won the lottery.

5.  Trying to convince a guy who liked me that dating was not a good idea. I was just coming off a divorce and was trying to hold my life together as single mom. I'd just gone out for coffee with this man, who was taller and better looking than I remembered when I opened the door that night. Even though we'd had a great time, I was still pretty skittish. "I bet you have a lot of girls you could go out with," I said.

"I'm looking for someone to stay in with," he replied. I had to smile. As a writer I can't help but admire when someone shares a great phrase.

What can I tell you? Reader, I married him.

6. One of my favorite roles as an actor was playing Heloise in a traveling company in New Hampshire. One night while I was doing a scene with the actor playing Abelard, I realized his sleeve was on fire. Not smoking and not popping a few embers, but really on fire. I was about to ask the audience for help when he beat out the fire with the opposite hand and continued the scene without missing a beat. By the time we went offstage, I could hardly believe what had happened. Meanwhile, no one in the audience had a clue.

7. Moments when my middle-grade/YA novel series wins an award or gets a great review are always sticky moments, whenever they happen.

8. My college roommate and I were painting our first apartment in Boston and got stuck inside when the door expanded due to the humidity. We had to call down to an older gentleman we noticed on the street as he walked by. We convinced him to come and muscle the door open, and I think he actually left at that point after saving us. I hope the rest of his day was wonderful.

9. My friend Gabriel came from Athens and we were sitting in a coffee house one afternoon, just shooting the breeze with each other. Gabriel asked if I wanted to play a game and I immediately said yes, without even knowing what it was. He said he would write down what he was thinking in Greek and I would need to write down what I was thinking in another language too. I wrote down my thought in Hebrew and we kept at this for the next five minutes. When we translated the conversation for each other, it turned out whatever we had written actually connected to each other's thoughts. We could have been talking in English. I still have no idea why.

10. Watching my son play Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors one night brought me a beautiful moment. It was during the intermission before the play was about to start again; he was addressing the audience. I can't remember why, but as people applauded him he tapped his heart and then pointed to them. I'm not describing it accurately, but it seemed like one of the most graceful things I'd ever seen--just purely from the heart. It had been a tough few months and I wasn't exactly happy with some of his recent choices Yet, seeing that gesture made me believe he was on the right track again--and as it turned out, I was right.

Hope your Thanksgiving is perfect - and you find a lot of Sticky Moments through the year.