A psychiatrist friend recently said, “There is no win in being just like anyone else in your family.”
Instead of carving out a spot between the 3D-ness of my wife’s costume and mosaic work, and the 2D-ness of my illustration and cartooning, our kids leapfrogged the visual arts, and landed squarely in the performance space — a bold, defining act of innate skills fueled by passion.
Zach was a highly verbal, idea-oriented first born from the get-go. An early incident with an Orangina bottle crashing through our third story apartment window in NYC gave him a preternatural ability to listen — to stories, to songs — as though his life depended on it. In his early Montessori schooling, he had little interest in the proscribed projects that lined the walls of the classroom. Instead, he loved describing grand adventures he had in the playground. But it was Zach’s feet that moved him toward theatre. He loved the synchronized rhythm and rhyme of tap dancing.
Zach’s ear, his ability to articulate ideas, his excitement for adventure and movement, moved him into a sphere of his own. He wouldn’t “design” experiences, he would “create” them and bring as many people into the process as possible. He hopped, skipped, and jumped from producing “Rent” and “Spring Awakening” at Sarah Lawrence College to conceptualizing and line producing “Neverland,” a 50,000 square foot immersive “Peter Pan” theatrical spectacle in China. With a clear raison d’être, he continues to develop new immersive, theatrical works.
Sofie was a whole other piece of celery. She was a highly observant, feisty, verbal, attention-grabber — happier standing on a chair than sitting in it. If Zach vacated a piano stool, she was on it. She also had an ear, but less for story and more for arranging, and spotting flats and sharps with her perfect pitch. And unlike Zach’s conceptual bravado and showmanship, Sofie’s early voice had a melodic but raspy quality that captured the attention of acting managers and TV creative directors. In a family where the parents were the people “behind” works of art, Sofie stepped forward and became both an on camera actor in art films and the voice of the lead character, Linny the Guinea Pig, in Nick Jr’s the Wonder Pets.
Her innate music skills also differentiated her place in the family. Her piano playing and songwriting quickly outclassed both the poor-excuse-for-the-blues I had played in college, and the fun, but rambling classical piano concertos my wife Cathy could muster. As if to put an exclamation point on this, she pushed past the piano and lit upon the marimba — using a 4 mallet-ed, precision performance instrument to support her singer-songwriting.
I can’t possibly understand the quirks of nature, subtle nudges, and glaring gaps that drew my kids into their respective places in the family. What I do know is that they have acted with a level of certainty I’ve only dreamed of in my meandering career — gratefully, a surety they could only have gotten from their mother :-) Cathy’s ability to make things— from a beautiful mosaic, to a whimsical cow, to a Claes Oldenburg lion, to an over-sized, fifties purse — is sure and concrete.
Every family is a mosaic. And the creative mechanizations that pull them together — that choose the materials, that chip the pieces into shape, that orient them in space, that adhere them in a lasting way — are mysterious and result in something far more beautiful than the sum of its parts.
Would love to hear how your family is self-organizing or what has made them gel into what they are today!
