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| 267 Motherhood: Stories and an Interview I need family. Yet I always rejected the idea that the Dance Exchange was a family. I didn’t like the references to my being “the mother.” (I let only Marvin Webb-a dancer whose infectious cheer was unstoppable-call me Big Mama, and even then I permitted it with some chagrin.) It wasn’t only that I had a family at home, or in Wisconsin, or scattered about with cousins and nephews and nieces, but that I just didn’t want to carry the burden of all that hope and nourishment and battling that family seems to inspire in us. Sometimes the metaphor creates hostilities and hardships that are too much to bear. I know that, more than once, the intensity of my capacity to nurture has outstripped my ability to lead well, choreograph better. I met Jon Spelman, then as now a storyteller, writer, and performer, when the Dance Exchange was only five years old. He was at that time preparing to leave the company he founded, the Florida Studio Theater. He joined me in Washington, and together we have made a life, a home, a family, a daughter. We jokingly say “married (at this date of writing) twenty-nine years, together fourteen” in order to account for the immense amount of time we spend away from each other because of touring and residency work. Always I carried this image of myself flying through space, connected to earth only by the slightest tether held by Jon and Anna and the animals and whatever house we happened to be living in at the time. Otherwise, I am sure that the centrifugal force of the activities of my brain and body would have sent me into the far universe. Two sections follow: one is a very brief set of stories from when Anna was a baby, describing her impact on me and the dancers at the time. The second is a fake interview I did with myself when I was on a writing retreat at Bellagio in 2003. I hope that these writings convey that by living a completely conventional life at home, I was able to lead a totally unconventional life in the world. And by going to PTA meetings and meandering through the halls on Back to School Nights, by helping with homework over the telephone, by missing the performances of my husband and the recitals of my daughter, I joined thousands of other Americans in a struggle to keep whole with the things that mattered even while I was pursuing the things that mattered. 268 | Bulky Love Baby Anna Stories When she was just a baby, everybody wanted to take care of Anna. I thought this was a fine idea. I believed that she just needed to be held and played with and, to some extent, it didn’t matter who was doing it. We were on tour. I was busy. One of the dancers took her for a while. We were near a beach somewhere . I went looking for her and found that the dancer who had taken her had given her to another dancer. So I went to find dancer 2 but instead found Anna, by herself on the sand. Dancer 2 had simply put her down and gone away. I completely lost it-couldn’t believe it. But dancer 2 hadn’t realized he was responsible for her. He thought dancer 1 was. Anyway, this led to a policy about Anna. If you had her, you were responsible, and if you were tired of her, you had to give her back to me or to someone. Seymour, one of our older dancers, noticed that Anna was getting all of the attention. He said he wanted some. So we instituted Baby-for-a-Day. Once a week we picked someone who could be the baby for that day. We all cooed, touched, bubblah-ed all over the person. We liked this so much that we added other days. The one I remember best was Generalization Day. You could say anything stereotypical about anyone or anything. We laughed a lot. Much of this off-handed humor was due to Beth Davis, a dancer who was great to tour with. This phenomenon of special days lasted only a few months-we got tired of it-but while it lasted, everyone seemed to enjoy being the baby. Every now and then I would feel very bad about leaving Anna at home while...

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