It was a wet Saturday morning for my kids’ fourth end of year concert. The Junior Primary Concert was slightly different to the Talent Show, Carols Night and Christmas Concert that had taken place over the preceding weeks. The preps and grade ones would be singing non-Christmas songs, and performing an array of instrumental numbers including two improvised piano solos and a ukulele rendition of The Song That Doesn’t End.
“This one should be fairly short,” read the reminder email the night before. “But there is no way of knowing what time it will finish!”
There was palpable tension in the hall. The music teacher and her husband / audio engineer were experiencing difficulties, technical and potentially otherwise. He moved between the mics and mixer while she stood motionless at the front of the room, a three-page program crumpled to her chest. The kids sprawled on the carpet; some twanged ukuleles, one curled gently on their side, head resting in their classmate’s lap.
My 5-year-old has been refusing to go to school almost every day. My 7-year-old has developed a broiling generalised fury that could bubble over at any moment. One morning she fell off the side of the bed (a 30cm drop onto carpet) and sat silently with her legs tucked to her chest. I asked her gently if she was OK. “WHY WOULD I BE OKAY?” she screamed.
In the row in front, a woman joked about the hall being “the scene of the crime” in reference to the previous day’s Talent Show; 61 acts including three bongo solos and four dance routines to Miley Cyrus. Her drooling, pillowy soft toddler clambered over her as she spoke, then awkwardly on to the empty chair beside her, almost toppling backwards. The toddler reminded me of my seven-year-old when she was little; the same brand of slow motion chaos. I could almost feel the weight of her in my arms.
Next to me, a parent confessed they had spent an hour that morning looking for a cat ear headband and ended up screaming into a pillow in the walk-in robe. They didn’t want to be the kind of parent who turned their house upside down looking for cat ears. Their mother would have let them look for a minute or two before saying simply that it was time to leave. If they refused to cooperate she would back the car slowly out of the driveway, giving them a fighting chance to climb in the moving vehicle.
We agreed that we were too soft on our kids now. We were figuring out how to set healthy boundaries. We’re tired and doing our best. We waved to her cat-eared child sitting by the stage.
There are too many occasions requiring obscure props and parental attendance in December, and no one knows who they’re for at this point. Parents, teachers and students are collectively disassociating to Jingle Bell Rock on repeat.
And we’re so absurdly lucky. I realise that. One concert is wonderful. Two is OK. Three and up is beyond the pale.
Technical difficulties resolved, the first improvised piano solo was under way, a piece entitled I’m at the Beach Now, which for 1 minute 53 seconds went:
“Ding ... Ding ding ... Donnnnnnng.”
Next came the second improvised piano solo, this one entitled: Something Scary is Happening, which sounded strikingly similar to its precursor.
Something scary was happening. There was no end in sight to the fourth end of year concert and I didn’t have a seat by the door.
As a child I loved to perform. My sisters and I would put on plays in the garage, or rather I would stuff handwritten scripts in their hands and bribe them into submission with last year’s Easter eggs. Mum hung a curtain across the little raised platform above the cellar (complete with trapdoor for dramatic entrances) and filled the dress-up box with her shimmery 1970s pre-kids wardrobe. The setup granted her entire child-free afternoons, until inevitably she would be summoned for showtime.
Recently I asked if she remembered what the plays were about. She didn’t, except that they were: “Long, complicated and usually ended with a song.”
I remember her being there though. Viscerally. Midway through Something Scary Is Happening, I was sitting in her chair.
Older parents are fond of telling younger ones to enjoy the moment. It goes past in a blink, they say, usually while gripping your arm with something akin to fear in their eyes. When my kids were smaller it bothered me. I’d be breastfeeding the baby while restraining my toddler from six lanes of traffic thinking why don’t you take over and enjoy the moment for me?
The toddler in front had taken a micro-nap and awoke to the sound of applause. They reached their arms around their mother’s neck and planted their lips on hers in something like a kiss. It lasted a long time. I could feel the stillness of the cat ear parent beside me, like we were witnessing a rare blooming flower.
Eventually it was time for the closing number, in all its infinite looping glory: The Song That Doesn’t End.
• Ashe Davenport is a writer and author
