Hello there. The picture above, taken on our way to a last Broadway show one month before we took off cross-country, evokes a whole host of emotions. Viscerally, I feel both nostalgia and agita. So. Many. People. Sharing such a close space. Looking at it as I was, from one-story up in a food stall, I remember thinking how it was kind of miraculous that this mass of humanity could actually function to move forward, sideways, backward. Cars, bikes, buses all negotiating their own space just feet away. Something I love about New York City is the range and breadth of people. Another thing I love is having space, whether that meant retreating to our apartment, or currently, a backyard. This last year-plus has cleared out the crowds (although I hear Broadway is making a tippy-toe, partial return in September), but when people ask me what I miss about the city, besides my friends, people-watching is top of mind. Nothing better than peeping from a distance the parade of life and, in my case, making up stories about them. (Speaking of, my friend Diane suggested a slim book of essays I just finished by Zadie Smith, Intimations, written during this last pandemic year and containing character sketches of people so well-rendered I feel like I now know them. A read that is great, thoughtful, not macabre but yet clear-eyed, and buoyant in a non-frivolous way.)

I didn’t actually realize how much I missed people-gazing until this week when my volunteer assignment at the vaccination site was front-of-the-house, watching over the people who’d gotten their vaccine and were now waiting the requisite fifteen minutes (thirty for some) to make sure they didn’t have an immediate adverse reaction to the shot. My job was to swab down the chair with an antibacterial wipe and antiseptic spray bottle once the person had been cleared by the nurse to exit the building. The set-up was like a socially distanced performance in the school gym. They facing us, us them. Except no one in the chairs paid the least amount of attention to what I and my two volunteer cohorts were doing. They were, with only a few exceptions, staring at their devices. Here were the exceptions: the man who somehow decided this waiting area was a good place to hit on women. A total creeper. After he asked my fellow volunteer a series of inappropriate questions and came inches from being spritzed in the face with the spray bottle, he went and sat six-feet from a just-vaxed woman and attempted the chat-up. She immediately picked up the inoculation fact sheet and studied it like there would be a test. He then moved over to another single woman who literally turned her chair away from him. He harrumphed (I saw that happen even with his mask on. Body language amazing). He looked around. The nurse had her eye on him and when his fifteen was up, she turned him out the door. There was also the Maytag man who just barely made it after his shift, still in his worker blues with scripted Sam stitched on his coveralls. The buddies: two eighteen-ish boys in a band, converse high tops, tats, rips in all the right places; two middle-aged men maybe comparing their muscles, though probably just flexing the arm that had just been jabbed. (There was a lot of rubbing and windmilling of the poked arm.) Then there were the families. A lot of families. Moms, dads, kids. A quadrangle of sisters. Moms and daughters. Moms and sons. I watched them especially closely. Curious about the bonding.

Mother’s Day. I have a lot of strong opinions about Hallmark Holidays. Mother’s, Father’s, Valentine’s to name a few. I mean, while the greeting card, candy, flower factory also brings us nurses, administrative professionals—previously known as secretaries—and bosses day, not to mention groundhogs, although they don’t have a special card section, it’s the mom, dad, love days that I have a particular reaction around. Not just because it seems slightly offensive to mark one twenty-four-hour period to acknowledge someone or thing that’s beyond a greeting card, but also because I think these holidays float on layers of very tricky emotion. By spotlighting the existence, there is often an emotional magnifying of the lack. And so often the lack goes undiscussed, as so many spiky topics do. This isn’t to suggest that I don’t actually acknowledge my mom and dad on Mother’s and Father’s day. I do. (An aside: standing in a local card aisle this year I was flummoxed by my choices. Since my go-to card shop is actually across the country, I was faced with glitter. So. Much. Glitter. pastels. lots and lots of words that made my teeth hurt. For the dad’s day, I know the card-style will offer wood tones and golf clubs.) I buy, I send, I call, I visit if possible. But this year, I’m also thinking about what it means to become a mother. And also what it means to choose not to become one. I didn’t pick up any clues one way or another while watching my mom/daughter/son combinations at the vaccination site except to say it was fascinating to watch their interactions—or lack of—but since discovering the treasure trove of home movies from when I was a kid, it has been rolling around my skull the idea of how families connect and exist.

The choice to not have kids is one that has rarely if ever come up with my women friends. If I think about why I don’t bring it up, a thin line appears. On one side It’s Personal, on the other Hard to Explain. Why hard to explain, though? What buried emotional treasure chest is that a holdover from? I’ve grown up in a time and a place when more and more women, having made the choice to forego motherhood, are stating their desires, living their lives, and really doing quite fabulous in the child-free zone. I acknowledge that this is a very geographical view. It’s not lost on me that still in many parts of the country, and of course the world, a woman with no children is often met with a smorgasbord of pity, suspicion and a lot of entrees in between. But from where I sit, I’ve only occasionally dealt with the side-eye. Still I rarely talk about it. It’s not like between choosing my wine and appetizer I say to my girlfriends, “So, ladies, what a relief, the menopause. No more birth control. No more worry about pregnancy. So relieved. How bout you?” Because I was happy (icky hot flashes notwithstanding) to cross that threshold, yet I am also aware that for some women, the onset of menopause is deeply sad. An indication that if they haven’t given birth, that they never will. So my celebrating that felt somehow callous. But I never really asked. I have no idea how many of my friends who are nearing or into the end of their childbearing years have made peace with that fact or are secretly thrilled like me. And these are women I’ve had some deeply intimate conversations with (I’m looking at you, masturbation). While I’ve talked about choosing to not give birth or have children, I don’t know how deeply I’ve gone into why. And even that may be an evolving, moving target. It’s true I’ve never felt the urge or tug in my heart or womb. That the only clock that ticked for me was the one where my alarm went off and I got up for work. I have always been so happy to keep my own company. Here’s the funny thing, even as I write that, a wet washcloth of am-I-terrible? smothers me and my face scrunches up. Why? I have no problem saying that I am one-hundred percent certain about my happiness and joy in the life I’m living. So, go deeper. Over time it’s become clearer and clearer that I need to be curious when something makes me uncomfortable. Why do I squirm? Where’d that washcloth even come from? I know if I don’t look, the thing will grow and obliterate in some sideways, didn’t-see-it-coming, hand towel or supersize beach blanket. So, like that room as a kid when someone said it was haunted and I just had to push myself to go in, making public this conversation around choosing to be child-free is inside that space. The door is cracked open. A little push, a jump back. Re-approach, a bigger push. Jump back. Wait. Get closer. Step up to the threshold, feel inside for the light switch. Wait to have hand eaten by monster. No monster. Open eyes. One foot in. Wait. The other foot in. Wait. Nothing. No big-fanged beast. Maybe a moth. Run to window. Open it. Check escape routes. Begin to breathe. Discover closet in the corner. Begin adventure again.

I didn’t ever want to have children. And rather than position it as something that is a lack, as I stand in the middle of that room being curious I actually get that there are no big ogre-like reasons. There are a lot of little fluttering moth-like moments. Sometimes to do with fear around loving too much or too little. Sometimes focusing on my life plans that didn’t include a tiny human. Mostly though, celebrating that I was able to make the decision I wanted even as I still wrestle with how to have a conversation around it. This piece in the Times is a great one on the topic. Maybe someday an all-out gab fest about the why’s and what’s surrounding us women who chose as we did. One that will include all the shades of compassion, empathy, celebration, acknowledgment, and like that. Maybe a new Hallmark holiday: It’s-Just-Not-For-Me Day. (I’m not gonna lie to you. I just googled Women Without Children thinking maybe there is a day like that and the sorriest list of terms came up with the oft-repeated childless. Again with the less, people. NO. not less.) Here’s to tomorrow. Please to all, have a great one.