One For My Baby and One More for the Road

Mara here:

I think "One For My Baby (and One More For the Road)" was originally a Frank Sinatra song. But what I remember is a cover Bette Midler did many years ago. The song always stuck with me for its soothing but melancholy sound. 

I've written previously about all the "lasts" that are happening this year with Malia. She's a senior in high school and turning 18. There was the last first day of high school. There was the last school shopping outing. There have been a lot of lasts that have passed by.

And there was one that I thought wasn't going to happen.

Malia spent several years acting when she was younger. However, in the past three years, she hasn't booked any jobs. I assumed that my job being her legal guardian on set (we call it "on set" not "on the set") had passed by. Similar to what people say about last kisses with a romantic partner. You don't usually realize it's going to be the last.

With Malia's 18th birthday only a couple months away, and at that point, she doesn't need a parent or guardian to go with her to a shoot. And I assumed that she would probably not act again before she left for college. She may or may not decide to return to acting when she gets older, but for the time being, I assumed that her acting days were over.

Then out of the blue she direct-booked an acting job.

Direct book means a production books an actor for a job the actor hasn't auditioned for. It's not uncommon, especially for smaller roles or for actors who casting directors know well. 

But Malia is relatively unknown in the acting world. So it's not something we ever expected.

Lo and behold, the night before Thanksgiving, at around 11pm, her manager emailed and said that Malia had been booked for a small acting role and that the work was the following week.

What?!

It's odd when you don't do something for a while and then you're suddenly thrust back into the motions of doing it again. 

For Malia and me, we unknowingly reverted back into roles that we hadn't played for three years. She was the young teen needing everything to be done for her. And I was the stage mom, handling her and networking with the production people.

And after the first day, when I realized what was happening, I felt a little ridiculous. I was behaving like a controlling mother and Malia was behaving like someone who needed help doing things she has been doing on her own for years.

There's a big difference between a 15 year old, and an almost 18 year old. And a parent needs to play a very different role for a child who is a young actor, striving to move up the Hollywood ladder, as opposed to someone who is simply acting because she's been asked to.

Malia doesn't have crazy ambition for acting anymore. She's happy to do it, but she's really looking forward to going to college. And she would be happy to act in things if they're offered, but she doesn't want to sacrifice pursing things she wants in her life to dedicate her time to acting.

By the second day she needed to be on set, I'd changed my role. I spent more time observing. I didn't feel the need to insert myself into the scene. I wasn't worried about whether or not people were "happy" with her. I just let her do her thing. She can take care of herself. 

I think Malia enjoyed having a little break from all the stress of school and applying for colleges. After all, who doesn't like being waited on and pampered. But even she recognized that she had grown up a lot since the last time she'd been on set. 

Most noticeably, she has passed her CHSPE, the high school equivalency test in California that allows her to be excused from having to do school on set. For some young actors, it means they can drop out of high school to focus on acting full time. Malia didn't want to do that. But not having to try and squeeze in three hours of school on set was freeing for her. 

While the whole experience was amazing, it came at a very crazy time. It's the holidays. And we're moving. The house is half-packed in boxes, and every day is filled with some new stress of trying to close escrow for the house we're selling and the house we're buying.

So, when the news came about her acting job, we were excited, but it meant shifting everything around. 

As most of our readers know, I'm not great with sudden change. I'm not great with changing plans at the last minute.

Going into the first day of production, I felt hassled and stressed.

But as we drove home from her second and final day on set, I was able to take a minute and feel grateful to have had one more chance to experience being on set with her. For one last time, Malia was on set as a minor, with little responsibility. And one last time, I was able to be on set, ready to take care of her if she needed me.

And making the familiar drive home out of Hollywood that night, a drive Malia and I have traveled hundreds of times over the years, the lyrics to that song that had stuck with me all these years floated through my head: "Give me one for my baby, and one more for the road." 

I glanced over at Malia, sitting next to me, and felt privileged to realize at that moment how lucky I was to have been able to experience something special with my girl for one last time. 

Toni here.

Reading through what Mara wrote, knowing that our blog together will shortly coming to an end, it was great to read one more of my girl's insightful and poignant pieces. All I could think about Mara and me was "One for my baby and one more for the road."