Photo: An electric guitar. Prized possession of my kiddo.

As a writer, I feel a particular, if curious, satisfaction at the “tentpole” moments in life. The “firsts” my kids go through are generally inevitable and predictable. They also rely on life going the way life goes: which is often meandering and apt to distraction. Everyone in my house is experiencing multiple narrative plots at once as we individually explore the complex fabric of who we are and what we want from our lives. The tangle then comes in community space and time: our shared comings and goings, nightly dinners, morning walks to the bus stop, the dreams we’re dreaming for each other and for our full family.

On Saturday, community time took on something very different than normal: a rock concert at a local brewery. My eldest had his first gig on a real stage with his new band. This was a culmination of almost 8 years of work, 10 years of dreaming. It’s one of many tentpole moments for my kid and his journey toward rock stardom, the one of many tentpole moments for me as a rock mom, I guess.

It’s a funny thing, seeing your kid do something you’d never ever do under any circumstances for real for real. This child, my child, the one who came of me and is most like me, strode onto a stage with his electric guitar and his sunglasses and his locs and his confidence and played two songs with his band in front of a packed room of strangers. He did it without any nerves (from what I could tell). He did it with a smirk. He did it like he was born to do it. Like this is what he was designed for.

Seeing him up there took me right back to a moment years ago, when he told me, still in diapers, looking all the way up at me from all the way down there in his toddler body that he wanted to be a rock star when he growed up. He said it again when he was 4, asking for lessons. When he turned 5 and he said it again, I started looking. We had to find a school that would let him start with electric guitar because he didn’t want to earn electric status, he wanted to start there. He wanted to be a rock star.

And I complied because I’m a modern mom trying to raise a whole human. Thank goodness I found a school that heard me and him, helped me get him a little amp and a little Fender squire (they make them in little-kid size if you need them.) and he could barely get into that chair with his guitar and sit there and strum that first day 2 weeks before he started kindergarten.

That’s right, he learned to read music before he learned how to read.

And now he gets on stages and plays music like it’s not a big deal.

And now I get to go to VERY loud rooms full of strangers to watch him play.

That part is crucial: the “VERY loud” part. The “room full of strangers” part. I’m not a rock star. I don’t go to concerts. When I do, it’s Carnegie Hall to see Christopher Tin or the Kennedy Center, or other places like that to listen to classical or jazz. I like all sorts of music and my playlist is aggressively Millennial, but I don’t go see performers live in concert because it’s fuckin’ loud and crowded and expensive and takes forever. For emphasis: fuckin’ loud. I don’t do loud, y’all. Not because it makes me anxious or anything, but because it’s unpleasant.

So imagine walking into a room for your kid and experiencing loud. And staying there! Imagine! Because that’s what’s required to be rock kid’s mom: walking into a loud room, a crowded room, a room that’s loud and crowded.

Alcohol helped a lot.

My husband, also not into loud and crowded, actually sat outside for most of our time there until it was time for the eldest child to actually do his set. When he came in and sat with me, I said to him, “We’ll get the things we need… earplugs and such. This is our life now.”

“This is our life now,” he repeated… it was resignation and surprise. Surprise. How did this happen?

“I’d rather be here than fucking soccer,” I said. We both laughed. He agreed.

And so, we begin a new season of life. The Season of Rock.

I’m writing all this because it’s fun to remember. I can see the steps along the way: First lesson, first fight about practicing, first recital, first teacher change, growing out of his baby guitar… watching his confidence grow and now, first time on the big stage, first crowd, first performance high. Between each of those tentpoles were the routine and mundane. It might not have felt like the trajectory was a climbing up, but it was, and the journey continues.

Don’t forget this for your characters. I think that looking back matters for characters and readers. I know this doesn’t fully apply for the shorter mediums, but if you’re telling a longer story, a “looking back” or at least breathing to enjoy a big milestone feels good.

I am just about done with Donald Maass’ The Emotional Craft of Fiction and when I read the portion about Seasons of Self (starting on page 163), it resonated with me with extraordinary clarity. He writes, “How does your protagonist understand his own evolution? Powerful characters are real people. For them to become fully real, you need to create their personal history and grow it. That doesn’t mean writing their biographies or resumes, but rather understanding the stages of self that cannot be capured in a photo album. Growth in self-understanding, an awareness of who I was and who I am becoming now, is as significant, maybe more so, as anything that a character may do.”

That paragraph gives me goosebumps. It is one of those things that I knew before I read it, but I’d never read it that way before. Here is something I love about great stories and great characters. I especially love the characters I’ve gotten to really see grow over a long period of time. The story really is in the journey, y’all. Sometimes you have to take stock to fully know that.

So, be you the parent of a proud “main character” or living a “main character” life of your own… or if you’ve got a character who you love but don’t know what to do with…. give them a little tent pole today and force them to look back and feel proud for a moment. Perhaps they just need a moment to remember who they were, who they’re becoming, and who they might still become.

Maybe bring ear plugs if “rock star” is the trajectory. My ears are still ringing.