There are three things we harpists are especially good at: sitting, waiting (semi-patiently), and multitasking. Whether it’s pedaling and plucking, hauling equipment in an evening gown, or tuning while chit-chatting, we are no strangers to juggling many balls in the air at once. So you can imagine the interesting dichotomy of a harpist as a new parent: doing “nothing” and “everything” at the same time. 

Early in my career, I loved having tons of music on my stand at all times to keep me from getting bored. I thrived on dopamine and caffeine and post-concert parties. I stumbled during slower times, questioning my deeper purpose and general wherewithal until the next gig. But when I became pregnant, the aforementioned skills came to the forefront to prepare me for the biggest debut of a lifetime: becoming a mom. 

In the beginning, there was indeed waiting: almost 10 months until “the big entrance.”(Yes, 40 weeks is actually longer than nine months but they don’t tell you that in the job description!) It’s like the longest overture to parenting, but there is absolutely no rehearsal, not even a run-through, for the highly-anticipated debut. Like a true rookie, not even all the study and visualization in the world could prepare me for it. Just like that time I tried sight-reading a combined Symphonie Fantastique part when I was 16 (spoiler alert: it did not go as planned), this experience was, in a word, humbling. By the time I landed on my feet (literally), I realized I would need to go back to square one: sitting. 

To be fair, I had done a fair amount of sitting during my pregnancy (especially long hours in the opera pit…with sciatica as my witness). But in my postpartum era, sitting or “nesting” emerged as an essential skill in the early months of parenting—I swapped out my tuner for a breast pump, my stool for the sofa, and instead of watching the conductor I watched every season of The Crown. After a steep learning curve, I started to enjoy my new gig. 

Slowly, my fingertips lost their calluses as my harps stood patiently in the next room. It wasn’t that I couldn’t play or that I didn’t want to play, but I gave myself permission to really, fully step off the hustle bus. And to my surprise—it felt great…so great that by the time I had to go back to work, I found myself in a state of equal parts dread and excitement. Sure, I knew I loved my job, but would it still be fun now that I had this other job that I really loved too? Could I really do both, or would the inevitable “mom guilt” I’d been hearing about finally kick in?

That’s when my years of high-level multitasking training kicked in almost by instinct. First, I found myself packing up my string bag with a few additional items—my pump, cooler, ice packs, a towel, wipes, and snacks—all while sporting my new, very elastic, nursing-friendly wardrobe. Plopping the baby in the bouncer, I started hacking through the 110-page John Williams score I’d been avoiding for weeks, digging out my old beaten-up picks for what was sure to be Glissando Fest 2024. Listening to recordings from my “soft office” (a.k.a. my bed), I contact-napped with my little guy, feeling his little heartbeat pitter-patter in and out of tempo. 

Finally, my first day back from maternity leave arrived, and after a few warm “welcome back” greetings, I was back next to my trusty steed, feeling as though I’d never left. Was I the most prepared I’d ever been? No. Did I play perfectly? Definitely not. But after the initial cortisol rush, I found myself flying through the pages with surprising familiarity and joy. And as rehearsal came to a close, the fear of not being enough melted away into the whole-hearted remembrance that I am not defined by any job, on stage or at home, but by the love and gratitude I experience in any given moment. I get to trust myself and the decisions I make—whether to speed up or slow down.  And maybe the multitasking isn’t about how much we do or how well we do it, but about how much grace we give ourselves in the process. 

When I returned home from my first concert, I stepped back into that sweet familial bubble to find my 3-month-old miraculously still awake, all zipped up in his sleep sack with a groggy smile on his face. I thought back to those days of pregnancy when he was with me in the opera pit, the size of a melon. Perhaps those late nights and rich harmonies made it somewhere into his DNA. And wherever I go, whatever I’m playing, I’ll carry a little part of him with me too. •