Writing this book has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver. It's hard and boring and occasionally great, but it's lonely, even with my oldest boy, Archie, sleeping next to me while I type this in the dark. It's a missive from the middle, from a woman who is young and old at the same time, who knows enough now to know she knows nothing. But the doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing. So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. So, yes please.
It started in fourth grade, playing Dorothy in *The Wizard of Oz*. Standing onstage in my blue-checked dress, Toto in my arms, I had a huge realization: I could say whatever I wanted. That feeling led me to improv, first in Boston and then in Chicago, where I learned the rules: listen, say yes, support your partner, and don't be afraid to look stupid. It was a good place for a plain girl like me. The demon voice that lives in every woman's head - the one that whispers you are fat and ugly and don't deserve love - had already moved in. But I decided early on that my currency wasn't going to be my looks; it was going to be my personality. Comedy was a perfect canvas. An SNL hairstylist once told me I had a great face for wigs. What a compliment.
My time at *Saturday Night Live* was a tornado. The 2008 election season was electric, a magical time to be on a live satirical show. Tina played Sarah Palin and blew the roof off the joint, and I stood next to her, eight months pregnant, and performed a hard-core rap I wrote in my dressing room. It was one of those moments that felt perfectly whole, with Archie doing flips in my stomach each time the audience clapped. The week he was born was the week my beloved, old-fashioned Italian doctor, the one who'd delivered Sophia Loren's children, died of a heart attack. I was at rehearsal when I found out, and I sobbed so hard in my *Mad Men* dress that Jon Hamm had to hold me by the shoulders. “I know this is very sad,” he said, looking me right in the eye, “but this is a really important show for me, so I'm going to need you to get your shit together.” I laughed so hard I think I peed. Going from crying to laughing that fast is the reason we are alive.
I say “sorry” a lot. “Sorrysorrysorry,” all in one stream. It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for. But there was one apology that took me years to make. On a busy night at SNL, I performed in a sketch playing a creepy, disabled doll, assuming the reference was made up. Months later, I received a letter from Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone, telling me I had made fun of a real person - a young woman with cerebral palsy named Anastasia Somoza. At first, I got angry and defensive. I threw the note away and stomped around, making a lot of noise because I felt bad and didn't want to get quiet and figure out why. Years passed before I finally wrote to them. Anastasia's response was an act of grace, a gift that rearranged my molecules. She taught me that an apology is a glorious release, and that her journey was about open hearts, not armor.
My career has been a strange and wonderful ride, but it's important to remember that it's like a bad boyfriend. It's fickle and will never marry you. Your creativity, on the other hand, is a warm older lady who loves to hug. You have to care about your work but not about the result. Ambivalence is key. That, and surrounding yourself with a tribe. In the mid-nineties, I moved to New York with three of the funniest people I knew - Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh - and we built a home. We started the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in a former burlesque house, cleaning condoms out of the toilets ourselves. It became a clubhouse, a place to try things out and fail, a place to feel less alone.
That feeling of collaboration and finding a family carried over to *Parks and Recreation*. I was newly pregnant with Archie when Mike Schur and Greg Daniels pitched me the character of Leslie Knope, an extremely low-level government employee with big dreams. She was the best character ever written for me. For seven seasons, I got to stand in front of people I truly loved and, in character, tell them how much I loved them. We kept our heads down, did the work, and made a show we were proud of. We rejected the idea that creativity needs to come from chaos. We just tried to be kind and funny.
I am a moon junkie. I tell my boys that moonlight is a magic blanket and the stars are campfires set by friendly aliens. We go on “moon hunts” with flashlights and M&M's. This love for them is scary; I fear my heart will explode. When they arrived, they broke open everything about me. My heart became a room with wide-open windows. And through those windows, you start to see the world a little more. You see the children in Haiti who need holding, the orphans who deserve a family. You realize a little love goes a long way.
The robots will kill us all. My phone, my laptop - they are battery-charged rectangles of disappointment and possibility, and they are trying to keep us from connecting. I lost my computer at airport security while I was finishing this book, and with it, pages I hadn't backed up. I called the TSA Lost and Found, and a kind woman named Sharita Fields found it for me. She was my angel. The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are.
