Jaclyn Hofmann
@jaclynhofmann wearing the softest Weird Sisters shirt.
-Theatre-
Jaclyn is a warrior and a champion for all crammed into a tiny little sweet lady body. You have no idea how fierce she is until you have worked with her. Not fierce in a “mean way”! Fierce in a “you are the brightest star ever and I will always fight for you until the death” way.
Who doesn’t want someone like that in their life? Especially in the arts. We have been able to work together in a few capacities but I value her friendship more.
When I pulled up to her house, she was in her car because her youngest has been having trouble sleeping and sleeps well on drives. So she had just gotten back from a little trip around the neighborhood to lull him to sleep. She quietly called her husband out to take her spot in the car while we chatted on her front porch.
Interviewed 5.26.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: Yay! Jaclyn is here. How are you doing?
Jaclyn: I would say it's very up and down.
I feel the roller coaster effect of super high moments. We are getting to see, especially with Theo, every one of his milestones, which is very cool. We were one hundred percent there the first time he crawled. I've had a lot of guilt this year about how Theo had to start full-time daycare right away at three months. And with Ollie, he had started part-time daycare for his first year. But that's just kind of where we were at with work. So I was like, “Well, I guess we're making up for the time that we lost to those first few months of daycare because now we see him all the time.” So that part has been really awesome. Ollie has loved Theo since the second he stepped into the hospital room and saw him and kind of got it, you know? But seeing them play together, I mean, Ollie will lay on the floor and Theo just crawls all over him and it's really sweet. And they both giggle a lot. So those moments are really awesome highs.
And then, of course, there are the lows of missing all the people who we love so much. I think that's one hundred percent the hardest part to me is not knowing when I'll see my sisters again. And we never go this long without seeing each other. If I think too long about missing my nieces and nephews, then I just will cry forever.
And then Nick and I both have had work issues. He's been furloughed since this started, so a little over two months. Jeff Watkins has been awesome about checking in with the staff, reassuring them that they're going to be here on the other side. So that's really helped our anxiety about that. And luckily, they've been filing unemployment for the staff. So Nick has had it much easier that way than I think if he had to file on his own. However, this summer, I got cut to half basically at GGC. I know that it wasn't just me and I think that mentally helps that part of my brain that goes like, "But, why? Am I not doing a good job?" I know it's not personal, but it's scary because we have two kids and a mortgage and all the things that everybody else is worried about so my bigger fear is what's going to happen in the fall, because we know that furloughs and layoffs are coming. They're just going to be a part of our future. So, that part, the idea that Nick and I could both be unemployed in August pops into my mind.
But strangely, I think because everyone's been impacted in some way, that has stopped me from getting too far down the rabbit hole of feeling sorry for myself. I've certainly had my moments. The day that I found out that I was going to be getting half of my pay this summer, I was like, "We're never gonna make it," you know? But since then, I think the harder part to me is the people, missing the people and same with work. The harder part of work has been not being able to be in the classroom. I miss my students so much.
Casey: How is your family? How do you feel like Ollie and Theo are doing in this? Do they really know what's going on?
Jaclyn: My parents had been struggling a lot. They are seeing my sister and her family. So that has been really good for their mental health, because before that, their biggest fear, I think, has been like, “How much time do we have to go without seeing our grandkids?” And I feel like, with both of ours, there's that weird sense of mortality that's very present of like, “I'm older. And what if this goes on for a year or two? And who knows how much time I have? And then I'm missing all this time with my kids and my grandkids.” So that's been a conversation that's come up in different ways a lot. And I know is on their minds and then is constantly on our minds.
And I think it's true for all of us anyway. That's something Nick and I talked about, too, is it's so scary. The idea that we could not see certain family members and our very best friends who are like family for possibly over a year and, God forbid something else happens.
But I do think Ollie and Theo are kind of at the best age if there is a good age for this to happen. Theo obviously will not remember it at all. He is very happy to be home with us. So he's like, I would say, in the most fortunate position you could be in for this. He's just happy as can be.
Ollie is right below the threshold of really getting it. But he does know that something's happening. This was a big change for him with routine, which three-and-a-half/almost four year old thrives on routine. He loved being home, but he seemed to have a hard time just kind of understanding what was happening, which makes sense. Just why he couldn't see his friends at preschool and why he couldn't see his grandparents. That was big. We had explained to him that a lot of people are sick right now and we don't want to get sick and we don't want to get anyone else sick. So that's why we have to stay at home. And we were going for walks at our neighborhood park for a while, but that was really hard for him too, like the playgrounds all red taped off. And he was like, "Why can't we go on the swings? Why don't we go on the slide?" So that was another place we had to explain, “Well, because people have been sick. They're closing the playground just so that we don't get other people sick.” So now he has started saying this thing, "After all the sickness goes away, can we...?" And that has gotten harder lately because of the idea of who knows how long it will be this way.
In the beginning, it felt like if we all do our part, then maybe in a couple months risk will go down. We didn't think it was going to magically disappear, but we certainly thought this summer would be safer to do some of the things we used to do. And obviously, over the weeks, that's become clear that it's just not going to happen. So when he says that now it does break my heart a little bit. We face time with a lot of our family and we have face-timed with his best friend and he likes it for like a minute and then he's done. So a lot of times after the face time, he'll say, "Well, after the sickness is over, can I go to Sawyer's house"? or, "Can I go play in the playground with Reid?" And so those questions just are hard. But I also think his age is helpful and that he doesn't really know what coronavirus is. He would have like nightmares and little regressions. But now I would say he's pretty much into the new routine. And so it's more just hard to explain to him. But I do think he's young enough that I don't know how much of this he'll remember. I'm kind of hopeful that if he remembers anything from this, it'll just be being home a lot which is not so bad. So I really think about the people who have kids that are in middle school or high school or even in elementary school who are having to deal with the stress of what we're dealing with. I think as far as the kids go, we're really kind of lucky at what age they're going through this with.
Casey: What have you been doing? I know you've been teaching. I know Nick's been furloughed. But not just work-related, but what have you guys been doing with two children under the age of four?
Jaclyn: Sometimes we say to each other, “The number one goal is not to do screen time all day.” Because it can be very easy to just be in our pajamas and have a Disney movie on or Muppet Babies and not realize how much time has gone by. We also inherited a swing set with this house. And we have been using that swingset every day that it's even sunny out for a little while. And then Nick actually bought a pretty decent kiddie pool at the beginning of this, like big enough that the four of us could actually fit. Theo hates it. So we have a water table that he can splash on. One of us usually sits out at the water table with him and the other person goes in the pool with Ollie. And that, in the past week or so, where it's been hotter, has been amazing because we can just spend all afternoon out there and all of a sudden it's like, “Oh, it's dinnertime.”
I think days like this when it's rainy are definitely the worst. Just because it becomes very hard to not do too much screen time. Even before this, I would say we certainly have limitations on it because we saw how quickly Ollie could… If you like, hand him an iPad, he could sit on it all day. So he's not allowed to have it during the week. That's always been the rule. On the weekends he can have it for a little while in the morning, a little while at night. I don't know that that's the best system. It was just one that we came up with that worked for us. I've been trying not to be too hard on us if we do watch too much TV because the times are what they are. But I also think it's just better for all of us, for all of our sanity if we don't.
Ollie and I had made, at the beginning of this, a little pre-school schedule. I just asked him, “What were your favorite things you did at school that you missed?” So we have arts and crafts time. We have a dance party. That's my favorite part of the day. And then we do circle time, which is they all sit in a circle and talk about what their favorite thing was that day. It's like two minutes, but it's fun. So we do story time where we read books. And then we added a couple things that we like. Like Ollie and I have been doing cosmic yoga, which is like they have Harry Potter and Star Wars and Frozen and all different themes. So we do that usually every day. In the beginning, I had a schedule with each of these things. Where at nine o'clock we have storytime, then at nine thirty we have snack time. And I realized how much it was kind of stressing me out, especially when I was working. And poor Nick was like, “I'm just trying to keep the both of them alive.” So basically what I wound up doing is now each thing is just in a box and then we have magnets and he can put a magnet on it when we've done it. So we can do it at any point during the day. We can take a break whenever we want. If we don't get it all done, then I try not to stress because that's my kind of my own business and my own baggage. But Monday through Friday, we try to get everything on the list done if we can.
And then also we have tried to take field trips. I'll try to find a park that doesn't have a playground. So we found a couple of new places that just have trails. We walk around our neighborhood quite a bit. And our neighborhood has had some fun things like, in the beginning of this, they did a bear hunt where people put their teddy bears in the window and you drive around and see them. And they did the same thing at Easter. Everyone colored an Easter egg and put them in their windows. We walked around and Ollie really liked that. Like "There's one! There's one!" But I think the real big goal, Nick and I say every day, is we did something other than watch TV today. So it was a success.
Casey: We talked about how we miss people, we miss theater, we obviously miss school. But is there anything that maybe everyone else would find silly that you really miss and that once we're able to get back to that thing, you're like, “I'll be okay. I feel like I'm back.”?
Jaclyn: Yeah, I'm sure there is a lot of things. This one is probably very silly. I miss being able to pee by myself. I love being home with my kids. I think being a stay at home mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world because you never have a break. Even when the kids nap, you're doing stuff. So at work, I get to pee alone. So I think it's going to be really interesting to pee alone again after all this time.
Casey: Do you have any sort of sacred spaces now? I mean, I know it's hard with two little kids, but do you have new or enriched habits or sacred spaces or sacred hobbies that you're able to do during quarantine to keep yourself sane?
Jaclyn: Yeah. Ollie and I have started baking, which is really funny because I always thought I hated baking. I'm not good at cooking at all. And I never was good at baking either. I have a tendency to burn anything and everything, and I just never really enjoyed it. So luckily, Nick loves cooking, so I'll do easy things if he wants a night off. But for the most part, he does most of that stuff.
So I had decided that I really just wanted to learn how to bake a good chocolate chip cookie because I thought when Ollie is older it would be cool if that's the thing, when he comes home from school or work or wherever, it is like, “My mom's cookies are the best.” I don't know. It's just in my head. And since Nick is the cook, I thought he'll miss Nick's food. But I would like him to have a thing that I do that brings him comfort.
So I had gathered a bunch of recipes and then I think I tried one. I didn't do well at it. And then life is so busy that it was easy for me to be like, “Well, I'll just try that again later.” So at the beginning of this, I thought I should look back at those recipes and give baking another try. And Ollie really enjoys being my helper. I pour things in the cups and he pours them in the mixer and he loves turning on the mixer, turning it off. That's probably his favorite, and scooping the cookie dough. I have to be careful not to micromanage him because sometimes I want to fix all of his scoops. So instead, we just have different size cookies. So we do that together. And I've realized I like it a lot, I think because I have more time. So when I'm not in a rush, I can actually focus on all the ingredients and take the time that it takes versus feeling like I just have to get it done before we have to go to bed and then go to work and then go to daycare. I think I've actually gotten pretty decent at it.
Ollie and I bake cookies almost every week and then we deliver them to people. We've delivered 'em to all of our neighbors and we delivered a big batch to his school for Teacher Appreciation Week. We spent a day where we took them to a few of our close friends. And then one day we made a basket. We put them out here because we knew we were getting a bunch of deliveries. So we put them in a basket and put a little sign for our delivery folks like “Thank you for delivering!” And they could take a bag of cookies and that was really fun. Honestly, I wish I could say it's totally selfless, but we enjoy it. Every time Ollie saw someone take one out, he would run up to the door and be like, "Bye! Thank you! They took a cookie! They took a cookie!" and start jumping and shouting. So that wound up being a fun activity for us to do. And I really like it. I can't believe it, but I really like it.
Casey: What do you think you will take out of this? Let's hope that we're over halfway through. What do you think you've learned?
Jaclyn: I think my number one thing is definitely just not to take everything for granted. I have a lot of guilt when I think about some of the things before this that I didn't appreciate, like time with our family. And I always have loved spending time with our family. But I didn't realize how much I took it for granted. Same with friends. Even going to shows. I love going to see shows. And before the boys, Tiffany, Kelly, and I would do Thursday night through Sunday. And when I had the boys, it became really hard to do that. And even though I love going to see theater, there were a lot of times that I would go to a show and I would just be so tired and all I could think about was the sleep that I was missing. And so I think I really took for granted that, even though you're low on time, just being present and enjoying those things. I have been, since having the boys, much better I would say about not loading up my schedule the way that I used to. Any kind of show or experience with theater came up, I was like, “Yes, I will do it even if I'm way too busy and don't have enough time.” And so that has been a lesson for me, I now do the things that I'm really excited about and passionate about. In the rehearsal room, I'm more grateful and excited to be there because I don't do a show every month. I do two shows a year now so that that is something that I'm excited to get back to. But I will say kids taught me that lesson more than quarantine.
But the thing that I think I took for granted the most is time with people. That's something that after this, I need to realize that those aren't a given, a family cookout is not a given. Going to see a show with two friends is not a given. So those are things I hope I remember to appreciate.
Casey: Is there anything else you want to share?
Jaclyn: I feel like I do not take as much joy in Facebook lately. I'm still on there sometimes. And I love to see my friend’s pictures and things like that. And I do think it's important that we read some of the articles that each other posts. But I also feel like there's so much anger on there. I get it because this situation just sucks, you know, and it's hard. And there are so many different ways to look at it. But it's a good reminder for me. We have friends and family on every side of the spectrum with this. We have people who have been quarantined. One hundred percent full time, have not seen anyone, get groceries delivered, have not left their house, you know, and then we have friends and family who are in places that have not been as affected yet and who have a little bit larger of a “quaran-team” than I would say most of our friends in Atlanta do. And they just have had a different experience and been affected in a different way. And in the beginning, I was very upset and scared. I was like, “No, you can't do that. You're gonna get it. You're going to... Everyone's going to die.” And that could still be true. But after conversations with people from every different point of view, I've been trying to exercise empathy more and understand that if I see someone walking on the street with a friend, I shouldn't jump to the conclusion that they're just like, "Fuck quarantine," but their mental health might be suffering. After the two month mark, you have to keep in mind that people are truly, generally suffering in a different way now. And so when I see some of the yelling on Facebook about like “Don't post a picture with your friend” or like “You shouldn't be having this social distance date”, I just think we have to give each other the benefit of the doubt and know that everyone's doing their best and that the way that each of us handles this is so different. It's different for me because I have kids and a family to focus on than it is for some of my friends who live alone. So I guess that's my big takeaway, is to give people the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming that they're being assholes.
