As I near the end of my Fall 2010 semester, I’m in the throes of “finals,” as I mentioned yesterday. I’m choosing to intersperse the tests and papers and projects with creative breaks wherein I play on Facebook and do some blog crawling (I’ve discovered LOTS of cool blogs this weekend!) and, of course, movement, music and food. It’s actually been a super fun process and I’m grateful I found a way to make it fun because I sure have been dreading it.
On Facebook, I participate in a closed forum and someone brought up the Broadway show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, specifically, the video version with Donny Osmond. As I was reading the post, I had an onslaught of memories regarding my baby girl. She LOVED this video and watched it for hours on end, for weeks on end. She would wake up first thing each morning – she was about 2 1/2 when it was released – and go search out the box. When we got the video, she carried around the video box with adoration because of all the pretty colors. For a few hours I couldn’t get the video out of the box because she wouldn’t let me take it away to open it.
While she was napping that day, I took off the shrink wrap and showed her the tape when she woke up.
She gasped in awe and wonder, “Bideo! Let’s watch the new bideo, Momma!”
I let her put it in – she has always been a “I will do it myself, Momma” sort of girl – and she stepped back from the television about two feet. The television was on an entertainment stand so if she stood in a certain spot, she was looking directly at it and that was HER spot. Don’t let anyone tell her differently!
As soon as the previews started, she was hooked because, of course, all the previews were for musicals. Lots of colors. Lots of dancing. And music. She was in love.
By the second day, she knew almost every word in the show. She sang along while watching it. She sang it in the car. She sang it while walking through the grocery store. SHE LOVED THIS SHOW. However, her favorite was the following song. She had me play this specific scene over and over and over…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6iqo_K8pUc]
I acquiesced for only one reason: she loved this song. She developed her own little dance with a “bouncy-bouncy” move in place and then a frantic run in little circles, then back to the “bouncy-bouncy” move that was just slightly off kilter because she was dizzy. Over and over, with a pause every now and then to regain her equilibrium.
She didn’t much like my favorite song, though. “Too slow, Momma,” she would say when it would start. “Make it go fast.” She got a kick watching the scene on fast forward. She’d laugh and laugh. So, I didn’t get to watch my favorite scene that often but when I could sneak it, this was the scene that spoke to me…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5NccUC-CE]
If my life were important I would ask, “Will I live or die,” but I know the answers lie far from this world.
This song sang to me, lyrically expressing the deep-down desires of my heart – to find my own piece of mind. While this is a show based on the biblical story of Joseph, it spoke to a very visceral, non-religious part of me. His declaration at around 4 minutes, “For we KNOW we SHALL find our own piece of mind…” hit me in the gut every time. I was struggling with my religion, my dedication to it, my membership in it and with my entire life, in general. Something didn’t feel right to me and it was eating at the edges of my consciousness.
At that time, I had no idea what the impending journey would entail. Nor did I know where it would take me…
