A Secret Dream

I've been listening to musicals these last few days (after several days of listening to Bob Marley with the kids), mainly Passion and Les Miserables, mainly in the car, where I can sing my heart out with impunity. See, I always wanted to be a Broadway star. As long as I can remember, I loved playing musicals on my record (then tape, then CD, now MP3) player and singing along as if I were the actress. Guinevere in Camelot, Liesl in Sound of Music, Laurie in Oklahoma, any of the women in Carousel and Fiddler on the Roof, the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the cast of Chorus Line, Evita, Christine in Phantom of the Opera, on up through Into the Woods, Secret Garden, Rent, Titanic, Ragtime, Jane Eyre, Lion King. And today, Les Mis (either Fantine or Eponine, never Cosette!) and Passion.

Of course, I never had any real professional aspirations. I wouldn't even join choir in junior high because someone told me that you had to sing in front of the class alone. I did muster the courage to try out for my high school's rendition of Fiddler but didn't make it (my best friend at the time did, though). I'm what you might call an enthusiastic singer, best around campfires and in groups. I was a great Girl Scout. I was in a woman's chorus in Chicago, which accepted everyone and didn't care that I wasn't an accomplished singer. I loved all the folk and world songs they sang. And I'm just learning to sing along with my church's hymnal. See, I can't read music and so unless I know a song already I can't sing it. I don't have to know it very well because I'm great at making up lyrics and coming up with rhymes on the spot (I get this skill from my mom, who rarely remembers lyrics correctly but is great at ad-libbing). Besides, I'm naturally an alto who desperately wants to be a soprano, so I'm not too particular about maintaining my key.

Which is why the car is the perfect place for me to sing, with or without the kids who as yet think I'm a great singer. I don't tell them otherwise, as I believe for a non-professional like myself it's the passion that counts (besides, they are too young to learn that typical adult complex of "I'm not a good ______."). What do they say in Chorus Line? "What you lack in talent you sure make up in volume!" Just don't laugh if you see me belting my solo at the stoplight. I'm having a grand time, living a childhood dream, in my mind, which is sometimes the only and best place.