Our First Date

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

About 12 years ago, Mama and I went on our first date. We weren't even officially dating--see, I was still, um, confused--but we both got dressed up, she brought roses, and we went out, theater and dinner afterwards. We saw Rent. It was a magical night, probably the night that eventually led us to getting together 11 years ago last month. We laughed, we cried, it was better than Cats.

We had bonded over musicals, though she was a devotee of Les Mis and I loved Phantom of the Opera. We compared notes on Gypsy, which we both saw with Tyne Daly (her on Broadway, me the touring company), also Secret Garden, Miss Saigon. I knew all the "old school" shows, from my dad's old albums and from going to the theater with my mom at, what seems now, a very young age--Yul Brynner in King and I, Donald O'Connor in Showboat, Robert Goulet in On A Clear Day, David Cassidy in Joseph, and so many others. And Mama loved the movie Pete's Dragon, which songs I could sing as soon as she mentioned it. She's always said that my knowing the lyrics to those songs--and doing a great Elliott imitation--made her fall in love with me.

But Rent was always our show. And not just because of the lesbians. In fact, we much prefer the duet between Angel and Tom Collins. The show encapsulated for me my first years in NYC, even if my life was nothing like theirs, and spoke to Mama's rebellious side. That, and she had wanted to go into the theater instead of computer--even got a full ride to NYU's Tisch School of Drama, in production, but didn't go. Though, if she had, would we have met (her Buddhist self says that we would have, since it's all fate)?

We never went back to see the show, even recently when we heard it was closing--it's last show was yesterday-- because nothing could top that first viewing together. She had even studied the lyrics and knew when the sad part happens and put her arm around me just before (see, I had seen the show a few months earlier with a grad school friend and had told her how that part had made me cry). We've seen some musicals together since then--Lion King, Ragtime, Jane Eyre, Whistle Down the Wind (we even went to Lincoln Center to see La Boheme upon which Rent is based)--though not so many since the kids and Connecticut (we're woefully behind). But it's always the sounds of Rent that take us back to the very beginnings.

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love. (Jonathan Larson, Rent)