Laughter & tears

Every once in a while we are lucky enough to make friends with someone who loves the same kind of books that we do and who sends those books bursting through the mail and into our hearts. Melissa is one of those friends for me, and her latest gift to me is a galley of My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger.

I feel like the author somehow saw into my mind and put everything into this book that would make it mean a whole lot to me. Like musical theater in all of its awesomeness and insanity and private musical theater jokes that make you feel like you're sharing a giggly secret with the characters who love musicals like you do. And deep and intense friendships between teens that remind me of my friendships at that time, several of which I'm lucky enough to still have. And the love of a really neat little kid. And not only Mary Poppins as a major plot point but the understanding of how important a movie it is and how important Julie Andrews is to humankind. And brothers who aren't related by blood but who are still brothers, just like my nieces aren't my nieces by blood but are still my nieces.

Last night my friend (who's been my friend since we were Annie's age) and I took her four-year-old daughter who is my non-blood-relation-niece to see Annie. It was the national touring company, and it was so fantastically top-notch in every respect. The cast, the production value, everything. It was so wonderful that even though it didn't end until 11:00 at night, this child fought with all of her inner strength to stay awake until the end even though her head and limbs were literally collapsing into themselves. I have known every note of every song of Annie since I was a little girl -- my sister and I wore out the Broadway cast album before the movie came out in 1982, and I remember my mom telling us sadly that it wasn't getting good reviews and we were like, so? Come on! We loved it anyway. My point is that it's not like Annie is anything new to me, but there was something about seeing a big professional splashing performance of it with my friend who's loved it for just as long as I have, if not longer, with her little girl sitting between us in a theater full of little girls that made me weep openly throughout the entire show. I don't know when Annie suddenly became the most poignant thing I've ever seen, but I couldn't help it. The moment when Annie came down the big winding staircase with her hair curled, in that red dress -- it was almost too much to bear. It made my heart explode with joy and my eyeballs explode with tears. It was such an iconic musical theater image and such a beautiful moment. And even though they were all singing about getting a New Deal for Christmas with all kinds of happiness and I was sitting there thinking about how world war was about to break out and was hearing Alejandra from My Most Excellent Year in my head telling me that FDR authorized the Japanese internment camps, I still loved it! It was awesome.

And then today, all afternoon, after a morning of revelry at a parade in the sun with B. on the most beautiful sunny day of 2008 so far, I got to lie on the couch finishing this wonderful book, and I cried and laughed out loud at the same time, and I was like, man. Sometimes I get so despondent for no reason with the weight of a crushing sadness and feel like the world is going to come to an end any day now, but weekends like this remind me that I am living the dream.