The Really Big Show

Hil is in the chorus at school. It is the end of the school year and we will have an All-Middle School concert for all the parents' entertainment pleasure.

I am secretly thrilled that the school has caught on to the fact that the chorus groups and the band and orchestra groups should have separate concerts. Each will be under two hours instead of one long evening of entertainment that lasts nearly to midnight and involves costume changes.

I am not so sure the parents of kids who participate in both activities are as jazzed. They get to make multiple trips to the school and get multiple babysitters or shoosh younger sibs through multiple shows that appeal to a narrow crowd that generally does not include toddlers.

I am not sure why the PTO doesn't have a cash bar at these things.  I don't know a single parent who wouldn't gladly down a pre-curtain blender drink and a double at intermission. We'd never have to sell another roll of wrapping paper to relatives again. It would be a cash cow.

The night of the show arrives and Hil is in a panic.  Kids she knows and likes will be there. She has to churn out the hype. Fabulous gleaming, poker straight locks. Impeccable makeup with several coats of mascara so the eyes pop from the stage. The perfect jewelry.  Shoes that make her legs look gorgeous (what?) and that she will not topple off of the risers with.

Once the nerves are calmed, the car is parked and Hil is convinced she is not late for the opening curtain, I enter the High School auditorium for The Big Show. 

The High School. The one I attended. The one Scott attended. The one Pat will attend next year. It brings back quite a few memories. This is the auditorium where I transformed myself into Roseann Rosannadanna and realized how fun it is to make people laugh. Where I razzed Scott from the stage as he sat in the orchestra pit, chiding him as Roseann because he had "dropped me like a hot pah-taytuh." The seats from which I watched, enamored of Scott, as he played his silver trumpet in the Jazz Band in his vintage looking tuxedo. Somehow nothing has changed.

I find a seat in the center of the crowd where Hil says the acoustics are best. (?)  I am seated right next to Cindy, my best friend from 6th grade. We'd graduated high school together but had flown off on different flight plans.  I knew her sisters and brother. Her mother had been our school secretary.  I knew the whole family, but we'd not stayed in touch.  But then, when Pat needed surgery as a baby, I bumped into her at the hospital. Not only did she work there, but she'd had a daughter that year and she was getting tubes in her ears the same day. Her daughter would be Hil's age.  Years later, we realized we lived close by one another. Our girls went to school together. Attended Brownie Scouts together. Cindy, still a nurse in that same hospital, recommended a surgeon for Hil's surgery a few years later. Scheduled herself as her PACU nurse. Would be the first face she saw when she awoke from anesthesia.  Some friendships lapse, but never, ever go away.

She and I are immediately off to the races. Commenting on ill-advised outfit choices. Laughing about memories churned up by the environment. Remarking on the stained ceiling tiles that look remarkably like the same ones that were there when we were students. WOndering out loud about certain tweenism we are having a hard time adjusting to. Embarassing our children alternately by calling their names and waving like dorks.

Down in front of the stage, a woman that I don't recognize rises from the piano. At least it is supposed to be a woman. But really, all I can think is, "Who is the man in the dress and wig?" 

As this thought passes through my head, Cindy leans in unexpectedly and says, "Let's play 'Is It A Man Or A Woman?"

I nearly choke on my forbidden bubble gum. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

The lights dim. Our daughters take the stage. And things are different. All the times I'd been here before it was all about me.

As I look at my beautiful daughter singing her heart out under the stage lights, smiling beautifully and focused on her director intently, I am overwhelmed with pride.

My memories and impressions of this stage and theater are immaterial. It is all about her. As it should be.