I was a senior in high school. Back in the day we had something called Senior Class Plays, a wondrous occasion beginning in January and ending in May, mine directed by a teacher I consider my mentor Mrs. Musoff and starring the kids in the Senior Class, who actually had talent, or in some cases, the guys who were hot for the girls who wanted to be in a play. (You always needed lots of boys for chorus way back then.) It was Peter Pan, and Peter written as a young lad (transgendered anyone) had always been cast as a girl. Our production, no exception, provided the lead role to a very talented female classmate, who was also an inspiration to me as someone who dreamed and followed through, successfully! The role of Wendy was handled by another student who could sing, dance, and act, and proved talent is real, and being talented went on to seek the lights of Broadway! (I will keep their identities as anonymous out of respect for their privacy.) But I also had a friend, named Daniel, who could provide just one note, and a few other flat or on key play exactly what you were humming or trying to vocalize, and his pitch-perfect piano playing was a marvel. Dreams were big back in 1967, and plans made to blossom, change, recharge, and be re-imagined. Friendships made during rehearsals on a stage, with the all the roar of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint, were a valuable currency, in what most of us never realized would be but a fleeting flying high instant situated on the second hand of the clock that tick tocked us into our future. I was cast as one of the Lost Boys and actually was the choreographer, Daniel was the musical director, and the girl playing Peter, a STAR. The three of us became close, and as seniors, all verbalized our soon to be adult plans to one another. (Secrets that are safe to share, because in all honesty, who knew what life could or would be like AFTER HIGH SCHOOL!)
Daniel and I had a plan, we would write a musical take it to Broadway, and our classmate playing Peter would star in the title role. Daniel and I actually wrote our first song titled “Is This Me.” Music by Daniel and lyrics by me. And little did I realize what most writers, I hadn’t assumed already understood, was the best we wrote was to write about exactly who you are. Daniel and I wrote the song, our leading lady sang it, and we knew we had a place on 42nd Street! That was then, Peter Pan was a hit, graduation suddenly arose out of nowhere, and life, as presumed, moved along as might a whirlwind, and scattered all three of us, with it, our separate ways. “Is This Me,” was sung twice, and never again, Daniel has since passed away, and our co-ed, now, a woman of a certain age is still, as creative and vibrant as ever. Life was as it should have been, THEN, filled with promise and passion, purpose, and lots of perhaps. It is not necessarily what we accomplished, BUT THAT we wanted to BE accomplished. It is now 2020, I am 70, and those days of once upon, float and flitter by, and I count the magic potions taken and the journeys begun, ended, detoured, and tried. And as I sit and watch or listen or read the news of today, I have to thank, GOODNESS (who or whatever that is) that I had the chance to take chances.
All of this reminiscence has been swelling up inside of me, due to the indecisions and delirium of this modern day. Like so many other Americans, I am feeling an onslaught of a tidal wave so enormous, that to run would seem futile, but to stand still even worse fate. I am not certain how much more we as humans can endure, whilst all around us is madness and chaos, which CAN WILLFULLY be tamed, but instead is permitted to contaminate our psyche. It was 1967, Peter Pan, a story about a boy who had no desire to grow up, best friends once in play at play, pretending we would grow up providing, the world with something new. I wrote a song, it was sung, I wonder if what the Seniors of 2020, and those of 2021 have to dream about or even sing about. “Is this me, is this me, is this feeling I’m feeling, real now, who have I been pretending to be, till now, tell me, I want to know, oh I want to know…” I want the past never to die in the hands of a future so demeaning full of dread and doom, dystopian, dysfunctional, delusional, and depressive! I do want to find NEVERLAND, again!
