If You'd Just Sit Still For A Moment

I'll tell you what turns me into a sniveling blob....secret weapon time.

 

 

Here's the thing...I'm somebody's mom, which means that every so often, I get to attend a musical concert in which one or both of my kids is singing, or playing a musical instrument of some kind.  I've been doing this for, gosh, 12 years now, and they've gone from kazoos and recorders to guitars, violins, etc. (and back to kazoos again, but that's another story...). 

 

 

And the singing!  Oh, the singing.  Lots of singing.

 

 

Through the years, there has been one constant--one thing that occurs at least annually, and turns me into a slobbery gob of emotional goo.  That thing is....Colors Of The Wind.

 

 

Colors Of The Wind--that perfect, perfect song by Alan Menken. 

 

 

Did you know that if you sit in a stuffy, packed auditorium and listen to 50 kindergarten and first grade kids sing Colors Of The Wind, you forget how pissed you are that you had to park six blocks away and that you broke a heel walking and you were late and some asshole stole your seat so you ended up in the very back row where even there, other parents crowd you with video cameras, trying to catch their little angel in action? 

 

Did you know that? 

 

 

I learned that a dozen years ago..

 

 

At least once a year since then, I attend a school concert in which some teacher has chosen Colors Of The Wind as a number to be performed, and, at least once a year, the sound of children singing it touches me so deeply that I cry.  For real.  That's how perfect that song is.  Stephen Schwartz's lyric in combination with children...I dunno, it's like a direct realization of all of the innocence in the room focused like a laser beam to my heart.  It melts everything. 

 

 

I thought I was off the hook this year, but last night, there it was on the program..."Music from Pocahontas"  Still, I believed I had a chance to get out of there with my make-up intact--after all, this was a philharmonic orchestra...no singing. 

 

 

No little innocent children voices urging me to be more at-one with nature.

 

 

Yeah...that didn't really last long past the introduction....

 

 

 

Damn you Alan Menken!  Damn it!

 

 

How do you do that?

 

 

How do you erase the pissiest of moods?  How do you turn, "I can't believe I have to go to another one of these damn things," into "Oh-my-precious-baby-I-can't-believe-she's-almost-grown-up? *SOB* "

 

Huh?

 

 

How do you do that?

 

 

*grumble*

 

 

Anyway, now you know.  Now you know my one true weakness.  I trust you'll use your new power for good and not evil.