I woke up multiple times this morning with a gnawing feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t return to sleep and so I turned to social media. Twitter delivered the news that Stephen Sondheim passed away at 91. I started referring to my present but very limited mental knowledge of theatre productions. As a theatre minor in college, I got the opportunity to play Seyton in Macbeth. Besides playing in orchestra concerts, it was my first time performing onstage since taking on the complex role of a sparkly-tailed pony in an elementary school musical.
Often referred to as quiet, I decided to do the opposite of what some might expect and take a chance at theater after performing a tearful monologue from Rachel Getting Married during an introductory theatre directing class. The monologue ended with my professor (full of dry wit) describing to me how the field of acting was essentially riddled with drugs and issues but its where I belonged. During a conversation in his office, he asked for my suggestion as to productions the school should put on in the future. I suggested West Side Story. I was a fan of the film adaptation and thought a musical would be fun.
West Side Story made this one brave Variety writer’s list of Sondheim’s most memorable songs, but it was the lyrics to a song from Into the Woods that jumped out at me.
“Sometimes people leave you / halfway through the wood / Others may deceive you / You decide what’s good.”
I went in search of No One is Alone and came across many renditions but decided to start with Bernadette Peters version. By the end of the song, I was lying in bed thinking how relevant the words felt to my experience the last past year.
As a child, I watched programs about the 60s, painted All You Need is Love on multiple surfaces and had aspirations of being a peace-loving hippie behind the wheel of a Volkswagen van when I became an adult. How very on brand of me to fall asleep last night while watching part two of the Beatles documentary Get Back. I slept long enough to dream I was outdoors with Paul McCartney asking him questions about the band and his take on the documentary.
I woke in time to see plenty of pretty pictures and well wishes from friends I’ve made across the internet. It’s amazing the variety of ways our stories intersect. My sister and I chatted about an assortment of topics before I landed on the fact that it was the night before the date I experienced trauma last year. I still can’t believe how quickly it feels time has gone by—at least in terms of how the days at some point became a blur. The process of seeing the person who assaulted me, and others before me, held accountable has taken patience. Healing is very much so still taking place. To say there are issues with the criminal justice system would be a gross understatement. To say Black women are viewed through a distorted lens would barely begin to do justice to what we as a community have had to overcome and are still fighting to overcome in society.
I speak from my personal experience as a member of this community while also acknowledging the many struggles other underrepresented—or in the words of a very wise Black woman I know—“underestimated people” face.
So why am I telling you about my college years, musical theatre and my sleeping habits? Because though we can differ greatly, our lives intersect. More than I think we realize sometimes. Our beating hearts, our longing for love, self-preservation, our desire to give, our fragility but also our resolve. Even our restlessness. Our words and actions have the potential to uplift us or devastatingly crush us. With that in mind, where exactly are we as people going wrong?
“You decide what’s right, you decide what’s good.”