This weekend I took my daughter and my best friend to see RENT, the 20th Anniversary Tour. RENT is the musical of my generation. When I saw it on Broadway in the ’90’s, it changed my life. As an aspiring writer, I really identified with the characters and wanted so much to be bohemian and not rural. I turned 16 in 1986 and remember sitting in health class being told that if we had sex we would DIE. The AIDS crisis terrified me, especially as a questioning teen. So, by the time I got to NYC and sat in that darkened theater watching my dreams and nightmares play out before me in a totally original way, I knew one day I would try to write a musical. Flash forward twenty years, and I still haven’t done it.
So when “One Song Glory” was sung this time, I listened to it from a completely different perspective. I’m closer to the “deadline” than I was the first time. I still haven’t found my “Glory.” It was devastating. Where once I had listened and identified with the filmmaker who had his whole career ahead of him, whose biggest concern was selling out, this time I was feeling like I was running out of time, like Roger. Not due to illness, thank goodness, but due to the looming specter of the big 5-0.
I was crying and shaking, and my daughter was freaking out. I don’t cry like that in front of her. I just said, “It’s sad.” At intermission, I had to explain AIDS to her. At almost-twelve, the whole thing just didn’t resonate with her. But she cried when Angel died, saying s/he had been her favorite character. That’s my girl!
One day I will write that musical. But today, I’m working on a middle grade novel instead. I just have to keep faith that I’m not running out of time. Just like once I had to keep faith that losing my virginity wouldn’t kill me.
“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation!” Jonathan Larson, RENT.