Me, I've never truly lost my song, but I have
misplaced it a few times. When things are going
well, I admit I can be extremely careless, but when
things are tanking, I'll go searching for it with a
vengeance. Usually I'll find it tucked behind some
familiar parcel: a rejection letter from an agent
or publisher, a fight with a friend, a bad day at
the office. Each time I'll roll it out, hum a few
bars, scribble an update or two, but inevitably
I'll skip rehearsal, preferring instead to duck out
the back door.
Last time I cancelled the concert was in 1999,
when after having my tonsils removed, I learned I
had Lupus, a chronic disease of the nervous system.
That same year I also saw the end of an intense
romance and a change of jobs. Needless to say I was
exhausted, and as my strength waned, so did my
reserve. I buried my song, thus burying my heart
until, thank God, that fateful moment sitting
across from my boss. No offense to him, but as the
vapors of a whopping fifteen cents more an hour to
do twice the workload swirled above my head, I
realized I had reached the crossroads. My song
began to play and my future crystallized before my
eyes. Finally, I knew what I needed to
do.
Paris. I have to go to Paris.
"Paris?" my Dad laughed and winked at me
through the rear view mirror, "what does a girl
your age know about Paris?" Plenty, I thought, as I
sat freezing in the backseat of his 1969 Blue Chevy
Impala. It was 1977 and I was nine and we were
trembling through yet another New Jersey winter and
I was pouting because I'd just flunked a spelling
bee. It was a crushing defeat, played out live to
an audience of thousands. Okay, an audience of
hundreds. Okay, so the entire assembly was made up
of the twenty-four other kids whose teachers had
forced them to participate. It was still a riveting
drama, my first roller ride from the peek of
greatness to the depths of humiliation.
Already considering myself a wordsmith,
(after all who else in my class could grasp the
true nuances of words like "bionic" and
"bewitched"?), I stood smugly on the stage,
awaiting my coronation. It was a sure thing, for
one-by-one I had ticked them off, until there stood
only seven of us. I took a survey of my trembling
competition and smiled. Eight more questions and
the copper trophy would be mine.
I was busy eyeing my booty when the moderator
gave me my next cannon. "Orphan", she said. I
rolled my eyes as if to say 'puh-leeze, what is
this child's play?' I wasn't worried, for I had an
advantage, see? While my peers spent their weekends
riding bikes and buying Tigerbeat, I was at
home watching PBS and growing more powerful by the
hour. Why just the weekend prior there had been
this show, Great Expecting Somebody's Mother
Or Other, and there was this orphan kid,
see…?
"Orphan", I began, feigning boredom the way
Diana Ross always did just before she accepted her
much-deserved adulation, "O-R-F-A-N. Orfan."
It still haunts me.
