♪ I wore my coat, with golden lining
Bright colours shining, wonderful and new
And in the east, the dawn was breaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do
♪ A crash of drums, a flash of light
My golden coat flew out of sight
The colours faded into darkness
I was left alone ♪
As of late the score from "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" echoes in my head nearly all my conscious moments.
I've signed on to be a Dancer/Chorus person at the church I'm attending, and hopefully the choreography for the November performance will be adjusted to a cast with a large smattering of white middle-aged Texan women. ( We are not generally know for our stage and screen-worthy dance moves, although we can line dance like nobody's business. HA)
Until this fall my recent involvement with "Joseph" emerged as a greeting to my son's best friend, Jacob, who suffers through my musical "Jacob, Jacob and sons ♪" whenever I see him. Sorry bout that, Jakie. HA
But Joseph and I go way back. ( Hold that thought, I can hear my sons saying, yep she's that old. No, I was not born in the Bible days, even though some days my joints ache as though I went to high school with Jezebel.) Our Magnolia Presbyterian youth sang this jaunty little 40-minute cantata, back in the early '70's, when a website had a live spider in it and iPhones were only seen on Star Trek. The composers, an unknown pair named Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, hadn't yet burst onto the collective consciousness of the world. My big sister Karen and my brother Kirk had parts in the "play", and it was all very exciting to the third-grade version of me.
Due to my Stupid Cancer and other assorted Stupid Occurrences, I've not been singing for a few years.
Not even in the car so much, come to think of it.
I'd been singing since I could talk. A few years before the original little Joseph Cantata, the same youth who sang made me stand on a footstool in my parents' living room with my toy guitar and sing "Sugar Sugar", by the Archies. I dreamed of being a star, sang in elementary school chorus, junior high and high school youth group, took voice lessons, pored over Broadway albums by the hour, and once upon a time had a play sketched out for songs an album by some Swedish group named ABBA. HA! ( Sure wish I would have thrown that out there earlier! "Mamma Mia" might have been mine! ) Even as a young mother of three boys running, I helped the new crop of 90's Magnolia Youth write and sing a play for their Senior Year, using contemporary music to help tell the story. Music fills the soundtrack of my life, carries me when the dreams die and a hard reality takes their place. Always, always, new dreams materialize to a different melody line.
Joseph's whole life ran on dreams. He too was a precocious youngster, a star performer as a youth. He got knocked down by jealous siblings, picked up & recognized for his abilities, knocked down again by unscrupulous people, and finally found his place.
The last few years have been a reality check for any of my lifelong dreams, too. Been 'thrown in the cistern' more than a few times. Perhaps at long last I too have found my place, not as a big star, but a homing beacon for those who truly love me.
If I keep singing, keep dreaming, I may yet still have a golden chariot like Joseph. Mine will have Harley Davidson embossed on the side, but hey, a chariot is a chariot. Any dream will do...
May I return to the beginning?
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do ♪
