Joining the Chorus

      This past Wednesday I went to a rehearsal for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". We watched the DVD where Donny Osmond sang the songs of Joseph, the wronged little brother of Bible fame, (looking not unlike Weird Al Yankovic in a long-haired wig. ) I love the music in this show, and thought to myself wow I have the perfect voice for the narrator. Wouldn't that be fun?! I could really belt those show tunes...and yet, oddly enough,  I declined to go for a bigger role.  


    • Two years ago this past Wednesday, you'd have found me in a hospital room, recovering from a double mastectomy and the news that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I have of photo of myself that my sister took of me, long blonde hair braided into two plaits, sporting a plethora of hospital bracelets, drain tubes and heart monitors and all sorts of gadgets hooked up to me.
        •A year ago Wednesday, I had finished chemo and radiation and a long arduous year of receiving lots of attention, of both the beneficial and the downright gruesome. Suffice it to say the Plan for my treatment went awry on several occasions...and Irregular People added to my stress. Oye. 
      •This weekend  marks the year since, when I have been reconnected to my childhood sweetheart/pal, now the Great Love of my Life. In this Year of Recovery ( and isolation from the workplace and many social endeavors of the past), he and I have had the splendid opportunity to remember and rediscover our true selves in the company of each other. Six days apart in age, we are truly the Gemini companion to the other.


     Over the past 24 months, my spirit has been broken, bandaged, and bent, along with my body. I'm no longer the blonde bombshell I imagined myself to be. ( Jonathan says I am beautiful, and who else's opinion  matters, save the man who truly loves you?)  My shorter, darker, albeit wonderfully curly hair doesn't fit my memory of myself, and the Picasso scarring that swirls upon my concave chest is nowhere near the physique I once had. Cancer is gone, yes! but as a fellow cancer survivor, my dear friend Siobhan, says, 
"Yeah, cancer gone. Weight on. Boobs gone. Arthritis here to stay...Whoo hoo."
     Cancer is gone... a blessing indeed... and after a long year of introspection, self-obsession, and searching to find harmony somewhere in this brave new life, the need to also have the "solo in the show" has diminished considerably. That covers a plethora of neediness, mind you. My DNA urges me to "be in the inner circle", 
"do something significant ", all guised in humility, what evah... so... from the time I sang in Chorus in fourth grade until my body's most recent transformation radically rearranged my psyche, I engaged in active jealousy over anyone who did better than I, and then in self-pity. These past two years have leached that out of me, one chemo, one radiation, one surgery at a time, until my spirit tuned into God with a grateful heart instead of a whiny one.
     I've had lots of chances in 37 years since I first started singing in a group, to not be an attention-monger, and ignored most of those. My stubborn and insecure self eventually had to go through surgery, chemo, radiation, and isolation to arrive at the needed conclusion which I'd evaded all my life. 
     I am amazing whether I have the big solo, the best classroom, the highest performance in the workplace, the posh home or the newest model car. I might not have made it on Broadway, or written the Great American novel, or won on American Idol, but "look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers." Matthew 6:27-29 
     Joseph had to be thrown into a pit, and then live in a jail cell innocent but valuable to other prisoners, before he learned humility and grace -- and then he rejoiced with the very people who threw him into exile. 
    So, for now, it's better for me to 'sing in the chorus'...there's less to remember, I get to watch the show right from the stage, and if I miss a note or a step during the Big Number, chances are no one will notice as if they would with me taking the spotlight. And, and, I still get wear pretty costumes and sing my heart out. The ones that love me will be able to pick my voice out in the crowd. 'Specially the One who gave it to me...