This one is a “one off” post….

I’ll never forget seeing Marin Mazzie sing “Back to Before” in “Ragtime” on Broadway back in 1998 at the, then, Ford Center.

Steve and I had been together about a year.  I had only been officially “out” for a very few years.  I was getting ready to turn 40…

And I saw my life flash before my eyes when she sang this song…

I saw Danville, I saw W&L and I saw who I was becoming and who I had been at other points in my life….

It was a “Broadway Moment” that one always hopes for where art comes home to you and you relate your life to the character’s and start to think…

The song may be about a woman’s journey as a woman and a wife, but I think it applies to anyone who makes changes from the way they were raised and the role they were raised to play…

I certainly came from a time when “we spoke in civilized voices” and some one else “made all my choices.”  Or tried to…..

I  was raised to, at least publicly, concentrate keeping things pretty and civil and to think that was much more important than being real or dealing with reality….

“Life was a road, so certain and straight and unbending.  Our little road, with never a crossroad in sight…Women in white and sturdy young men at the oar.”

I can’t believe I ever believed that stuff now….but I was raised to do so and I did once.

But…I asked questions and didn’t accept things too easily…..

And now know “You can never go back to before.”

This isn’t the best quality video.  It’s from a cruise performance.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a video of the Broadway version.  I’ve looked for a long time.  I’m just thrilled to find this version of the singer and the song…

So, I’m posting it on “My Southern Gothic Life”.

Because I want to….