For those of you who know our family, you know that the Broadway musical Wicked is extremely important to us. We have listened to the soundtrack thousands of times, dissecting the lyrics and talking about what the words mean to us. Not surprisingly, the songs have meant different things to us at different times. For example, we regularly examine “Popular”, the quintessential song about believing that people need to fit a certain mold in order to be valued and friend-worthy. Sometimes we are on the side of Glinda, the popular girl who thinks being different is strange and unbecoming. And other times we embrace the message of Elphaba, the green skinned witch that tries to be who she really is, in spite of how others treat her. As you can imagine, with two daughters that are both so alike and so different, the conversations can get animated, but they love it.
My favorite song in the play is Defying Gravity, sung at the point when the two friends need to choose their own paths. One friend realized that she no longer had a dream of working with the wizard, a dream she had since she was little and so desperately wanted to fit in. Instead she wanted to embrace her true, green self and do what she thought was right. The other friend decided that it was through her long-term dream that she could accomplish what she believed was right. Their beliefs of what needed to happen were the same, but how they went about accomplishing it was different and fit with their own personalities and characters. It wasn’t until the two women became friends that they had the strength and courage to be themselves, to “defy gravity.”
As we start our travels around southern Europe, I hope that as a family we embrace every opportunity (including writing our blogs) to defy gravity. As the song says, “Everyone deserves the chance to fly,” and this is our chance. Who knows how high we will fly, or where we will land, but we’re doing it together.
To close this first blog, I want to quote another song from Wicked, “For Good.” For all of our family and friends, and for future friends we have yet to meet:
“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow, If we let them. And we help them in return… Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
Thank you to everyone that has helped us become our true Bonnie, Ken, Cecelia and Emeline. You have all changed us for good!
The Chance To Fly 