Awakenings

          We were in Barnes&Noble in Lincoln Center.  We had a few hours to kill so I told her to gather up some books that interested her and meet me back at a seemingly useless, unnecessarily large, conveniently enclosed, waist-level shelf protruding from the wall just around the corner from the escalator to the third floor.  She came back with a few entertainment magazines and a book or two on the legacy of Harry Potter.  We joke about how she has the attention span of a goldfish.  It’s a frighteningly accurate analogy, so after a short while she became thoroughly bored.  The exact details escape me, but somehow we found ourselves playing keep away with our cell phones.  After a few exchanges she had both our phones in either hand and looked very pleased with herself.  Her glory wouldn’t last, though.  Utilizing sleight of hand worthy of a magician, I gently slid her phone from its leather case.  She soon realized that the contents of her right hand were suddenly lighter than those of her left.  Looking down to find an empty case, despair washed over.  She blurted out an impossibly humorous yet tastefully reserved “shit” with the innocence and expression of a small child.  I stopped for a moment, registering nothing but what she had just uttered.  Uncertain as to how I was going to react, her face adopted a modest smile.  I was uncertain myself.  Stunned by what I had heard come out of her mouth, I just kept staring.  The silence lasted for only a few seconds, and then, hysterical laughter. 

We aren’t like most brothers and sisters.  We have fun, and mostly, it stems from her.  We like many of the same movies and I can stand a good amount of the TV shows she watches.  Often I find myself watching one or two or more with her.  They’re kid sitcoms mostly and surprisingly, a good number are actually funny.  So every now and again she’ll start to quote a scene from one of them.  And most of the time I will know exactly what she is talking about.  I’ll say the next line, maybe she’ll say the next, and if it’s possible we’ll go on.  She has a great sense of humor.  With her, no time is a bad time to make a joke.  We always end up laughing and it’s never forced—we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.  That is of course, except for the times when we don’t; the times when we can’t stand each other.  The times when she wants to push me off the roof and I want to pull her down with me (onto a trampoline, that is; a big, buoyant trampoline).

She is easy to love, but she is not easy to live with.  Everyone loves her.  Her teachers, the school aids, the school administrators, her relatives, her friends, even people who barely know her love her.  After talking to her on the phone for ten minutes one day, then another few minutes several days later, my girlfriend now loves her.  Not to say that they shouldn’t, but they don’t live with her.  They don’t know the whole story.  They don’t know what lurks in the shadows, around poorly lit corners.  As fun as she is, there exists a dark side.    She likes to call them musicals.

Yes, musicals.  Years ago I would have never thought such an ordinary word could bring so much pain.  It all started in the winter of 2004.  My parents had gone out one weekend to see the then new film adaptation of the hugely popular and long running Broadway production “Phantom of the Opera.”  They both enjoyed it tremendously; so much so that they convinced my sister and me to see it as well.    My sister was a faithful fan of pop music and whatever else they might have played on radio stations like Z100 at the time.  My own musical taste was geared towards rock and its subsidiaries.  Obviously, we were both slightly hesitant about watching an “opera.”  We both stepped into that theater, and eventually we both emerged.  For the most part I was unmoved; perhaps slightly more entertained than I had been immediately before.  It couldn’t have been more different for my sister. 

After seeing that movie, she would never be the same again.  The Alexandra I knew was, in a way, gone.  In her place was a fiend, a singing machine.  She emerged from that theater dramatically changed.  She was mesmerized, spellbound, enthralled, enchanted, awestruck, gripped, grabbed, and turned on her head.   “I had never seen anything like it before,” she said to me.  She saw the movie again, and again.  Before long she had every lyric of every song committed to memory, without even trying.  She always had a beautiful voice and she liked to sing before, but it was different now.  All day, every day she would sing her heart out to the tunes of Andrew Lloyd Weber.  He soon became the subject of many violent daydreams of mine.

The exact reason why Alex underwent this metamorphosis is for the most part still a mystery, even to those most intimately involved, including her.  All she had were her instincts.  “It felt right.  It felt like that was what I needed to do.”

Clearly, I was not thrilled with Alex’s new habit.  There is only so long an individual can hear the same songs over and over again without getting tired of them; unless that individual is Alexandra Gulyan.  It was ceaseless, it was endless, it was Phantom, and she loved every second of it. 

 But “Phantom of the Opera” was just the beginning.  Eventually my sister found new musicals.  The first was “Chicago,” another Broadway to film adaptation.  After that it was “Moulin Rouge,” an overly romantic cinematic expression through song.  More recently, she has taken a liking to “Hairspray,” yet another Broadway stray.  The name of the beast may change, but its claws are still as sharp.

I tell myself that it could have been worse.  She might not have had such a great voice; she might have had a terrible voice even, and still decided to sing just as much.  But then I begin to wonder about whether she would have started singing at all if she didn’t have the amazing voice to begin with.  Alas, these ponderings are pointless ones.  I have decided that I must endure whatever discomfort my sister’s singing causes me: annoyance, frustration, whatever it may be.  Even if I could put a permanent end to her incessant singing if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity, I wouldn’t.  How could I?  How could I take from her that which gives her so much pleasure, so much joy?  For Alex, singing is more than a hobby.  It has grown into something far greater and far more powerful.  It is a true love of hers, perhaps even her greatest love.  She aspires to make her living singing, to be able to sustain herself for the rest of her life pouring out her soul through her highly tuned vocal chords.  She has taken steps on the right path.  Having graduated middle school as valedictorian, she was in the position to attend virtually any high school she wanted.  She chose LaGuardia Arts.  Alex is on her way to realizing her dream.  Singing is who she is now.  It is obvious that there is nothing I can do to stop her.  And I have no intention of trying.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pm and is filed under