The Road You Didn't Take

We saw Follies on Saturday night, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. (Stephen Sondheim's Follies. Did I have to say that?)

I've been familiar with the songs from Follies for nearly 40 years. More than "familiar with"–– I know them well and sing them not well, but earnestly. Hearing and singing them at the age of 20 or 30, though, is quite different from hearing them at age 58 and eleven-twelfths.

You take one road,

You try one door,

There isn't time for any more.

One's life consists of either/or.

One has regrets

Which one forgets,

And as the years go on.

The road you didn't take

Hardly comes to mind,

Does it?

The door you didn't try,

Where could it have led?

The choice you didn't make

Never was defined.

Was it?

Dreams you didn't dare

Are dead.

Were they ever there?

Who said!

I don't remember,

I don't remember

At all.

Nobody ever called Follies a "feel-good" musical, but I found this production a little depressing. I think I probably brought a lot of that in with me, but witnessing Bernadette Peters looking and sounding fragile and unsure of herself didn't help. Maybe her woman-on-the-verge appearance was a conscious choice for her portrayal of a nearly mad character––I'd like to give her that benefit of the doubt.

This is "Losing My Mind." No complaints about this number.

Though the show was the focal point of the weekend, we managed a little sight-seeing too, despite the appropriately hot and very muggy weather.

I was all set to do some reflecting, but darn it,
the Reflecting Pool was dry and all dug up. Kind of disconcerting.
"Jenny!!!!"

It's a Where's Waldo thing.

Funny story: 

When I was about 5, my family stayed with my much-much-older cousin's family in Silver Spring, Maryland, and we used that as our base camp as we all visited the major Washington landmarks. It was summer and, naturally, very hot. Due to my misunderstanding of something my mother told me as I got dressed one morning during the visit, it was at about this exact spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that a breeze lifted up the back hem of my little cotton dress to reveal to my family, my cousins, and presumably a fair number of unsuspecting patriotic tourists, that I had omitted a certain basic item of clothing from my outfit for the day. Oops.

This became an oft-repeated family story, of course, but I think I actually do remember it, especially my defensiveness at the moment of discovery. My mother had said "Oh, you don't need any" that morning (about something else, obviously), but I rationalized that it was just so hot a day that I had permission to go without.

So I remembered that incident, and that visit with my cousin's family, as this photo was taken on Friday.

Epilogue:

On Saturday morning, my cousin died––the mother of the family in Silver Spring. She had been ill, and it was not unexpected, but learning the news on the heels of having that long-ago memory made it seem cosmic and mysterious. Which is what death is in any case, I've come to think.

I'm sorry to have taken you down a cheerless path when my intentions are really otherwise. So let's turn back to the light, and I'll end today's episode with food! We ate well and in quantity over the weekend, including a Father's Day bbq at home. Two dishes I had at Marcel's in Georgetown were photo-worthy:

That's a morsel of lobster in the center, with a cylinder of beet taking a nap on it. I never figured out what was in the silo on the left, or what the yellow squiggles were. But the pink slug on the right is a dollop of beet ice cream. The whole thing was delicious.

I think this was called Blueberry Parfait. It was exquisite.  Best dessert I've had in a recent memory, and not an ounce of chocolate anywhere in it. Go figure.