New Travels

Remember when you first ventured to a new place? You were half excited, half nervous. Would the place be as exciting as you'd hoped? Would you find fun stuff to see or do? Or would it be boring? Would it smell like urine there--or mold--and would the hotel have cold running water or hot running roaches?

You were probably filled with anticipation, expectation, trepidation, and even abject fear.

Okay, so I can't speak for you... but I've felt all of that. And I feel the same thing when I'm trying something new. Say I decide to join a choir, or learn to knit, or take a class on photography. I could totally suck at it. It happens to all of us (or most of us, for those of you in denial). And the more new things we try, the more likely it will happen.

But it's important to travel into that new territory anyway.

Let me use the travel metaphor again to illustrate why. Say that you go on a cruise to Cozumel. And it was fun. And Cozumel was fun. So the next time you think about going on a cruise, you go back to Cozumel. You know you liked it, and you are afraid the other ports of call won't be as good, so you just keep going back in the same direction. Over and over.

But after a while Cozumel gets old. And in the end you realize that you've missed out on a ton of other places--and that's just in the Caribbean. No telling how many other fantastic places you've missed. Even if you cruise other places, but never travel any other way, you will miss out. Can you truly see Europe if you don't go inland? Nope. You miss too much. Can you see it in a week? Nope. What about Asia? What about Africa? How will you know what places truly resonate with you if you don't try them out?

There's the two kiddos...
bet you didn't know my daughter had purple hair, did you?
(graphic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

I write this, not because I've ventured into new territory lately--and not because I've been on a cruise lately, either--but because my kids have done something truly new. Last night they both auditioned for our community theatre's production of Oliver! I auditioned, too, but I'm a bit more experienced with it than they are. I could tell they were nervous. And even a little scared. My son  couldn't sit back in his seat, even after he had sung his little piece.

But they both did it. They both stepped up on that stage--by themselves, mind you, not holding my hand or anything--and sang a song. And they both got back up there and learned a little dance routine so that the choreographer could see whether they could dance at all.

Will they get a part? No idea. I'm not sure whether that really matters (at least not to me). I'm bursting at the seams with pride that they tried out, that they had the guts to step up there and do something new and radical. I hope this is just one of many new things they try this year. Whether they get parts or not, they have added a notch to their confidence, have realized that they wouldn't die from fear, and have proven themselves a bit more independent than they were last year.

Now I have to consider what new things I will try this year. Where will I venture? How will I keep myself from staying within my travel comfort zone?

Come to think of it, what new travels are you planning?

Wicked

No, I have not worked on my writing. And, yes, I am writing a blog. I have to. My husband and I watched the musical Wicked last night, and I have such a mixed response to it, I had to write to make any sense of it.

First, let me qualify my response. I have read the book Wicked, and it was terrible. Despite how poorly it was written, how boring, and how meaningless the whole thing was, I still did read it through to the end, and when the end of the novel occurred, I felt like I had completely wasted my time (and a lot of it, since it took a long time to read). Naturally, I was not certain the musical would be any better, but I'd heard good things, so my hubby and I thought we'd try it (buying the cheapest seats for the production, so we wouldn't be too disappointed). 

The good news? The musical retained few elements of the novel--very few--and invented all sorts of other elements, including changing relationships, changing the ending completely, and taking all sorts of other liberties with it. The characters were infinitely more likable and accessible, and they were funnier (which wouldn't have been hard, since the characters weren't the slightest bit funny in the novel). In fact, Glinda the Good Witch was pretty hilarious and stole the show from Elpheba (The Wicked Witch of the West) pretty handily.

The bad news? Well, it wasn't a very good musical. The music was pretty forgettable (I'd seen the most dramatic part of it on the Tony Awards, but I'd forgotten it completely). Plot lines were slim, and the ending was ridiculous.

Even worse, were I the novelist who penned the original novel, I would have run out of there screaming, and I would likely be in jail for killing the first person I saw. I imagined one of my own novels being turned into utter drivel, and the prospect of it made me cringe. Right now I am still cringing.

What's oddest about this is that I hated the novel--it might be one of the worst novels I've read in years--but I am still defensive about the idea of someone's work being mauled to death for the sake of a musical format. I can only compare it to the travesty that is Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. What Disney execs were thinking when they took the most depressing novel ever (and one I personally love) and turned it into a children's cartoon will be forever a mystery. 

And so will Wicked, I'm afraid. Still, it was fascinating to watch and analyze, from the perspective of both a novelist and a playwright. 

Rather like a train wreck would be fascinating to a railroad engineer.