Follies - a Hint of Nostalgia with a Dash of Regret

The ghosts are ever present. Even when they turn their backs to us they are there, representing our pasts, commenting on our present. The wind rustles and on it are carried the eerie sounds of what was.

At 40 I already have that past full of what was and what could have been. I guess at any age one has that, but four decades into life, I'm aware of the roads I didn't take. I'm aware of too many mornings and I certainly know that all dreamers must awake and that I shouldn't look back. The problem is, I can't help but look back.

During my second viewing of this season's Follies I found myself weeping. I'm always affected by the score, but this time my emotions hovered in that plane between holding on and letting go - where anything can happen - and they overflowed. It’s like on Halloween when the ghosts can walk the earth.

I rent in that place of nostalgia. I teeter on the verge of memory abyss. I don't like to fall in, but sometimes I can't stop it from happening.

Memories can be beautiful things; they can also be tied to regret - the things you wish you'd done, but didn't. "The roads you never take go through rocky ground, don’t they?" Well, don't they? I mean we make up excuses and reasons and justifications for not doing something. My frequent collaborator is fear. Anyone who reads this blog with any consistency knows that.

I was in such an open, receptive place when I sat through this production playing at the Marquis Theatre, that my emotions visibly manifested as tears that ran down my face. I was undeniably moved during “The Road You Didn't Take.” How can one not be when listening to the lyrics below and feeling the pain of the character as it spills forth from the stage and penetrates your heart?

THE ROAD YOU DIDN’T TAKE
BEN:
You're either a poet
Or you're a lover
Or you're the famous
Benjamin Stone.
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.

The books I'll never read
Wouldn't change a thing,
Would they?
The girls I'll never know
I'm too tired for.
The lives I'll never lead
Couldn't make me sing.
Could they? Could they? Could they?
Chances that you miss.
Ignore.
Ignorance is bliss--
What's more,
You won't remember,
You won't remember
At all,
Not at all.

You yearn for the women,
Long for the money,
Envy the famous
Benjamin Stones.
You take your road,
The decades fly,
The yearnings fade, the longings die.
You learn to bid them all goodbye.
And oh, the peace,
The blessed peace...
At last you come to know:

The roads you never take
Go through rocky ground,
Don't they?
The choices that you make
Aren't all that grim.
The worlds you never see
Still will be around,
Won't they!
The Ben I'll never be,
Who remembers him?

My choice to stop singing is what comes to mind here. My dreams. The ones I gave up on. The ones that I bid goodbye. As I have aged so has my voice; its strength, power and range withered due to lack of use. The yearnings haven’t really faded, the longings haven’t really died. I’ve just learned to live with them shut behind a door that I don’t open.

Then there’s “Too Many Mornings.” My second blubbering moment. More so this time than in the earlier scene where I first lost my grip on emotional control. I've seen four productions of Follies over the years, this current one twice; I've listened to it countless times. I do believe it is my favorite Stephen Sondheim score. It always moves me and generally breaks my heart. I believe that this time was the first time I've actually cried while watching. I was so connected that I couldn’t stop the flow of tears. At one point my heart broke in two at the mere intake of breath by Bernadette Peters as her “Sally” listened to “Ben,” so robustly portrayed by Ron Raines, singing to her exactly what she has been longing to hear.

TOO MANY MORNINGS
BEN:
Too many mornings,

Waking and pretending I reach for you.
Thousands of mornings,

Dreaming of my girl...


All that time wasted,

Merely passing through,

Time I could have spent,

So content

Wasting time with you.


Too many mornings,

Wishing that the room might be filled with you.

Morning to morning,

Turning into days.

All the days
That I thought would never end,

All the nights
With another day to spend.

All those times
I'd look up to see

Sally standing at the door,

Sally moving to the bed,

Sally resting in my arms

With her head against my head.

SALLY (speaks): If you don’t kiss me, Ben, I think I’m going to die.

(sings)

How I planned:

What I'd wear tonight and

When should I get here,

How should I find you,

Where I'd stand,

What I'd say in case you
Didn't remember,

How I'd remind you--

You remembered.

And my fears were wrong!

Was it ever real?

Did I ever love you this much?

Did we ever feel

So happy then?

BOTH
:
Too many mornings

Wasted in pretending I reach for you,

How many mornings

Are there still to come?

How much time can we hope that there will be?

Not much time, but it's time enough for me.,
If there's time to look up and be/see

Sally standing at the door,

Sally moving to the bed,

Sally resting in your/my arms,

With your head against my head.

Sally has loved Ben for at least 30 years - through two children and one unhappy marriage she has held tight to what could have been. It's heartbreakingly sad to desire something for so long and so strongly and never be able to attain it. For the first time, I’m embarrassed to admit, I realized that Ben is singing to the Sally that he fell in love with, the Sally of his youth, while present day Sally thinks he singing to her in the present moment. I can’t believe I never realized that. Sally has wasted so many years of her life unhappy - unable to be happy, or choosing not to be - because she has been in love with a man who loved her once, but not enough to marry her. She settled and has lived with that regret ever since.

"Losing My Mind" was a performance on the brim of a breakdown. It should be, but I haven’t experienced it like this before. The tears were in Bernadette’s eyes even as the lights came up. She was swimming in a sea of loneliness and regret. As she sang. I wanted to weep with her but was so entranced that I couldn’t for fear of blurring my vision of her as she cried and struggled to tell us her feelings.

LOSING MY MIND
The sun comes up,
I think about you.
The coffee cup,
I think about you.
I want you so,
It's like I'm losing my mind.

The morning ends,
I think about you.
I talk to friends,
I think about you
And do they know?
It's like I'm losing my mind.

All afternoon,
Doing every little chore,
The thought of you stays bright.
Sometimes I stand
In the middle of the floor,
Not going left,
Not going right,

I dim the lights
And think about you,
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you.
You said you loved me,
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I Losing my mind?

There’s nothing Sally can do but stand there and sing her emotional breakdown to us. Even though I’ve gone on verbal record as one who doesn’t fully embrace Bernadette’s performance in this role, her delivery of this song in that moment resinated with me this time. I find it difficult to sing while crying. I don’t know how she got through it, but she did and she conveyed to me Sally's desperation and her crazy. Her sadness filled the space between the stage and me.

The ghost of my former self must cringe every time I say, "I used to be fun." We all used to be something different than we are now. Follies always makes me reflect on my life. It always makes me sad - for the characters choices and for my own. It’s a chance to reflect, but I never leave unscathed. My youth is gone. I’m not old, but I’m no longer that 20-something, new in the City, with dreams that seemed within reach; dreams that I let go of for one reason or another. I don’t regret some of those choices. Others I wonder about a lot. Memory can be hateful, but it should remind us to do it while we can. Don’t give up. Take the leap in the moment. Don’t get to the place where you have something to regret. The biggest goal for me is to look back at my life and be satisfied with my choices, even the bad ones. I made them for some reason in that moment. They are mine. I have beautiful memories of my performing past and I have beautiful memories of a love that I’m glad I opened my heart to.

There will always be a road you didn’t take. There will always be questions about choices made. I need to thrive in the present with an eye on the future instead of hindsight heartbreak for what will never be.

(Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim © 1971)

Gaining Respect (A Conversation with Dad)

I am Michael Rohrer. I am a Rohrer. The only son of Gary Rohrer; a man for whom I didn’t know so much respect was possible.

Courage

Use your words. Choose them wisely. Actions may speak louder than words, but how often do we hear, “Do what I say, not what I do?” Words are used to communicate and our ability to communicate is a gift that we should all cherish. I have never been more proud of that gift than I was on Friday. That was the day that I took another courageous step towards having the relationship with my dad that I have craved my entire life.

On October 26, 2009, I came out to my dad. I wrote a blog about it so I won’t rehash those details here. What I hoped I would gain from that moment was a better relationship with him.

Our relationship has never been easy. It’s delicate at best. He’s a hunter and a fisherman; I’m in the creative arts. That’s enough said right there to know that we have nothing in common. That didn’t stop my desire for wanting a better relationship with him – to move beyond the pleasantries of birthday or father’s day conversations. Coming out to him did help to weaken the wall that had calcified between us. In some areas is probably started to crumble, but it was still there.

So here I am nearly two years later still craving. I have since realized that the craving is a need for confirmation of acceptance. Basically, I needed to tell my dad that I felt like I was an embarrassment to him and that I feared he wasn’t proud to have me as his son. That day came on Friday.

It didn’t take long after he answered the phone for me to launch head first into the reason for my call. I told him that I had been uncomfortable in his presence growing up. I told him that at family gatherings I hung out with the women in the kitchen because I couldn’t bear being in the room with the men; the talk of hunting and lures and deer stands and killing, etc. was not my cup of tea. Honestly, I didn’t know how to talk about it and I was scared to death that my secret was going to be discovered. Of course that secret was that I was gay. I have no secret to be discovered anymore. That’s what helped make this conversation possible. I told him that I had been afraid of him. A child should not be afraid of a parent. Parents are there to protect and love their children. I was so afraid of my sexual feelings and his feelings towards me as his child that I lived in a place of fear. Fear sucks!

He listened to me. He heard me. I in turn listened and heard him. We got a great many things off our chest.

Education

My dad took a second to make sure that things he was about to say fell in line with us bearing our souls and emptying the weight of our hearts. I acknowledged that as the truth and encouraged him to speak.

That is when my dad boldly asked me questions about my life that: a.) I couldn’t believe he would want to know the answers to and: b.) He wasn’t mortified to actually ask. I was so proud of him for asking me that I was bursting. I was smiling from ear to ear. I laughed. I was shocked, surprised and happy that he’d brought them up. I was honest with him. I told him I had indeed had sex with a woman before, but it wasn’t what I desired. I told him I had indeed had sex with a man (more than one actually) and that I‘d even had a relationship with a man. It was brutally honest. Not the gory details, but honest nonetheless.

Here is a man that cares so much about what other people think about him that I’ve carried the guilt of being an embarrassment to him because I’m gay for years. My being gay is not a reflection on him. He did nothing wrong. I am who I am. That didn’t stop him from saying he wished that he hadn’t been a punk kid who was still running around with his friends when I was born. He was 19-years old. He had just graduated from high school. Okay so he wasn’t there for me. That would not have changed the outcome of my life. I was gay then and I’m gay now. I can’t and won’t blame him for being a 19-year old father. Mistakes happened. The pregnancy may have been a mistake, but I am not a mistake. I am exactly who I was born to be.

I used to love to play in my mom’s shoes as a child. He said he has often wondered if he had taken that shoe out of my hand and replaced it with a bb gun would things have been different? I assured him they wouldn’t have been different. I am gay and no amount of his taking me hunting or replacing my favorite pair of my mom’s shoes (that I loved) with a bb gun was going to change that. I’ve heard multiple times in my life how my grandmother didn’t want me playing in the dirt. I told him that no amount of playing in the dirt would have changed the feelings that I felt as soon as I was old enough to understand what I was feeling.

Here’s what I learned. My dad carries around the regret and pain of his absence from my early childhood. He carries around guilt that he caused me to be gay. I don’t know what it’s like to live with that kind of sadness and regret. I don’t know how to convey to him that he needs to let that go. He’s nearly 60-years old. He’s had 40 years to ingrain that regret into his head and heart. My wish for him is that he realizes he did nothing wrong.

I’ve never stopped to see his side of things. How selfish is that? What helped me see it is that just as much as I don’t want to talk of hunting, he doesn’t want to talk of acting or musicals. It was an Aha! moment in true Oprah fashion. I had only been seeing my side of things. I thought that since I was his child he should care about the things I did in my life. However, I didn’t care about the things he did in his life. How could I ask so much of him without giving anything in return? I actually got that. It’s okay that we have nothing in common. It’s okay. I heard him and for the first time I understood.

Education is a two way street. Teachers stand before us and give the information, but we as the student have to listen and absorb. My father and I each played the role of teacher and student during that phone call.

Progress

Dad told me that the day I called him to tell him I was gay there was something he didn’t tell me. He said he had taken it upon himself to lift my name up to God – to say my name in prayer everyday asking God to help me. When I heard that I was astonished. I let him finish and then gave him my thoughts. I had been struggling for weeks to find the words to tell him I was gay. That particular day, I was in the shower composing words for an email to him when suddenly I had to get out and dry off and call him. I picked up my phone and found his name in the address book. I was shaking. I looked at his name and held the phone to my chest right over my heart. I took a deep breath and pressed “send.” He answered. The rest is history.

I told him God works in mysterious ways. We don’t know why he does what he does. Dad didn’t get what he was expecting from that phone call, but I now know that my urge to tell him was so strong because I was being lifted up. God knows what you need. God knew that we needed to break down our barriers and that I needed to be honest with him.

My dad is a good man. He’s an honest man. He’s proud and he’s caring. I found more respect for him on Friday than I knew possible. He does not agree with homosexuality. He lives his life by God’s word. I understand that. I just know, and hope I conveyed to him, that my life was never a choice. It’s all I’ve ever felt. I am created by God.

I never want to bring shame on him. I won’t hide who I am though. Those years are in the past. We’re older and wiser now. I have to be my authentic self.

The years of placing blame are in the past. The only person to blame is staring back from the mirror. If we don’t do the things that we want to do in our lives it’s our own fault. Friday was a major step, and a victory, for two men long stalled on the road of life.

We’re never too old to learn. My father is nearly 60-years old and I’m 40. We had a breakthrough, years in the making, and it will change our lives forever.

He may not understand why I’m gay, and he may not agree with it, but he respects me as a person and loves me as a son. That’s a pretty big man.

Before we hung up the phone he said, “Hey, we’ve just had a conversation.” I laughed and answered in the affirmative. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. We had segued from past mistakes and hurts to an honest conversation that both of us were interested in. That’s progress.

Confessions of an Adult Grudge Holder

How long is he going to last this insecure little boy that lives inside of me? How long before I release the scared young man that was frightened to walk down the hall at school unaccompanied by a friend? I’m nearly 40 and many of these feelings are over 20 years old. When does it end? When does all the work I’ve done on myself and the person I’ve grown to be actually defeat the self-doubt of my youth?

I saw a production of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead last Friday night. It’s an interesting imagining of the Peanuts® characters as teenagers in high school. Charlie Brown is saddened over the death of his dog and confused over his feelings for Schroeder. Yep, Snoopy is dead - rabies. He had to be put down after he killed Woodstock. Sally is searching for an identity. One minute she’s Wiccan the next she’s gangsta. Linus is a total stoner. As for his blanket, Lucy and Charlie Brown burned it so he laced a joint with it and smoked it thereby making it part of his body forever. Lucy is locked away after setting the Little Red-Haired girl’s hair on fire. Oh yeah, she had an abortion also. Pig-Pen is a total germophobe and homophobe. For 5¢ I bet The Doctor Is In and can help with both of those phobias. Schroeder’s dad went to prison for molesting him and everyone stopped being his friend. He’s the one they all call “fag” and “queer.” They all think he’s gay, but he’s not sure…yet. He and Charlie Brown not only kiss, they have sex. Peppermint Patty and Marcie are the original mean girls – nasty and fake to the core.

This vision is not what I think of when I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. I think they’ll always be the same – friends – but we all change. Just as happens in life, we grow out of our friends and into clicks. Someone that is your best friend in elementary school may become your enemy, or the person you choose to pick on and belittle, in middle school. It gets worse in high school. Why are we such fools? Why can’t we see that we’re all people, searching for love, compassion and camaraderie? Why do we seal ourselves away at the cool table, the nerd table, the band geek table and the stoner table?

My niece is approaching middle school. My heart actually breaks a little when I think about the bullshit that she’s getting ready to start going through. Popularity becomes so important and anyone that’s different starts to stand out.

My life is so changed from what it was 20 years ago. I’m more confident in many ways while still insecure in others. Example: I can walk into a room and command attention. I want to command it. Then I begin to wonder why I’m commanding it. Confidence, insecurity, questioning, understanding – it’s like a bipolar cocktail being shaken and stirred at the same time. Insecurity sucks! How do I unlearn that? What I really find fascinating is that for all of my gay and proud bullshit I’m still insecure about being gay too. All these years later I’m alternately excited and nervous when I see two men holding hands on the street. I don’t know why I can’t just be happy. I am partly happy, but also partly afraid they will be physically or verbally attacked. Fear of what one doesn’t understand can make him the meanest bully of all.

I can tell you that I’m afraid of what people think. I give my power away every day. I learned it a lifetime ago from my dad. He is so concerned with what other people think and how they perceive him that it is solidly ingrained into me. I wish I could shed that “caring” like a dead skin and rid myself of its restrictive imprisonment. Regardless of whether anyone else is or not, I want to be proud of my choices and me. I want to stand up for what I believe and not feel like it’s a confrontation to express my opinion or my beliefs when someone else feels differently than I. I want to stop apologizing for my life. I want to not be ashamed of being gay. There I’ve said it. It’s disgusting to me to even admit it, but I think I have residual shame attached to being gay. I’m not ashamed that I’m gay really, but I was always afraid of bringing shame on my parents. There’s that caring-what-people-think thing again. There’s no shame in being born black. There’s no shame in being born a blond. There’s no shame in being born gay. NO SHAME!!

I’m out to my parents now. They love me. There’s nothing to hide. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I can’t keep my head down and my eyes averted forever. I’ve been there already. I walked with my head down in high school a lot. I made a conscious choice to walk with my head held high and my eyes level when I moved to New York City. Over the years I have slipped back into old patterns. I want equality. I want my gay brothers and sisters to be able to marry should they so choose. I think that I’m afraid because the spotlight is on gay issues in this country (hell, the world) right now. We are trying to be so PC that we cease to just live and be people. We just need to respect each other and help each other and show compassion. Damn it! We need to treat each other better and maybe some of the fear that I feel and the boy in high school, unsure of the feelings he’s feeling, feels will go away. Different is not bad. Different is nothing to be scared of. Different is what makes us unique and strong.

What I’m learning is missing from my life is forgiveness. I have yet to forgive the tormentors from my youth. I have tried to forget about them since leaving Carlisle County, KY. That does not allow for healing and forgetting doesn’t work. For some reason I think holding the grudge gives me some kind of strength. It doesn’t! I know that I need to let it go and give my forgiveness for the bullying and teasing, which was more about them than about me. Why should a man with this much distance and space between that past and this present continue to hold a grudge? Saying “I forgive you” doesn’t make me weak. It doesn’t make them the big winner. Saying “I forgive you” makes me a stronger man; it diminishes their power over me. I will be 40 in a matter of months and I’m just realizing that people who probably haven’t thought my name in two decades have a power over me that they don’t even know about. What a waste of energy and time that is. Saying that I want to forgive them is easier to do than actually forgiving them. I am aware of that. Wanting to do it is the first step in actually doing it though, right?

Maybe by forgiving I will stop apologizing for who I am. Maybe my head will come back up to a held-high position. Maybe, just maybe, I will stop caring what everyone else thinks and just stand firm behind my own thoughts and opinions. Maybe the little boy and the scared young man will see the strong man I’ve become and put their fears aside. Maybe I will start to appreciate and love myself more.

Oh, I almost forgot, Pig-Pen was so incensed by the kiss and the sex between Charlie Brown and Schroeder that he broke Schroeder’s fingers. Unable to play the piano anymore and completely defeated by the bullying, Schroeder saw no other alternative but suicide.

I want to take a moment to say thank you to all the people back home that accept me for the person I am. Who accept me for just being a human being. I want to thank all the people who want my friendship and tolerate my insecure bullshit. You’re appreciated and loved and I am blessed.