A Favorite Thing

My $5.00 gift to myself this Christmas has brought me more joy, laughter, and vocal challenge than I could imagine.  And I was thrilled to be sharing it with 349 other joy-seekers for a third year.

I sang with the beloved Julie Andrews.
And the dashing Christopher Plummer.
And the incomparable Peggy Wood.
Even sweet Angela Cartwright (the actress I wanted to become aside from Marlo Thomas!)

I attended Bryn Mawr Film Institute's annual screening of "The Sound of Music." What makes it one of my favorite things is that it is a sing-a-long.  It's a sort of G-Rated Rocky Horror Picture Show with audience members in costume, and lots of interacting with the action on the screen, family style.

Nuns, kittens (with whiskers), several "Do-Re-Me" choruses, two brides in full wedding garb, brown paper packages tied up with string and girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes filled the theater to participate in the holiday ritual. There was even a group who came as the hills - very much alive! My friend Susan, daughter Ali, her friend Tori and I donned our restrained, literal costumes - a single sparkly snowflake on each of our noses (could not figure out how to get them on our eyelashes). One friend noted it was a sort of Halloween inspired Christmas.

Just watching costumed people file into the theater was fun enough. But the best was yet to be when the lyrics appeared on the screen to the title song (and the others to follow.) The exuberant "Do-Re-Me" captivated us while the innocence of "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" belied what was to come.

Hearing a theater-full of patrons wholeheartedly join Mother Abbess (the amazing Peggy Wood) in climbing every mountain and fording every stream gave me chills.  I teared up wondering about the collective burdens we all carry and the dreams we try to follow. In those brief three hours, we set them aside and let movie magic take over.  

Two women and their daughters sat beside us and were our favorite reincarnations.  One was a dead ringer for Max Detweiler (with a superbly drawn on pencil mustache)  and the other, a fur toting Baroness sporting a tiara.  Their daughters dressed in old curtain fabric with kerchiefs to match. Perfection!

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We cheered for the 'problem' Maria, booed and hissed at the unrelenting Nazis and the universally misunderstood Baroness, and waved goodbye with the real party goers in the palatial VonTrapp foyer. None of the unwritten rules of movie etiquette were observed - we were unleashed to connect with our inner VonTrapp. We unabashedly displayed our silly selves and made Neil Young proud by letting our freak flags fly.

The sing-a-long opened up some thoughts on my favorite things - they are always changing, but right now they include:

The moment I feel fear unlock its grip.
The understanding from a friend.
The understanding from a stranger.
Music that pricks at our unlimited emotions.
Our Christmas Eve 'Seven Fish' tradition.
Feeling loved.
Giving love.

And, of course, being a Von Trapp for one silly little evening.