and by thursday, i mean LAST week’s thursday. i am in no way a good enough blogger to take a trip AND blog at the same time. and you can’t do that with a me.com website unless you had a mac laptop (which i don’t). BUT if someone wanted to GIVE me a mac laptop so that i could blog from vacation AND if someone wanted to send me on a FREE vacation to say somewhere like LONDON, ENGLAND, then i certainly would blog from my free vacation on my free laptop... i am a giver like that (though i think that would actually make me a taker...)
so we arrived in the early afternoon, dropped off our luggage at the apartment and added several layers of clothing onto our bodies (it was VERY COLD that evening). we took a subway (see previous entry) up to central park and the kids got their first glimpse of SNOW!
then we visited the TKTS booth in times square (the half price tickets for that evening’s plays). adam and the girls scored some cheap seats to the little mermaid. then we went over to the theater where billy elliot was playing. that was a play that maxx and i really wanted to see. it is based on a british movie about a boy who loves to dance. i had read a lot about it and knew it was a little rough language wise and had talked to maxx about some of the ideas in it (i had shown him most of the movie). we were able to get tickets (not at half price but not full price either, WAYYYYYYY up in the nosebleed section).
then we had some dinner. i should have packed some sandwiches, but we were all so excited about heading into the city that i didn’t take a moment and make us some food before we headed out. we hadn’t eaten since 10 that morning. and everyone was getting a bit cranky (and by everyone, i mean ME). we had some pasta at a sbarro restaurant. it was the cheapest alternative around times square. adam had glanced at a menu at a tgif restaurant and thought that perhaps he was in another country and had to convert that price ($20 for a sandwich) into american currency. too bad it was already in american currency. sbarro was much cheaper for us all (we split some of the pasta dishes and a big bowl of fruit).
then we split up to go and see our various musicals.
nicole (and any other broadway lovers), all the little links are for you to get a taste of the plays we went and saw, i had YEARS where i had babies and no broadway trips and NO youtube to watch broadway clips... which is sometimes enough of a “fix” for me to have a musical moment in my day when i really need one. now i don’t really support the filming of broadway shows on your phone and posting the clips on youtube BUT i do have to say that watching the clips from billy elliot made my mind up about going and seeing it with maxx. so i wouldn’t have bought the tickets without those little previews...
and billy elliot was even more breathtaking and wonderful than the youtube clips could show. the language was coarse (maxx said it was like a day at his middle school) and there were issues that were brought up that i needed to unpack later with maxx (we had already chatted about those elements and how they might address them in the play).
but i was won over by the story about a boy who was “born to boogie” . it was so powerful and the scene where he recites from memory a letter that his mother left him before she died was my favorite scene (maybe because maxx leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder).
all of our children are creative (i mean look at who they have for a mother, how could they help it?). but it is maxx that truly has the soul of an artist, a soul that i recognize at times as similar to mine, but other times, he far exceeds any artistic tendencies that i have ever had. he takes my breath away and he terrifies me with his gifts because it isn’t what i had ever envisioned in a son.
he shuts the door to his room and dances to music, he creates songs on the piano, he can sit at the piano for hours and figure out how to play a song as he sings it with almost perfect pitch (with only one ear that actually hears), he builds things out of trash, he notices architecture and color and shape in everything.
and it is hard to raise a boy like that. it is frightening to raise a boy like that. and i am not altogether sure that we are doing it correctly.
would adam and i prefer that he talk sports all day and yearn to tackle someone than the conversations we usually get about musical interpretations and artwork evaluations and how it feels to dance, and how that he can feel the colors of the sunset in his head?
it might feel easier as parents in this 21st century to have a sporty hit them up side the head boy.
but taking my love to dance boy to billy elliot seemed like the right thing for my son, a boy who dances and feels the electricity exactly like the song in the musical. i don’t understand that boy at times (and although i appreciate ballet, i certainly do not LOVE it or really get that feeling of needing to dance), but i know that God does. i know that God loves boys who dance and sing and make music...and that there is a time to dance.
and there is a time to take that boy who loves to dance to see another boy who loves to dance on a broadway stage.
oh, and the girls loved little mermaid (and adam seemed to really appreciate ariel’s coconut bathing suit top in more typical boy fashion).
and that was last thursday in new york city.