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Gay Dad Memoirs

There's only one Sondheim song I know by heart. I'm ashamed to say this. It's not even that SS is too wordy--as the misguided cliche would have it. Quite a few Sondheim bits are less-than-wordy. "Anyone Can Whistle," "Good Thing Going," "Losing My Mind," ""Not While I'm Around."

The one Sondheim piece I know, easily, start to finish, is "Johanna," a creepy love tune, so I sing it over and over to my puzzled baby:

I feel you, Johanna!
I feel you....
I was half-convinced I'd waken...
Satisfied enough to dream you...
Happily I was mistaken....
Johanna....

 And so on. My baby doesn't really respond. He neglects to respond--additionally--to "Goodnight, My Someone," "Where Is Love?" "A Bushel and a Peck," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "The Sound of Music," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "Edelweiss," "Gary, Indiana," and "Till There Was You." These are the show tunes in my repertoire.

Actually, I'm wrong. There's a response, but it's muted. Something in his eyes does seem to pick up on shifts in the story. I swear.

Singing the same tunes over and over makes me aware of certain mysteries. In "Baby Beluga," why does Raffi ask the titular beluga whether the water is warm? Of course it's not warm. We're talking about a beluga. Or is the song a sinister comment on climate change?

In "My Country 'Tis of Thee"--a standard from my second-grade year, and now something I again sing repeatedly--there's a weird bit of throat-clearing. "My country, 'tis of thee....OF THEE....I sing...." This doesn't seem all that felicitous.

As I sing "The Sound of Music," I feel deeply irritated with Maria, out talking to the hills, and I sense that if I were the mother abbess, there wouldn't be any deliberation or hand-wringing. Maria would be out on the street. Curtain.

And that's life when you're spending hours and hours with a small baby...
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