I love the show RENT. I saw it on Broadway with my mom about 10 years ago and have loved it ever since. The movie was just as phenomenal - wise move, that, using pretty much all of the original cast. I've watched it countless times and I have no less than three CD's of both the Broadway recordings and the tracks from the movie.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend either watching the movie or seeing it live (I believe its still running at the Nederlander Theatre and also on tour in the U.S.). One person who saw it for the very first time ever with me said that it was the first time they had ever *really* understood that there was no difference between being gay and straight, that "love is love, no matter who it is you love." Its not that this friend was prejudiced before that point, but I think that they may have lacked understanding, not having had spent a tremendous amount of time around gay or lesbian couples. I think there are a lot of things that you can walk away from RENT feeling or understanding more clearly, but what a powerful statement that was on how true and clear the characters that the sadly late and very great Jonathan Larson brought to life in his script. Oh, crap, I'm digressing AGAIN.
Perhaps my favorite song from RENT is "La Vie Boheme." It evokes a fierce response in me, from the feeling of being on the fringes as a kid to clinging to music and experiences and ideas that were somewhat out of the mainstream. As much as I have one foot firmly in the buttoned-down, a huge part of me simply doesn't belong there and wishes she could just fly away and be free all over again in another world, another life.
In part B of the song, after the Roger/Mimi Interlude and toward the very end, there is a line that grabs me by the heart:
"To being an "US" for once, instead of a "THEM!"
Last weekend I got to be an "us" again and it was so wonderful.
My experiences with Bastard Nation were among the most powerful of my life. Never had I connected in such an enormous way with others. Despite different circumstances - Late Discovery adoptees, adoptees who had found, adoptees who would never find, adoptees who hated their adoptive families, adoptees who loved theirs, the members of this group shared something special and unique. Some of the friendships I formed with my fellow Bastards will last my whole life. Conferences, protests, rallies - every event brought with it not only the opportunity to learn, educate others, raise our voices and be heard, but to connect and share with people who felt like family. I suppose that's incredibly odd, considering that if you put ten adoptees in a room you're looking at twenty family trees. Hell, you want confusing? I married another adoptee. Our children would have six sets of grandparents were everyone involved still living, speaking to each other, or known. And only another adoptee would really understand how normal that truly was.
Being a Bastard was the first time in my life that I knew unequivocally that I was part of an "us." It wasn't only the experience of growing up adopted, but the shared passion for reforming a system that treats adoptees as a suspect class, denies us the same information that is available to anyone else, and for loving the gallows humor that everyone else appears to find tasteless but from which we derived the deepest, truest laughter.
Friday night, after an incredible dinner with a couple of my favorite Bastards under the sun, we sat up late in a hotel room drinking too much wine and laughing and talking about everything. I felt as if I had been transported to another hotel room in another time and place at one of our many conferences or rallies. Every good thing I have ever felt about being a Bastard just welled up inside me and filled my heart and my soul. We talked of the old days, old friends. We mourned those we have lost. We meandered through laughter and a thousand "Oh, yeah, I remember that!"'s down the warmly-lit paths of memory and shared experience. We looked at where our lives had come since those days. We caught up, bonded, reconnected.
To my Bastards who were present, and to the other Bastards, wherever you are, thank you. Thank you for being my people. Thank you for being a place where I belong, where I don't feel like I'm different. I love you guys.
And if you're ever in Troutdale, OR, go have dinner at Tab's Chicken and Dumplings. Make sure you get a window seat.
