A Friend Digging Me Out Of Snow

Every year during the holiday season I would see the Seasons of Love chorus greeting on the tube. Not as traditional as the Hess truck or M&M commercials, but at least it wasn't trying to sell me anything.

I teched at the theater. It happened that Lloyd was going to direct our production of Moliere's Tartuffe. Nothing with Lloyd is ever small - not the set, not the cast, not the man himself. With a guy like him, irrevocably agree to be a part of his show. Imagine my excitement being casted as an extra, who by the way had a pretty hot liplocking scene. But anyway. The theater is where I met Reyna.

I often tell people our friendship is complicated. We don't have much in common. You'd easily think we were the complete opposites of each other. But we bonded deeper than skin, were friends because we were different, and frankly, also because we were insecure. Nonetheless, I have no idea where I would be today in this human realm if I hadn't met her. She was the net I fell, which I did a lot, all the time. Hands down, I am the defending champion.

Picture this - Me, Reyna, our musical inclination, and theater. Bam! The combination screams musicals.

Reyna could sing you every line of every song from Rent, her fav and later my fav. I'm sure she's told me the number of times she's watched it, but I store "Whoa. You serious?" rather than the count in my memory. I think it's funny how our unlikely friendship evolved - from struggling to snap on our bodices in a dressing room, to getting an apartment together, to fruits, to no absolutes...

Where we were living, the winters were all about the frozen toes, tracking snow, and the blues setting in, but I'll call it the season of love for the times that we cried and bridges we burned. All the time around me I had a gizillion of books and papers on god knows what subjects and unwanted responsibilities. I was bugging out most of the time, which led to this routine Reyna and I had. She would barge into my room, tell me it's time for a cigarette break, I'd complain about having to work, I'd give in easily, we'd go out to our porch, sit in our sweet Adirondack chairs and for hours chain smoke and sing to wake the block. I smile to think that for some reason we always started off singing Seasons of Love.