Life is a Cabaret

The names have been changed to protect the innocent

I keep hearing the song, (in my head) Life is a Cabaret. I've been humming it and singing it as I do chores.
The song is shadowy, like a smoky nightclub, but there are bright spots in the smoke; the bright colors are attributed to the show on stage.
The song and the images it brings with it beg me to pay attention. So I am.
I find out that the song is the theme song for a musical of the same name. The musical was based on the play: I Am a Camera, by John Van Druten, which was inspired by the book The Berlin Stories It is about how people found (sad) refuge in nightclubs in Nazi Germany.


The songs lends itself to a dream I had a couple of nights ago which was “filmed” in full, rich colors: the deep purple and blue of peacock feathers.

In the dream I was rushing to get to Vanessa’s high school performance. It was a very important event and I was stressed because I couldn’t get there on time. I had already missed the first hour of the show and I was worried that I’d miss it all.
Finally I gave up getting dressed up in fancy clothes. I settled for putting on my eyelashes. I had a tube of mascara that when applied made my lashes look like peacock feathers. They were lavish and rich and amazingly light for such extravagant lashes. I had my work clothes on but couldn’t find my shoes; I went without shoes, muttering under my breath, “Enough is enough. I have waited too long already! I am going as I am.”
Most of the dream was about my frantic attempt to get to the show and being blocked by one problem after another.
It ended as I was walking up to the auditorium of the high school. My heart was aching because I was so late. (In the dream I could know my own thoughts as well as Vanessa’s like in a movie.) I could see Vanessa on stage, eyes searching for, and not finding me.
There were people in front of me and I was trying to hurry them along so that I could get inside. They wouldn’t move. I was muttering, “Hurry. Hurry. Please get out of the way!”
Vanessa was wearing a silk dress, pale green. It was the same dress she’d worn to a wedding when she was eight. It accentuated her already striking green eyes. But in the dream her eyes were not happy the way they were when she wore that dress and danced with her dad at the wedding reception. In the dream her eyes are sad---they look the way they did in a picture taken when she was in high school: so full of sadness that it hurts to see them. She is smiling in the picture but her eyes are like tilted pools, so full of tears they almost spill over; so full of determination to survive that they shimmer bravely in spite of horrible pain.
These eyes have seen disappointment too many times. But it is the hope in them that breaks my heart because it is so precious and fragile. When I remember that look I pray that she will never be disappointed again, but worry that disappointing her is as inevitable as rain.
The song, “Life is a Cabaret” is about very desperate and broken people finding a place of refuge in an impossible situation.
It is a song about hope that lives on, fragile, wavering, but precariously alive. It is about finding a place to go, or having a mindset that allows you to block out all the danger, ugliness and uncertainty that lie just beyond the walls of the cabaret; It is about being able to smile at the camera, or the audience even though you are falling to pieces on the inside.

Now I am awake.
I pray that it is not too late, that I will get to her in time, that I won’t disappoint her again.
"Vanessa," I say to her in my mind, "I am right out here! I’m almost to the auditorium!" What I mean to say is that I am doing my best to be there for you. I want to hear everything you have to say. I am so sorry it has taken me so long to get here. I am not as prepared as I wish; I wish I was more confident and collected, but I can't wait any longer; I have to try to get to you, to hear you without interrupting or running away or blaming anyone but myself for your pain.
I pray: "Please, God, let me be there in time!" And "Please God, don't let me cause her any more pain."