Morning Open Thread: Try to Remember

Welcome to Morning Open Thread

This is a daily post with a MOTley crew of hosts who choose the topic for the day's posting. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.

This author, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.

So grab your cuppa, and join in!

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I’m a fan of Broadway musicals, but my favorite musical isn’t one of the lavish shows with big casts, full orchestras, elaborate sets and opulent costumes. My favorite musical is The Fantasticks, with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story of first love and the loss of innocence, loosely based on the 1903 play Les Romanesques (The Romancers) by Edmond Rostand. It opened on Broadway in 1960, and it ran for a record-breaking 42 years and 17,162 performances.

One of the first gifts my husband ever gave me was a music box, which plays “Try to Remember” the best-known song from the show. It captures what the Brazilians call saudade, “longing for what is absent” which can be a place, a feeling, a person — someone far away, or lost — or something that has only been wished for and may never have existed outside of one’s imagination.

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. . .

Try to Remember

. . .

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain was yellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When you were a tender and callow fellow.

Try to remember and if you remember

then follow

follow.

. . .

Try to remember when life was so tender

That no one wept except the willow.

Try to remember when life was so tender

That dreams were kept beside your pillow.

Try to remember when life was so tender

That love was an ember about to billow.

Try to remember and if you remember

then follow

follow.

. . .

Deep in December it's nice to remember

Although you know the snow will follow.

Deep in December it's nice to remember

Without a hurt the heart will hollow.

Deep in December, it's nice to remember

The fire of September that made you mellow.

Deep in December our hearts should remember and follow

follow.

. . .

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YouTube Video

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Or as Shakespeare put it in Act II, Scene 4 of As you Like It :

. . . And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief . . .

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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies

Sorry to be a downer — the weather here is dreary, and I’m missing my old dog.

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