When we last checked in, I was a high school student enjoying the benefits of participation in theater arts and music.
The value can best be described as a combination of eventual self-confidence that comes with repeat public performances compounded by the comfort in one's skin that comes with having a group of peers who radically accept you as you are.
This, incidentally, is why the drama kids seem to possess extremes of self-esteem. As a destination for misfits, those with low self-esteem find a warm welcome, and those goofs who love the spotlight bask in the glow of attention.
Now for some time travel. Let's hop into the Back to the Future DeLorean and go back 40 years. My mother, an immigrant from Mexico, has landed in Los Angeles during the folk music revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A guitar player since her teens, the high point of her college career was being part of a Latin folk trio. She would go on to draw on her music skills as a bilingual kindergarten teacher for the next 37 years.
Once more, we enter the time-traveling DeLorean, this time fast forwarding 30+ years. My daughter is a freshman in high school, and my wife and I decide to take her and my junior high aged son to a performance of the high school's competitive improv troupe. Yes, that's a thing.
They completely fill the big auditorium. It's a raucous crowd. And then the lights go out and the magic begins. Five minutes in, my son, who was reluctant to leave the house, turns to me and mouths, "This is great!"
After the show, the drama kids buzz outside the auditorium, accessible and unbelievably kind when my son inquires about how to get involved. It's the closest he's ever experienced to acknowledgement by a celebrity.
At the risk of disorienting you, we'll take a final short ride to the present in that DeLorean.
My daughter is in drama and musical theater. She has a monthly gig with a band where she is the youngest member by 30 years. In the autumn, she performed a vocal solo in front of over a hundred classmates. She got her first regular job teaching music to young children in Sunday school (you better believe I opened a custodial Roth IRA in her name!).
My son has endeared himself to those drama celebrity kids from the high school, who have now made him the honorary scorekeeper for the monthly competitive improv nights.
This year, he auditioned and was given a role as a comic sidekick, complete with a solo, in the musical currently wrapping up at his junior high.
At the penultimate performance of his show, today, those celebrity kids (and the high school drama teacher!) surrounded him with encouraging words, compliments and appreciation. His smile has never been bigger.
Latin folk musician to high school Madrigal to a couple of teen performers in the making, an unexpected legacy has been passed down the generations.