I went to see Rent last weekend. It was a very last minute arrangement but I'm so glad I went - seven days later and it's still on my mind. I knew very little of the story or songs before I went, other than the seminal "Seasons of Love" - that song holds a very special place in my heart.
I was a major theatre kid when I was at school, only ever in the ensemble but still very much a member of the Music Dep. family. When I look back on my time at school, it's the hours spent in the rehearsal rooms and on the stage that immediately come to mind.
"Seasons of Love" was the last ever song I performed with my sixth form choir so it's a pretty key one. We were all moving on and breaking up after having performed together for the seven years previous - "Seasons of Love" was our last hurrah. It's such a powerful ensemble piece - all fours parts blending together, no one competing for the limelight. It was our goodbye song and I get a bit teary whenever I hear it.
Wanting to see "Seasons of Love" live was the driving force behind my buying Rent tickets (and it was well worth it - I was a sobbing mess within mere bars) but the whole thing blew me away. It was unlike any show that I'd seen before and the whole theatre was alive. So. Many. Feelings.
The story takes place over one year - Christmas Eve to Christmas Eve, and that's the running thread of "Seasons of Love", that opens the second act. It asks us how to measure a year: 525, 600 minutes. Measure it in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee - in love? It's got me to thinking.
It's also come to my attention that this coming week marks an entire year, an entire 525, 600 of my own minutes, since I handed in my undergraduate dissertation and that blows my mind a bit. May 2016 was probably the most stressful month of my life, spent finishing the biggest project I have ever put my name to, and saying goodbye to university - echoing so many of those bittersweet feelings that "Seasons of Love" evokes for me. I left May 2016 with no direction. In comparison, May 2017 is blissful. I'm in a job and I love with thoroughly good people around me in all my circles. The previous year has paid off.
In the minutes and months in between, I applied and applied, I broke down, I picked up, I graduated, I applied more and finally landed in relative success - all of recorded on this here blog. Is that what I'd measure my year in? I left my part time job of half a decade and started my career: the difference a year makes.
It's weird to think about time, and believe me, I do a lot. Nostalgia and reflectiveness are integral parts of my make up. I've only been in my new job three and a half months but I already feel like I've been there forever. It feels like a lifetime since I last donned my supermarket uniform, though it was only in February. And yet, this week last year, the one I spent predominantly in tears with my friends in our campus library (both of stress and elation!) doesn't feel like any time ago at all. But 525, 600 minutes have passed and there's a lot to show for it.
How do you measure a year, the cast ask us as we sit, gripped in the auditorium. In all of the above, I suppose, but their answer is love, and who am I to disagree?
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