It all started when I was small and shy going to visit my Dad's parents. When ever we went over to Grandpa and Grandma Jean's house there were several options for entertainment.
1. The small gazebo and pond, where one could sing Mulan's songs.
2. A decorative wishing well, where one could sing Snow White's song.
3. Pretend playing the organ (I was very talented at this).
4. Looking at Grandma Jean's collection of the trinkets she'd gathered from all across the world. Elephants and fine dolls, everything glittered and highly revered in their glass display cases.
5. Watching CATS on VHS.
Grandma Jean is my step grandmother, and she is so fancy and cultured. She's traveled the world, she wears fur coats, and she has seen several Broadway productions. I don't really remember watching it all that much at her house, because I eventually figured out I could borrow it from her from time to time. When that happened I watched it at least once a day, singing and dancing along. One time I remember her handing it over to me and saying, "Now remember, you have to bring this back." Which surprised me, because obviously I always brought it back, otherwise I wouldn't be borrowing it again. But, then again, I borrowed that shit for a long time. Half because we didn't go over as often as we did to my other grandma's, but also because that VHS was like crack to me.
My entire family knows about CATS, because I'd watched it so much. I even picked out what cat I wanted to be. At first, I wanted to be Victoria, obviously. She's the pure white cat who gets a ballet solo. Then I wanted to be Cassandra, because she had small singing solos and danced just as much as Victoria. Finally, I landed on Jemimia (Sillabub in American productions). She had longer solos, and was also a strong dancer. By nine years old, just a year into my first dance lessons, I had my entire career planned out. But, that plan didn't work out.
I danced at a small studio in my hometown, and I'm so fond of my memories there, but it wasn't as major of a school that one who aimed to have her name in flashing lights all across New York City needed to be in. As I continued into middle school I still held on to this dream, and all of my friends knew about it. I eventually joined a performance troupe in Oldham County that gave me singing and acting background, but by then I was slowly giving up on my dream. I still really, really wanted to dance. But I was beginning to understand that I wasn't the best in my classes, and I wasn't really excelling. I also became really fond of ballet, and it became my focus by the time high school hit. I quit that briefly, trying to re-center myself in jazz and tap. It was a horrible idea, so I went back to ballet, figuring I could be a part of New York City ballet.
This was when I began to write.
When I entered high school I'd just spent the summer taking endless ballet classes at UofL's Dance Academy, and I'd gotten my first laptop. I would stay up late writing these stories that I had made up to put myself to sleep. These stories used to be based on Disney characters and movies, or books I'd read. Then, they turned into me, a girl from Kentucky confidently living in New York, dancing her heart out with a company, falling in love with a lawyer, but waiting until marriage, and she also had great abs. These stories were horrible, but they came from CATS.
I used to make up these stories because I was obsessed with dreams. CATS made me hyper aware of the word "memory," and of the moon in the night sky, and I was a little kid chasing her dreams of getting up on stage dressed in a leotard and wig. And my character always went to New York, because that's where I wanted to be. That's where the Broadway is, so that's where I needed to be. Even if I wasn't on Broadway I just had to be there. Now, as I look for jobs in the publishing world I'm turning back to New York, though the dancing dream has died.
I just went to New York this December. I had a couple of days off one weekend and asked my Mom on a Monday if she wanted to go on this adventure. She was all in. That Friday we were on a plane for New York with tickets to CATS in our pocket. I was afraid, I'd never been to New York, and I knew there was a chance I'd be moving there to follow a career, but I was still so scared of New York. I knew it wouldn't be like my stories, it'd be much harsher and colder. But by the time we left the next Monday I was staring longingly out the plane window at the New York skyline. I wanted to be back there.
Part of that is definitley because CATS was still there. We saw the show during a Sunday matinee, and I cried the entire way through. Etcetera (her real character name, I just figured it out this year and every time I'm like, Eliot and Weber, you nerds) ran down the aisle with glowing eyes as the overture played, and I couldn't hold it in. My Mom leaned over to ask if I was alright, and I said, "Yes. I just started crying." She gave me a tissue and I gripped it the entire show as I sobbed on and off. My heart raced the entire show, and for an hour after the show, because as we watched my shoulders heaved to the music. This was the closest I'd ever get to being in CATS. The closest I got to singing Sillabub's solos was mouthing along with Jessica Cohen. The closest I got to wearing the unitard was Samantha Sturm, who played Demeter, touched my hand as I tried to smile at her through the tears as "The Addressing of Cats" was sang on stage. The show was so amazing.
So, I went to the box office and bought tickets for the evening performance. I cried again, and made intense eye contact with Tantomile, but that's besides the point. CATS steered me back to New York, because I found such joy in that performance I have found joy in the city, and want to return to explore the rest of it, and find my confidence walking the streets, just as my character did in the stories I wrote.
Now, as I mentioned before I had goals of being Jemimia. Physically, Veerle Castelyn, was petite, but she had big eyes that were only made to appear bigger with her stage make up. So, I was already short (in fact I still match the casting call description of Sillabub: under 5'4, youthful apperance), and my eyes were big... but I always wanted them to be bigger. I'd spend time in the mirror lifting my lids as high as they'd go, stretching my eyeballs, willing them to grow. Jem also spent a significant amount of time looking and sining at the moon, so I did that too.
I was mystified by the full moon, staring at it during early car rides to school, and late car rides home from Memaw's house. When I couldn't sleep, I'd go to the window and look at the moon, thinking about dreaming and memories. I'd try and make my eyes as big as the moon, just like a curious kitten. At this point I find it interesting to point out that I am not a night person. Well, I'm more of a night person than a morning person, I hate mornings sometimes, but I don't stay up late. When I was real little I used to be knocked out by no later than 9:30pm. As the seventh child of my family, I'm sure my parents were extremely pleased about this phenomenon. Also, I was always a dog person. My sister was the cat person, so I was the dog person. My mind worked in opposites a lot when it came to my sister, I don't know it's weird. But anyways, despite these facts I was in love with the moon and the stars, so much so that one night when I didn't sleep until literally the next morning I was thrilled. I wasn't angry that I tossed and turned, I was elated to be up with the moon. I'd lazily walk to my window, open the sheer curtains like a rich woman in a 1950s film, and look up to the sky.
That night I also did one of the most extinsive story planning dream sessions based on a book I'd read for Book Bee. I valued myself on not only my dancing and singing, but my creativity and imagination. But, it was because I was going to be a part of a creative field while performing on Broadway (HUGE emphasis on Broadway, younger me was already a diva who would accept nothing less than Broadway!!).
So, this all added up. I spent a lot of time not only being a natural introvert, but one who was similar to a cat. Quiet, but playful. Aloof, but very kind. Occasionally graceful, but typically clumsy. My eyes were already big, as I said above, and I became a daydreaming, book worm. I miss high school a lot because I daydreamed constantly about the stories I was working on, about CATS, about my future as a dancer, and still got A's. Now I have serious participation points to rack up in college classes, and customers to attend to at work. But, I still love to visit the usually empty second floor of the library, or walk through the corner sections of work, taking in a few moments to be pensive. Now, what does all this fester to become? Do strangers and friends alike stop and tell me I remind them of a cat? Or even specifically my dream role from the musical? No. There's another person I've recently been compared to a lot.
I would now like to propose a poll:
Do I have a Luna Lovegood "Vibe"
1. YES! OMG I'VE BEEN RACKING MY BRAIN FOREVER! YOU JUST HAVE HER AIR, YOUR HAIR IS SIMILIAR, YOU EVEN SOUND LIKE HER. (All things people have said to me)
2. No... it's something else. Maybe like a person dressed up as a cat singing and dancing to unpopular, but super iconic, showtunes.
3. Who is Luna Lovegood?
(I also really love Parks and Recreation a ridiculous amount. But it's honestly nothing compared to my passion for CATS. Trust me. But I keep CATS very private, despite this long post. Parks and Rec is still cool. CATS is v dorky and it took me up until 10th grade to figure that out. But I could watch that shit all day. All day.)
ANYWAYS! My true love and dedication to CATS morphed itself into a literary reference. How ironic! It's as if my name, Paige, wasn't destiny enough, apparently I had to assume the characteristics of a cat character to become a character within my new career path.
I figure a lot of stuff out while watching CATS live on Broadway and crying. I looked up at the Jellicle moon, and realized this show was why I was so in love with the moon all those years ago. The show is why I'm drawn to New York and wrote stories with the setting. It had my butt in dance classes for ten years, loving every second, even the ones I knew my childhood dream was dead. I also realized that Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, doesn't ask train passengers if they want their tea "With a straw" but rather, "Weak or strong."
But most importantly I realized I had a full book of poetry memorized. I still get chills when in a poetry class and a TS Eliot poem is referenced. It always contains lines from "Memory" and makes me want to watch the show again. It makes my heart happy to see those lines and hear them read by other students who might not understand the show, but it's now in their lives too. As I watched the performers give their all on stage I cried, and realized how beautiful it was that the entire time I'd been focusing on the dancing and the singing, I was absorbing a key part of my future career.
I'm currently at Spalding University, working on getting my BFA in Creative Writing, and it's all because when I was a kid I watched a musical that was just a full book of poetry brought to life. Now, I own several TS Eliot books, and enjoy reading his work. And yeah, every now and again I like to indulge in my old dream of bringing that poetry to life through song and dance.
Thank you CATS, for not only being as amazing as I think you are, but for helping me to chase my dreams. I will always be fond of the memories we share, and for the person you've helped me become.
I will love you, Now and Forever.
(P.S. Please come back to Broadway soon! 16 years was too long! Let's say a short two?)
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