Excerpt From My Opus It was music that led me to the cell and my so-called “career,” as we know it. It was the nineties. My kids were getting big. I had been pregnant from 1981 to 1989. Really. Four kids in eight years. I know you think that is totally nuts. Who in her right mind would do that? Ya, well, due to this folly, I totally missed the eighties, which is to say I didn’t miss much, musically. Except for Madonna and U2, who were pretty impossible to miss, I’d say I was glad to be in the family way, preoccupied with the mundane. However, this is not to say I was happy. No, no, no. I was always wondering, “What am I going to do when I grow up?” I swear to god, that thought was there day and night, night and day.
Somehow, in my sparse time, I was always in school. I took classes in absolutely everything. I think if I added up all my credits, I’d probably have a dozen B.A.’s. I almost got a Master’s in psychology, but I dropped the program the day I heard I was expecting a baby. I have a very basic, well-rounded education. But I never could choose a specialty. I was interested in everything, good at nothing. Except maybe getting pregnant. Oh, and I also liked to carve stones.
So burdened with a bundle of useless chiseled rocks, superficial knowledge and a heavy heart, I decided to turn my attention inward. I started writing poems. Poetry was something I did always. When I was in fifth grade I won a poetry contest. When I was in seventh grade I wrote an award-winning poem. Maybe I peaked in seventh grade. I probably did.
After that, I continued to write here and there, never really exposing my silly thoughts beyond paper. But suddenly, with the nineties upon me, and a freakish fear of global warming, I felt this uncontrollable urge to put my pen to the page and rhyme my troubles away. Next thing I knew I was writing a musical. Yeah, a musical! Now this was in the last century, a few years before the millennium. The story was centered on the idea that the messiah would return and the world would, in fact, end due to the negligence of humans. “SIN” was born. I think the time may be right to revive that project.