Fame

I just finished watching Fame.

Not your traditional Thanksgiving activity, I'll admit. But neither is having lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Hendersonville Road before Hubby heads into work. Who needs tradition when you've got a movie that reminds you of being 14 and in love with acting and heart-full of the belief that you were going to burn through life with energy and happiness and bigger-than-lifeness and, well, fame.

Honestly, what I remember most isn't the first time I saw the movie. It's coming home between the matinee and evening performances of Dracula in ninth grade to blast the song on my father's turntable as my friend Dana and I sang with far more passion than tunefulness. Fame! I want to live forever! I want to learn how to fly . . . high!

The next day I cried as they struck the set. Mr. Feldman put his arm around me and explained how actors have to move on after each performance. He made me feel as if I was an actor, and I realize now that a little bit of that kindness has stayed with me.

I watched the beginning of the movie with The Boy as the afternoon temperatures dropped into the 40's and winter blew into Asheville. He quite enjoyed "Hot Lunch Jam." He gave me a funny look but did me the favor of waving his arms around like Mommy as the kids on the TV screen danced in the street to "Fame." Mostly, though, he just played with his doggie ball.

I found myself hoping that one of my children has the passion for performing that I did. Because I want to see what happens when that passion is nurtured instead of tossed aside for Spanish 3 in high school. And tossed aside again for an honors degree in American Studies. And yet again when grad school is a far safer bet for escaping the law firm than continuing to take acting classes at the Studio Theater in D.C. Even the community theater that kept me going during grad school fell by the wayside when I got to St. Louis and discovered that I was a 33-year-old law professor, not an aspiring actress.

Such speculation about the future, it seems, is well beyond The Boy, who lives in the moment. At this moment he is much more interested in unlocking the mystery of toys that have wheels than in considering whether his future lies in the performing arts and, if so, whether his mother will try to live vicariously and inappropriately through him.

The Boy had had enough of Fame before the characters were done with sophomore year. And so, one bath, dinner, and a bedtime later, I returned to Tivo alone. I put on the headphones so I didn't have to worry about waking The Boy when I turned up the volume to match the adrenaline that pumps through me when I hear a song about being a performer, being famous, being someone bigger than my own life. I settled under the baby blue lap duvet and I let myself be 14 again.

The second half of the movie, unfortunately, packs in enough melodrama to cut into good, juicy guilty-pleasure musical numbers. But there were still plenty of moments when I imagined myself dancing with those bodies on screen and being able to carry a tune at the same time.

In those moments, I believed that it is only a matter of time before I find my way into that world. Sure, it's been 27 years since Dana and I sang "Fame" with the fervor of 14-year-old actresses. But I've been busy.

I was prepared for reality to hit when the movie ended. The idea was to spend two short hours camping out in a place where I see the beauty of my teenage life that I couldn't see at the time yet feel the biting truth of how I was far too young and uncertain to follow the passion only someone that young can believe in. Then it would be time to wake up. I am, after all, past 40. The majority of my waking hours belong to The Boy. A good chunk of those remaining belong to activities that help pay for Saturday's belated Thanksgiving turkey. I work at home without even co-workers to perform for. I've given up yoga teaching for a solitary practice in my office. There is no stage in my life for that person I've always wanted to be to act upon.

But as the final scene of Fame played itself out and the students sang and danced and graduated from the School for the Performing Arts, I knew I would write about this feeling. About a swirling sense of joy wrapping around my heart and a youthful burst of someone I still want to be animating me. About not caring if I'm over 40 and devoted to being a mother and in love with my private husband and our private life in Asheville, North Carolina.

I thought about how I still sometimes sit in front of the mirror and answer interview questions -- from Terry Gross usually, sometimes Oprah. I describe the book I've written and speculate on why it's touched such a chord with the reading public. I talk about the remarkable transformation I made in my 40's, when I finally became a writer. And I see in front of me a me liberated.

It feels silly to sing with headphones on. But when you're an actress you don't care. And when no one's home to hear you singing you can be an actress if you want to. So I sang and I got ready to write and I believed. And I still do, at least at this particular moment.

I sing the body electric. I celebrate the me yet to come.