Connections to AIDA

My brain is so slow. I just realized why I seem to be attracted to the show AIDA. Please excuse the following blog if it starts to sound like a term paper. And if anyone tries to copy it as a college essay, I hope you live the same pitiful life I do, or else you are so going to get your ass caught.

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Every story, tale or memoir
Every saga or romance
Whether true or fabricated
Whether planned or happenstance

Whether sweeping through the ages
Casting centuries aside
Or a hurried brief recital
Just a thirty-minute ride

Whether bright or melancholy
Rough and ready, finely spun
Whether with a thousand players
Or a lonely cast of one

Every story, new or ancient
Bagatelle or work of art
All are tales of human failing
All are tales of love at heart

This opening song from the Broadway musical AIDA sets up one of the more obvious truths about life that not a lot of us have discovered. When it comes to the emotion of love, our journey during it is a story that will more often than not end in some kind of heartbreak before finally being what we want it to be. During this time, our emotions are never as clear as they should be or as we would like them to be. In fact, sometimes our emotions are never clear at all. We make mistakes and regret the choices we make. This is what they mean by being blinded by love. Nothing is perfect, and love is no exception, be it how we fall in love, who we love, or the journey between here and there.

I, personally, can relate to the three main characters in this production. Each character has their own flaw, each has something that makes them attractive, each have a piece of me. While only having been exposed to just the music, I feel I can relate still to these characters in one form or another.

Radames, the male lead, is a free spirit. He loves adventures and loves nothing more than going out in the world and exploring. This is his passion. This is how we are first introduced to Radames. My passion is to create art. A passion I enjoy and love doing. I want nothing more than to create things. This is how I am on the surface.

Aida, the female lead and title role, is a proud but beaten women. Her country was invaded and taken over by her neighbor to the north. Her heart is filled with insecurities knowing that her home is no more, knowing that she cannot return even if she wanted to. This is only fuelled farther by the fact that she is afraid of the unknown of the future. This is how we are first introduced to Aida. Insecurities are a human nature. Everyone at one point in their time does not feel as if they are up to par with someone else, or as in my case, with society in general. We all wish we were better looking, taller, more muscular, thinner, darker in skin tone, etc. All of these things cause some kind of skew in how we see ourselves. This causes the weak to become weaker because they cannot face these insecurities knowing that they are silly things to think about. This is how I am beneath the surface.

Amneris, the last member in the play's love triangle, is a very insecure women beneath the layers of fancy clothing she wears. She wears her clothing the way some wear a mask to hide what is going on in the inside. Her biggest insecurity is that Radames doesn't love her, which is unfortunately true later on in the story. This is how we are first introduced to Amneris. Everyone has some kind of escape to get their minds off their insecurities. Hers is fashion. Mine are games. When we find the things that help us escape, we always go there first. When that doesn't help us forget about our problems, some of us become aware that what is bothering us is really a big deal, one that should be faced head on. Others, like myself, continue to escape the problem. Like Amneris, we retreat back to our creature comforts until we are slapped by the truth with a force that could make or break us. This is how I act when bad things happen.

Throughout the production, these three characters, as well as the very sides of the human persona, become entangled within each other. Some of their flaws are brought to the surface, even if subtle. New sides, all of which I can relate to, surface as well. The fear of the unknown ends up becoming more and more apparent as the two lovers, Radames and Aida, become closer in their forbidden desire, much in the same way in which fear of the unknown grows within a person when faced with something new to them.

To sail away to half-discovered places
To see the secrets so few eyes have seen
To see the moments of enchantment on our faces
The moments when we smile and those between

If I could leave this place then I'd be sailing
To corners of my land where there would be
Sweet southern winds of liberty prevailing
The beauty so majestic and so free

There'd be no ties of time and space to bind me
And no horizon I could not pursue
I'd leave this world's misfortunes far behind me
I'd put my faith and trust in something new

But why should I tell you this
A stranger I've just met
A woman whom I hardly know at all
And should forget

A journey we can only dream of
Enchantment passing through
And how is it I say these things
So easily to you

If there was ever a song that captured the moment when two people fall in love unknowingly, it is this one sung by Aida and Radames. Yes, the moment when we all fall in love, some people see only their love. Some feel a happiness that is unmatched to anything they have felt before. I, on the other hand, end up like Aida and Radames. I dream dreams that are to forever remain dreams. I tell my dreams and hopes so readily to those I fancy, only to later take back what I said chalking them up to the fact that reality will never make it possible. A kind of self-defeating action that I do when I realize that I have said something to someone that is so wonderful on paper but not practical in reality.

So I'll flutter to deceive
Oh no, No, you must believe
That one day you're bound to find
A stronger suit

These lines, sung by Amneris and Aida respectfully, can be taken so many ways. In context to the play, there is a play on words. To say that Amneris will find a stronger suit means that she will eventually find a way to be more confident in herself than she really is to where she won't need fashion. The word "suit" can also mean that she may find another suitor, or rather a person that actually loves her and that she can feel love from. I take both meanings to heart, personally. I know that, eventually, I will find a stronger suit of my own, one that will help me become what I need to be. I also know that there will be someone, eventually, that will love me for who I am. Someone that will blow everyone I've ever fallen in love with out of the water.

It's knowing what they want of me that scares me
It's knowing having followed I must lead
It's knowing that each person there compares me
To those in my past whom I now succeed
But how can whatever I do for them now
Be enough
Be enough

This opening verse to the song Dance of the Robes probably applies more to my current situation than to anything else. In the scene, Aida must assume her responsibilities as princess to her people. She doesn't want to. She feels she cannot do a good job. However, she takes up her responsibilities despite her insecurities, not for herself, but for her people who need a leader more than ever. Currently, in my life, I must have some kind of way of becoming a functioning member of society. I need to get a job, get a place of my own, learn how to drive, and all the other things that would make me self sufficient. But I can't.

I once knew all the answers
I stood on certain ground
A picture of true happiness
Confidence so effortless
No brighter could be found

I never asked the questions
That trouble me today
I knew all there was to know
Love worn lightly, put on show
My conquest on display

And who'd have thought that confidence could die?
Not me, not me
That all I took for granted was a lie

Not me, not me
And who'd have guessed I'd throw my world away
To be with someone I'm afraid to say

Not me, not me

In these lines sung by Radames, I see a part of me that I never really quite discovered until now. Here, Radames is starting to change. He's lost the want to adventure. He wants to be with Aida, whom he cannot be with because Aida is a slave. He is confused about his emotions, about himself, and about his situation. He doesn't know what to do. On top of it all, he is afraid of doing something because of the repercussions that could occur. It's amazing how one little event in someone's life, no matter how insignificant it could seem at first, can change a person. So what event happened to me to make me change into the person I am now? I moved to Nashville.

We all lead such elaborate lives
Wild ambitions in our sights
How an affair of the heart survives
Days apart and hurried nights
Seems quite unbelievable to me
I don't want to live like that
Seems quite unbelievable to me
I don't want to love like that
I just want our time to be
Slower and gentler, wiser, free
We all live in extravagant times
Playing games we can't all win
Unintended emotional crimes
Take some out take others in

I'm so tired of all we're going through
I don't want to live like that
I'm so tired of all we're going through
I don't want to love like that
I just want to be with you
Now and forever, peaceful, true

This may not be the moment to tell you face to face
But I could wait forever for the perfect time and place

We all lead such elaborate lives
We don't know whose words are true
Strangers, lovers, husbands, wives
Hard to know who's loving who

Too many choices tear us apart
I don't want to live like that
Too many choices tear us apart
I don't want to love like that
I just want to touch your heart
May this confession
Be the start

Finally, in this lovely duet between Aida and Radames, I can relate to this given my sexuality and what is currently going on. In this song, Radames confesses his love to Aida. Both of them are aware that their love is illegal and frowned upon, but they do not care. They feel they should be with each other. It is no secret that I am gay. It is also no new news that gay marriages are going on as we speak. It is also no new news that there are several people higher up in the political and social arenas that are trying to "protect the sacred meaning of marriage." As such, I can relate to this song, and feel it applies to me. If I fall in love with any man, it is an unintended emotional crime. My affair, if and when one should happen, would be conducted under the dark of night, hidden from the eyes of the public, because I am not of the normal sexuality. Let me rephrase that. I am not of the majority's sexuality. All I want to do is be able to fall in love like the next straight person, but I am unable to do so. Any kind of legitimate love affair I have had or will ever have is now and forever will be an unintended emotional crime if not made legal. There is no such thing as an emotional crime, so my falling in love with another of the same gender should be legal as a heterosexual falling in love with another person.

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That's all I got at the moment.