One of my all-time-favorite Sondheim musicals is "Into the Woods", with my favorite song being No One is alone.
Sometimes people leave you.
Halfway through the wood. . .
The entire musical has themes of love and striving and loss and reminds us that in the end, all we have is one another.
My favorite version of this song is sung by Bernadette Peters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnLKbc2hvxk
June, 1986: (‘87, I’ve been informed)
It's a sunny day in Modesto, California and I am helping my mom to unpack. We've only been in Modesto for a few days and I am angry to have been uprooted from my friends in Eugene, but I am helping because I am the oldest child and she needs the help. In the door comes a lady from our church, whom neither of us has met, but she begins chatting with my mom as if they are old friends. She has brought her daughter, who is my age, and she sends Carin and I out front to talk.
In the awkward way of teenagers everywhere we sit under the liquid amber tree out front and talk. We talk about how horrible our families are (remember we are very nearly teenagers and forgive us, please). Carin warns me that where her mother goes, weirdness and wacky things happen. A story is shared of her mom losing her pants in the middle of a public mall, and we laugh, bonding over how weird adults are. 3 days later we are on a bus headed to Girls' Camp, and I find that I have exactly one friend on that bus; that friendship has continued.
Over the years there are sleepovers where her mom offers to take us TP'ing, laughter until I am certain I will loose bladder control, and Carin's freight train snore. No joke, one year at camp one of our A-frame mates had a nightmare that a bear was eating her head and roaring because Carin was snoring so loudly. Her Aunt Jeanie taught us to sew one summer and she made a lovely dress while I struggled with a skirt. Later after my first year at college we tried again to make dresses which turned out much better, mostly because Carin wouldn't let me quit when I decided I hated buttonholes.
Through our high school years we fought, reconciled, loved each other, couldn't stand each other--and there were, indeed, wacky adventures, one of which resulted in our writing a song about being lost in Planada, CA (go ahead, look it up) on the way to a priest/laurel dance. In case you are wondering, the only signs of life in Planada were the bars. It ended up with us late to the dance, but laughing about the whole trip.We loved trips to the beach, to the temple, took little drives just to enjoy one another's company. She let me use her washer/dryer when I was a completely broke new mom, she came to my baby's blessing, she was at my wedding, so many activities, she is a fixture in my memories even through the Air Force took us far and away from Carin in Utah.
Our last time together was at Megan's funeral, 3 years ago. I'd stashed enough frozen custard to feed an army in my sister's freezer and convinced Carin that she should come finish it with me. My sister Linnea lived at that time on a row of identical condos, or maybe the paint was slightly different shades on each one, but still pretty much the same. In any case, I led Carin into the open door of the condo, kicked off my shoes and walked upstairs thinking it was odd that the furniture had been moved around and the paintings were different. I thought one of Linnea's roommates MUST be moving or something. It took a good minute for me to realize that we were NOT in Linnea's apartment but we were trespassing in a complete stranger's home. Frantically I chased Carin and my nieces out of there, grabbing our shoes on the way out and skedaddled over to Linnea's place. When we walked in I had to tell my sister of our misadventures and I turned around to see Carin, completely silently just laughing as hard as she could. The wackiness is contagious, is what I'm saying.
The end of the song:
Someone is on your side,
no one is alone.
Life is better when you have a friend like Carin
