Sometimes you get to see a former student do something stratospheric and sparkly.
Back in 2014, I met a shiny junior from Elon University who was spending a spring in LA. I still have the little blue bird candle holder Phylicia gave me with a thank you card.
What I didn’t know was the following fall, we’d move to North Carolina and she’d be a member of my very first college voice studio.
One lesson, we were halfway through “As Long as He Needs Me” from Oliver. Phylicia side-eyed me, I shook my head in agreement, and we stopped the song. Not for her.
She even forgave me for suggesting an ill-suited Lionel Richie gem.
Phylicia had a lot of patience with me.
And over the next 10 years, I’d watch from a distance as she developed patience for herself, too.
She launched out of the program at Elon on to the national tour of The Lion King and swung on the road and Broadway. Maybe she invented #thelionswing?
She took the leap back out to the West Coast and dove into writing.
During the panorama, she kept folks entertained with her video documentation of life with her Congolese mother in Maryland. I’m still in awe of mom’s fufu flour negotiation game.
So about a year ago, when the trailer for the musical version of The Color Purple appeared, it was both nuts and inevitable that Phy would be playing Young Celie.
I’ve just been smiling and giggling watching all of her posts before she heads out to press events all styled and having a blast.
Recently I saw a clip of her on the Jennifer Hudson Show, and something she said rang up in my heart.
She talked about the casting process and how she’d first been turned down for the role of older Celie. The feedback was, “Did you know that you actually read quite young?”
Later, she was working in a (zoom) writer’s room when she got the call and heard the words “You are the choice.”
That’s a sentence that every actor dreams of hearing. All of us want to get picked. That’s a deep human need.
But something occurred to me when I heard that sentence come out of Phy’s smiling phace. There was a choice before the choice.
Phylicia got to a place where she said yes to herself.
And my mind went rewind back to LA 2014 when she decided to take a leap and spend a semester in another time zone while studying in a rigorous musical theater program where a lot of students didn’t want to leave in case they missed an opportunity.
Something in her heart knew that she wanted to explore other geography.
And I don’t think it’s a mistake that this particular success she’s celebrating is a musical adapted for the screen.
Sometimes I like to do the rewind.
I imagine a fairy godmother materializing and telling Phylicia while she was Lion Swinging that in a few years, she’d be laughing with Oprah on daytime TV. (I actually think deep down she knew things like this would happen.)
You are the choice.
The first two words of that sentence are the most powerful ones. When you say “I am,” pay attention to what follows those two syllables.
When Phy was joking on IG about marrying Leo DiCaprio or winning an Oscar five or six years ago, she didn’t know that part of her vision for herself would show up as a role in a film produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah, and Quincy Jones.
But she held her vision and purpose with care, love, and humor.
I’ve started a new practice. It’s been powerful for me. I started writing letters to me as my 87-year-old self.
I say things like, “I’m so grateful we decided to do that as a family.” “I’m glad I took that leap and wrote that book.” “I’m happy I got to perform this role in this place. How lucky.”
I look back on my life with gratitude and satisfaction, and I counsel the nearly-46-year-old me about what I’m going to be glad I invested my time in.
When I look at myself from nearly 90, I savor these accomplishments with gratitude and grace. I’m thankful that I got to live certain experiences. And the sense of grasping or God-I-hope-I-get-it has dissolved like sugar in a cup of PG Tips.
You know how you feel when you’ve arrived at something you’ve been waiting for a long time? A milestone you expected to fulfill you?
You might experience deep gratitude and even awe. And at the same time your mind sends out a search party to find the next thing you’re going to look toward.
Interesting how we do that.
My nearly 90-year-old perspective brings everything into focus. And I’m noticing from my octogenarian p-o-v that the greatest of these is indeed love.
I want my life to ripple out love, kindness, and generosity. I hope a lot of that gets expressed on stages singing with beautiful orchestras in terrific locations.
I’ve got all of these events I imagine collected by the year 2056 wrapped up in a blanket of knowing I’m loved and that I let love pour through me — that’s the thing. This is what my soul’s going to cherish when I’m no longer in a body on Earth.
You are the choice.
My very identity lives in my choice to love and to notice when I’m not, and then to open to let some in (it’s inexhaustible). Just like breath, freely I receive, and freely I give.
We all know when we’re living there. It’s expansive, peaceful, satisfying, and free.
And we know when we step out.
You are the choice.
Your very essence, if you take a moment to breathe and look with gentleness, you’ll notice that you’re made out of love.
That’s what I notice. I know it to be true.
You’re made out of love just like I am, and when I open my heart and invite you in, your spark recognizes my spark, and we re-member.
I can’t think of a better medium for that exchange than singing.
You are the choice.
You know how I know? Because you’re here.
Celie sings it perfectly at the end of the musical:
I believe I have inside of me
Everything that I need to live a bountiful life.
With all the love alive in me
I’ll stand as tall as the tallest tree.
And I’m thankful for everyday that I’m given,
Both the easy and hard ones I’m livin’.
But most of all
I’m thankful for
Loving who I really am.
I’m beautiful.
Yes, I’m beautiful,
And I’m here.
There’s nothing more beautiful than your soul. There’s nothing more beautiful than my soul. And there’s nothing more beautiful than us recognizing each other and calling out the gold.
There’s only one you. You’re here so folks can hear the story only you can sing.
Love much, Dan
PS Go see The Color Purple, opens on Christmas Day.
