A Dedication

So I start with a brief tribute, because it seems appropriate...

When I was in college, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to write a memoir one day. She looked at me, laughed and said “What do you have to say that anyone would want to read?” Well, to this day I still have no answer. Probably nothing. But I don’t write to interest or entertain other people – I’m frankly not capable of that ambitious an undertaking. I write for myself, and I do it simply because I have to. My writing is probably not particularly good and I don’t aspire to move or inspire anyone. It’s much more visceral than that, and to be honest, more selfish. So if anyone ever reads what I write with the expectation of being entertained, he or she is most likely to be pretty disappointed.

That being said, it’s taken me years to start writing on a (somewhat) regular basis. I lack discipline, I lack focus, and most of all, I am completely lacking in understanding. I think what enabled me to finally start doing it is the realization that I don’t have to understand in order to write – in fact, I write in order to try to understand.

So at the outset of this blog I am starting, I want to make a dedication. I’m not going to put it in my own words, because despite the fact that I sometimes talk incessantly, I’m often not very good at communicating my feelings to the people I care most about. I often want desperately to tell them how much they have meant to me, but the words get trapped inside my throat and the sentiments never see the light of day. So I’m going to use someone else’s words. But the feelings are my own, and even if the people I am dedicating this to never get to read it – and some surely won’t, because they have passed on – I at least am acknowledging, if even only to myself, the difference they made in my life.

So, to Betsy (RIP, dear angel), Susana, Sue (the Foster family!), Steve, Celeste, Sarah (the Thomas family!), Susan O, Bernadette, Connie, Chuck (all the Waciseks), Amy (The McGovern-Berkowitz family), Susan-Joan, Dee Dee, Julie, Ilissa, Jeanne, Esere, Christy, Rachel, Nancy, Silvana, Eneze, Quiana, Lucretia, Angela (RIP), Nellie (RIP), Deborah, and to my late grandmother, Concetta Colosi DiFabio(RIP), to my father, Barry Alan Gluck (1944 – 1992) , and most of all, to my mother, Marilyn Ann DiFabio Gluck (1948 – 2004) and my sister, Hillary Constance Gluck (the two best friends and most inspirational heroes a person could ever ask for ) – thank you for making me believe that something pure, honest and real still exists in this world. I love you.


Excerpt from “For Good”, from Wicked, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, sung on the Wicked Cast Album by Idina Medezel and Kristin Chenoweth and copied from the website http://www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked-for-good.htm:

GLINDA
I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those whohelp us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we letthem and we help them in return

Now I don't know if I believe that that is true but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood...who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime so let me say before we part: so much of me is what I have learned from you you'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart
now whatever way our stories may end I know you haverewritten mine by being my friend... Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you... I have been changed for good

GLINDA
Because I knew you...

BOTH
I have been changed for good

ELPHABA
And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for what you blame me for...

GLINDA
Well I guess there is blame to share...

BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore

GLINDA (same time as Elphaba)
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood

ELPHABA (same time as Glinda)
Like a ship blown off it's mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a skybird in the wood

BOTH
Who's to say if I've been changed for the better?

GLINDA
Because I knew you

ELPHABAbecause I knew you

BOTH I have been changed for good

- January 29th, 2008.