Breaking Down Broadway's Walls

Full Disclosure: Yes, I know shows are only considered "Broadway shows" when they take place on Broadway, but when you enter this realm as rarely as I do, you take what you can get. 

For the past nine or so months, things have been a little hectic in our household. First there was the pregnancy bedrest. Then the two months in the hospital. Then, the, you know, baby. So not counting our once-a-month romantic outings to On the Border, my husband and I really haven't had a date since last July.

We broke out of that in style, by attending a production of The Book of Mormon at the Boston Opera House. This was really my first of this type of show, since I'm kind of a pain in the butt when it comes to musicals. I only really like them if they're cartoons or if they're comedies. I think it's because I have a problem suspending disbelief in a story that's supposed to be serious. How can it be serious if, right in the middle of conversation, 50 people appear and start dancing and singing in unison? At least in a cartoon and a comedy, things are already ridiculous so complicated dance numbers don't seem quite so out-of-place.

Which is why Book of Mormon seemed right in my wheelhouse. Co-written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the guys who write South Park, it has all of the crude, inappropriate humor of...well, an episode of South Park. So of course I was game.

It was a Sunday matinee, which lent itself to some fine people watching. Traditional theater-goers to the Boston Opera House, a beautiful and ornate building in the theater district, were your typical crew - older, wealthier, wearing nicer clothes. We played along and wore nice clothes ourselves. But the fact that we were seeing a play written by the guys from South Park at 1 p.m. on a Sunday meant that the non-regulars were a mish-mash. I saw baseball caps next to ball gowns, jeans next to suits. The woman sitting next to me wore a Doctor Who dress over acid-wash jeans. I love it.

The show itself was fantastic. It had the right amount of over-the-top random humor (in one scene, a character with a tendency to let his imagination get away from him is repremanded by his father, Darth Vader, a couple of hobbits, and Yoda), but the storyline was equally funny. Basically, it follows two Mormon missionaries - the perfect Elder Smith and the bumbling compulsive liar Elder Cunningham - as they complete their service in a Ugandan village. They and the other missionaries struggle with convincing the natives to convert to Mormonism, since the natives are too concerned with things like poverty and famine and murderous warlords and AIDS. You know, typical comedy fodder.

Since it is not technically a trip to Boston without eating in the North End, we grabbed a gift certificate we probably got 5 Christmases ago and ate as al fresco as my perpetually cold body would allow (i.e. next to an open window).

When you have a baby, it's important to be able to step away, to make sure that you retain at least some semblance of the person you were before the baby was born. Our situation is compounded by the amount of challenges facing our boy. But you have to work at it because if you don't, you're just going to become miserable and resentful and that's no good. Maybe we won't go to a "Broadway" show EVERY month, but there's always On the Border.

A Red Sox Life

The first time the Red Sox won the World Series in my life, I was a sophomore in college. I watched most of the games in my dorm room, with my non-sports-loving (but thankfully accommodating) roommate, taking part in the fun of superstitions by eating candy corn at pivotal moments of the game. When the Sox rushed the field after the final out of Game 4, I was watching while sitting cross-legged on my floor. Thoughts flooded to the things all Red Sox fans thought of following the game - dead grandparents who didn't see it, finally feeling rewarded after a lifetime of disappointment.

After composing myself, I looked out into the hallway, where people were just moving en masse to the exits, and I quickly joined them. Where were we going? I don't think any one of us really knew, but somehow the whole campus wound up in the same place, cheering and celebrating. The more daring, and I'm sure thirst-quenched, of us dove into the lake, practically freezing in the late October chill of New England. I quickly spotted one of my best friends, and one of the biggest Red Sox fans that I know, and we ran at each other for a strangely coordinated mid-air hug/dance/cheer/celebration.

That part of my life was one of my biggest transitions. After having spent most of my life uncomfortable in my own skin, with very few friends I actually saw outside of the high school halls, I was starting to come into my own. I was finding my passions and developing relationships with the friends that I'd be the closest with for the rest of my life. Even if the Red Sox hadn't broken their 86-year-old curse that year, it still would have been a memorable one. Forget the Summer of George; I was smack in the middle of the Years of the Kerri.

In 2007, I watched the Red Sox celebrate another Game 4 from my very first apartment. I had graduated college a few months earlier and shortly after that, began dating the man who would become my husband. It was my apartment, but it was our apartment, and we watched the entire playoffs together. It was the first time I had ever been in love, and within 8 months, we'd be engaged. If 2004 was Kerri's Series, 2007 was Kerri & Matt's.

In 2013, I watched the entire postseason from the cardiac ICU unit at Boston Children's Hospital.

My son Joey was born August 28 and was immediately moved to Children's to undergo a series of surgeries. First, it was his digestive tract and a few abnormalities of his major organs, all fixed with a procedure when he was a day old. Then it was two heart surgeries, with a terrible blood infection sandwiched in between. The playoffs went on throughout his second month of admission, and much of it took place in the CICU, first as he fought off his infection, then as he recovered from his second heart surgery.

Matt and I stayed at the hospital for the entire time, staying in parent sleep spaces, and we watched each of the games from his room. We made it as festive as possible, wearing Red Sox shirts and hats ourselves, hanging a Red Sox bib from Joey's IV pole, putting him in whatever Red Sox-themed clothes he was allowed to wear (mostly his hat). We soon got a reputation among the nurses, especially the ones on the night shift, who would make excuses to visit our room and get score updates.

At some point toward the end of the playoffs, Matt's friend dropped off a gift - a baby-sized Red Sox bullpen jacket. It was obviously too big for him at the moment - it was a 12-month size and Joey was in preemies at the time - but we hung that, too, on his IV pole.

When the child life specialist saw Joey's jacket, she made sure to swing by on Oct. 30, the day of Game 7 of the World Series. They were taking photos and videos of hospital patients and staff members cheering on the Red Sox. And that's how Joey, wrapped in his too-big jacket, asleep in Matt's arms, wound up on the hospital's Facebook page and in their celebratory video.

During the actual game, we watched with Joey. When they celebrated on the field, we brought the TV right next to him and took a picture. Because as much as 2004 belonged to me and 2007 belong to me and Matt, in our lives, 2013's championship was all Joey. It was his, in every way, even though he'll never remember it.

Yesterday, the Red Sox received their World Series rings and we were inundated with highlights of games we watched in uncomfortable chairs, while IVs and monitors beeped endlessly, sitting with our tough little guy. He watched, too, this time on Matt's lap, wearing a properly fitted 6-month-size Red Sox shirt and infant cap and no CPAP regulators or monitor sensors. He squirmed and fussed and played with his pacifier, not knowing what his ability to do all those things meant to us. The last time we watched the Red Sox, he was mostly sedated, with tubes and wires everywhere. Now, he grabs his toys and laughs when I kiss him and stares endlessly at his dog (and ceiling fans because, hey, why not). The 2013 World Series will always be bittersweet when I think of all my boy has gone through and all he's overcome.

And it will always be his year.