16: a change in me - a simple sketch of Belle

I went to the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast last week. I found surprising depth in its colorful, musical scenes.

"There must be more than this provincial life!"

Belle wants more. She's not happy with a life full of grocery shopping, managing kids, interacting with people who don't care about the latest book you got from the library.

Then the beast takes her father as prisoner, and Belle goes to the castle and exchanges her life for his. In her cold, dark room, torn from her father, never again to see their little cottage on the edge of town, she sings:

"Is this home? Is this where I should learn to be happy?"

"What I'd give to return to the life that I knew lately!"

Her life has been upended, and nothing is as it was. It's not the exciting life she had been dreaming of either.

"Is this home? Am I here for a day or forever?

Shut away from the world until who knows when?"

The play progresses, and of course, she luckily falls in love with the beast and vice-versa. But then she sees in the magic mirror that her father is in danger, so the beast lets her go to rescue him and take him home. Home again, she sings what is currently my favorite song in my playlist:

"There's been a change in me

A kind of moving on

Though what I used to be

I still depend upon

For now I realize

That good can come from bad

That may not make me wise

But, oh, it makes me glad!

And I--I never thought I'd leave behind

My childhood dreams

But I don't mind

For now I love the world I see

No change of heart

A change in me

For in my dark despair

I slowly understood

My perfect world out there

Had disappeared for good

But in its place I feel

A truer life begins

And it's so good and real

It must come from within

And I--I never thought I'd leave behind

My childhood dreams

But I don't mind

I'm where and who I want to be

No change of heart

A change in me"

She wanted so much more than her provincial life. Then, all that was good in her life was stripped away, and all she wanted was to go back to that provincial life. Discontent here, discontent there.

Then something changed in her.

She now loves the world she sees. She is where and who she wants to be. It's not that she's resigned, settled, or even had a change of mind. Her world was upended, and she has come back a different Belle. She . . . is satisfied.

She never thought she'd leave behind her childhood dreams, but somehow she doesn't mind. Although she still depends on who she used to be, her history, she now feels a truer life beginning within herself. She's moving on. In a good way.

No moral to the story for this post. Just surprising depth in this "tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme."