Don't Let My Sorrow Make Evil of Me

I knew at 8:30. I saw the numbers and I knew. I knew in 2016, too, around the same time.

I went into blind panic. I incoherently shouted something at my husband about getting a tubal ligation and then I sobbed and then I took a Xanax and went to sleep.

I woke up around 4 and started vomiting. As I type this, I am trying to eat a bagel so I can take my medication, although why I am even bothering with it, who knows. I suppose it will be easier if my brain gets what it needs than if it doesn’t.

I have no words of comfort. I have rage. Plenty of it.

But right now, I am thinking of a song called “Lot’s Wife”.

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“Lot’s Wife” is from the musical Caroline, or Change which was composed by Jeanine Tesori (who also wrote the incredible musical Fun Home) and the book is by Tony Kushner (the genius who wrote Angels in America, and if you haven’t seen the play or the HBO miniseries, this would be a good time to watch it).

I saw this show three times - once on Broadway in 2003, once at Astoria Performing Arts Center in 2019, and then the most recent Broadway run in 2021. It was my first Broadway show after COVID dimmed the lights for a year. It might be my favorite musical. It’s not the one I hum to myself or the one with the catchiest melodies, but as a piece of theater and politics, it is insanely good.

The titular character - Caroline Thibodeaux - is a Black maid/caregiver working for a white family in Louisiana in 1963. She has three children, and she makes 30 dollars a week. Caroline is not the sunny cheery stereotype that many white writers would bestow upon a character of her description. She is dour, sarcastic, and self disciplined. Her focus is on making sure her three children are fed and clothed. If she had dreams, we don’t know about them.

Caroline bonds with Noah, the 8 year old son of the family she works for (who are Jewish). Noah has a bad habit of leaving change in his pockets. Caroline tells him that the next time she does laundry and finds change in his pockets, it’s hers. This becomes a bigger conflict when Noah receives a $20 bill as a gift and leaves it in his pocket - nearly a week of her salary. There is an ugly confrontation that changes their relationship, and forces Caroline to look inward.

A lot more happens in this show than that, but you can google the rest if you want.

“Lot’s Wife” is the 11 o’clock number. The first time I saw it, it was Tonya Pinkins in the role, and she was all fire and agony. It’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life. I was absolutely riveted. Sharon D. Clarke - who played Caroline in the last Broadway production and very rightfully won a Tony for it - performed it with a restraint and a defiance that sent chills down my spine. I will never know the agony of being black in America, but this show shifted something in this lucky white girl. This was theater that changed something in me. It made me want to do better. I tried to.

Anyway that’s a lot of theater talk for this post. Forgive me, I’m tired.

These are the lyrics to the end of the song. They have stayed lodged in my brain for twenty years. And so I offer this as a prayer for my own soul today, for the anger I feel, and for the vengeance I know I cannot take and the affirmation I will never receive.

Take Caroline away cause I can’t be her,
take her away I can't afford her.
Tear out my heart
Strangle my soul
Turn me to salt
A pillar of salt
a broken stone and then...
Caroline. Caroline.
From the evil she done, Lord,
set her free
set her free
set me free.

Don't let my sorrow
Make evil of me.

(the song starts at about three minutes in)