One of the things that always charmed me about The Fantasticks was the frank desire of Luisa’s Act I pleading declaration, “I am special. I am special.”  

Who, indeed, does not wish to be special? When I was younger, so much younger than today, my attraction to that statement reflected the narcissistic desire to be exceptional. You know, it rose from that secret place in your heart where you hit the homerun that wins the World Series (which always takes place in Game 7, with your team trailing, at home, and with the bases loaded), the dream-place where you win the Academy Award for best director, or the Nobel Prize for physics, or, perhaps, just the National Funeral Directors Association Lifetime Achievement Award. (Which sounds a bit like an oxymoron, no?) 

Whatever the dream—and for all of us, no doubt, those imagined triumphs change frequently—we are attracted to these glorious moments from the adolescent urge to be recognized (and, of course, from the desire to escape whatever grim rejections our teen psyche daily endures). We want to enjoy that Sally Field moment when we can finally believe that they—whoever they are—actually like us. We want to savor that precious high that comes from proving that we are Winners, not Losers.  We sense that it’s preferable to accept adulation rather than experiencing the bloody revenge of Carrie. 

Eventually, though, I realized that these triumphs, however precious, are evanescent, that Recognition runs on the principle of “What have you done for me lately?”,  that the publicist is wrong, and all publicity is not always good.  

It was then, perhaps, that I became more attracted to the heartfelt prayer that followed Luisa’s Declaration of Incandescence, her poignant “Please, God, please. Don’t let me be normal!” 

Special then took on a new meaning: not being exceptional, but being not conventional. My (imained) goal became to march to the beat of a different drummer, to embrace and manifest my idiosyncratic unusualness, to stand out not for great achievements but for self-expression, to self-actualize not in the sense of getting the most out of my abilities (perhaps having given up on the idea of having any) but out of the perfected realization of my True Self.  

For a time, I actually deluded myself into believing that happy illusion to have been achieved. But, then, the human mind is capable of latching onto all manner of bizarre creeds. This second fond desire also had to pass, however, as I was forced to accept how dully conventional I actually was.  

It was only many years later that I came to see that all those aspirations are pointless, that Luisa’s initial proclamation may be the plaintive cry of the adolescent yearning to breathe the rarified air of triumph or the studied atmosphere of nonconformity, but is also an insight, a statement of what makes humans different from another social species, ants. 

Luisa, it turns out, is right. She is special. Each of us is special. Each of us is a unique combination of hopes and fears, kindnesses and slights, gifts and hurts, pirouettes and stumbles, eloquences and mumbles.

We are each snowflakes, momentary specks of beauty with our own irreproducible, irreducible crystalline structure, and while we may seem to disappear in the mass of fellow flakes that blankets the Earth, when the light strikes in just a certain way, we are each revealed as individual gems, our unique facets sparkling, dazzling the eye in our own special way.  

Words © 2012 AtHome Pilgrim. 

All Rights Reserved.