Now Playing in the Honda Pilot

Frances Ruffelle, Les Miserables

Julie Andrews, My Fair Lady

Idina Menzel, Wicked

I've long held it as a one of the great disappointments of my life that I can't really sing. I'm passable in a choir or for a lullaby, but beyond that the"pitch problem" becomes intrusive.

This was hard in my theatrical days because no matter how much grace or passion or stage presence you can muster, if you make the audience wince, you're out of luck. I spent my first semester at BYU pretending to be a Music Dance Theatre major, weekly humiliating myself while trying to belt in front of a group of musical prodigies.

Much of the growing up I had to do as a Freshman involved trying to reconcile my faith, optimism, and the famed Lindsay work ethic with my very real physical limitations. I could spend the rest of my life cloistered in the Hinkley Hall basement practice room, but I was never going to sound like Celene Dion.

So instead I married Wade, whose voice is my favorite of all the sounds in the world. Sometimes I tease him because he notoriously jumbles lyrics while I know every one. The injustice rankles. But because he is without guile (a prerequisite for any truly gifted singer or dancer) he sings for me anyway.

And in the life we've built together, where I am an often mediocre laundress, chauffeur, and short-order cook, I remember those college days when I daily struggled to know my destiny. I earnestly believed it was to be where I am now, and I knew this life would require the most vigorous preparations I could muster. I was right, and yet some days I feel I'm not living said destiny with that same earnestness in tow.

All of this is to say that this morning I was driving the Pilot blasting Peter, Paul, and Mary when Thomas put in a request for "If I Had a Hammer" (communist that he is). I sang with abandon. And when it was over he said with wide eyes, "Mom, you're a star."

I could have danced all night.