. A Treasure if You Stay There Nearly every night…

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A Treasure if You Stay There

Nearly every night since May of 1989, I’ve sung a baby or little girl to sleep to the tune of Never Never Land, Mary Martin’s hit from the stage version of Peter Pan. First came Emily. Three years later, Marguerite. And then, just after Marguerite turned seven and told me she was tired of Never Never Land every night, came Lydia.

Lydia is seven now, and when I ask her what she wants me to sing to her at bedtime, she no longer asks for Never Never Land. When I suggest it, she usually says no, sing the one about Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds again.

I’m usually up for whatever. Most nights at bedtime, I’m pretty much game to sing anything that does the job. But I must say that I’ve started to really miss Never Never Land. Soon there will be nobody to sing it to every night until the grandkids come around–and that had better not be every night.

Yes, it’s been quite a run. There was, for example, the truly absurd performance on a public phone in the lobby of Sun Microsystems in 1993. I must have been singing for Marguerite. It was about 4:00 pm West Coast Time, close to bedtime in New Jersey. I sang into the phone, wearing my East Coast journalist schmatas as the slick Silicon Valley types swished past, a little miffed at my screwing up the aura of the clean, angular lobby.

Well, at seven, Lydia is certainly still a little girl. But that won’t last much longer. Soon I’ll be out of the little girl business all together. I really have been thinking about this a lot lately.

I’ve been working late the last couple of nights, and Lydia has been going up to bed with her Mom or with Emily. Tonight I took her up. She was cold, she said, and she wanted me to snuggle up with her while I sang—something else that can’t really go on forever. So, I snuggled up, nuzzling my nose into her shampoo-fresh hair and pulling her frog blanket over me. “What do you want me to sing tonight?” I asked. “Your song,” she said. I saw her smiling with her eyes closed in the night-light darkness. She’d never called it my song before. She knew I was happy that she did.

*Ahem*….

I know a place where dreams are born
And time is never planned
It’s not on any chart
You must find it in your heart
Never Never Land

It may be miles beyond the moon
Or right there where you stand
Just keep an open mind
And suddenly you’ll find
Never Never Land

You’ll have a treasure if you stay there
More precious far than gold
For once you have found your way there
You will never ever grow old

And that’s my place where dreams are born
And time is never planned
Just think of pleasant things
And your heart will fly on wings
Forever
In Never
Never
Land

Hey, I thought you were asleep~
Vanx

Top photo–Statue in a park in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Bottom photo–Mary Martin in flight with the Darlings