Candle on the Water

I’m twenty-seven now.

This number has left me at a loss for what I should write. I suppose I could generate something based off what Wikipedia claims are the various significant properties of the number. Or I could once again note the strangeness of this day being the birthday of not only myself but also Angelina Jolie and Horatio Sanz, a fact that would seem to render all birth date-based horoscopic predictions irrelevant. Or I could attempt to count the ways in the past year has helped me grow and change a person — a process that might render this particular blog post shorter than my usual ones.

I’m not going to do any of that — at least not in the early hours of my twenty-seventh year as a person. No, I’ll just note the strange, inauspicious way this new year began for me: Unable overcome the limits of iTunes and make the newest, long-awaited episode of the now-cancelled Pushing Daisies play, I had no choice but to turn back to the previous episode, which I would have watched before Christmas. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this episode, “The Legend of Merle McQuoddy,” happens to be one extended homage to a childhood VHS favorite, the 1977 Disney film Pete’s Dragon. It’s true. Not only do most of the characters introduced in this episode owe their names to Pete’s Dragon in one way or another, but also significant plot points are drawn from the movie as well. The most direct reference of all, however, would be that Kristen Chenowith’s character — Olive Snook, who may prove to be the part of Pushing Daisies that I’ll miss most — sings a brief part of the love theme from Pete’s Dragon: “Candle on the Water.”

I have absolutely no recollection of hearing this song as a child. Perhaps I eschewed ballads event then. But, also, perhaps twenty-seven years of being a person have taught me to find some meaning in Helen Reddy’s words. Is that what getting progressively older is? Finding Helen Reddy significant?

I wonder if I will have once again forgotten about Pete’s Dragon when I’m twenty-eight. I wonder if the rest of June 4 will turn to, in fact, be a Brazzle Dazzle Day.